FROM THE PUBLISHER

A study in the ideology of wealth and poverty.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booknews

The Ospedale degli Innocenti (Hospital of the Innocents), designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, was an attempt to unite the architectural splendor and intellectual brilliance of early Renaissance Florence with a second world of poverty, misery, social despair and child abandonment. The study examines how hospital officials deliberately replicated the structure and values of the Florentine family within the hospital walls as it chronicles the lives of the hospital's inhabitants from childhood to death. Winner of the Society for Italian Historical Studies 1988 Award for Best Unpublished Manuscripts. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)