A01=Joseph Luzzi
abandoned children
architecture
Author_Joseph Luzzi
Category=AGA
Category=JBSP1
Category=JKSB1
Category=NH
Category=NHD
Category=NHDL
Category=NHTB
child welfare
childrens hospital
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
filippo brunelleschi
humanism
illegitimate children
lappo mazzei
orphan
orphanage
painting
pediatrics
santa maria nuova
Product details
- ISBN 9781324065784
- Weight: 361g
- Dimensions: 147 x 218mm
- Publication Date: 11 Nov 2025
- Publisher: WW Norton & Co
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Among the wonders of the Italian Renaissance was Florence’s Hospital of the Innocents, Europe’s first orphanage. In an era when children were often trafficked or left to die or roam the streets, an orphanage devoted to their care and protection was a striking innovation. A symbol of Florence’s cultural and architectural brilliance, designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, the institution known as the Innocenti became a haven for more than 400,000 children across five centuries.
With deep knowledge of the literary and artistic environment in which this new understanding of childhood flowered, Joseph Luzzi explores how the Innocenti taught children mercantile skills, rudimentary literature and, for a few, the arts. He does not shy away from addressing the flaws in the institution’s pursuit of its high-minded mission but gives readers the first comprehensive “biography” of a ground-breaking humanitarian institute.
Joseph Luzzi is the Asher B. Edelman Professor of Literature at Bard College and an award-winning scholar of Italian culture. His book Botticelli’s Secret was named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and was shortlisted for the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award. He lives in New York's Hudson Valley.
