The Renaissance Hospital Healing the Body and Healing the Souls John Henderson

In this fascinating and richly illustrated book, John Henderson takes us into the Renaissance hospitals of Florence, recreating the enormous barn-like wards and exploring the lives of those who received and those who administered treatment there. Drawing on an exceptional range of visual and documentary evidence, Henderson overturns the popular view of the pre-industrial hospital as a hellish destination for the dying poor. On the contrary, hospitals of the era developed specialised, professional care; became important centres of artistic patronage; and served a large patient population, only ten percent of whom died. The book explores the civic role of Renaissance hospitals, their beautiful architecture and interior design, and their methods of medical treatment that continue to influence healthcare practices today.

John Henderson is Wellcome Reader in Renaissance Medicine, School of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck College, University of London, and fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. Among his previous books is The Great Pox: The French Disease in Renaissance Europe, coedited with J. Arizabalaga and R. French and published by Yale University Press.

'Any future study of the Renaissance hospital, whether in Britain, Germany, Poland, or elsewhere, must take into account the new ways of thinking about the place of the hospital in society that [Henderson] has introduced in this book.' - Vivian Nutton, Times Literary Supplement

'John Henderson's weighty history book, is a fascinating and wide ranging account of the evolution of hospitals and healthcare provision in Florence, set against an extraordinary backdrop of wider social and scientific development.' - HD Magazine

'This is an original, accessible and informative book, which, apart from illuminating the context within which painting, sculpture and architecture were created, should appeal to anyone with a historical interest in health care.' Thomas Tuohy, Apollo

'...[a] magisterial study of the Renaissance hospital.' The Art Newspaper