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The "Ospedale degli Innocenti" and the "bambino" of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

For 60 years, the drawing of the infant in swaddling clothes has been a familiar symbol to fellows of the American Academy of Pediatrics (Fig 1). It is derived from 1 of 10 brightly glazed terra cotta bas-reliefs sculpted by Andrea Della Robbia1,2 that adorn the “Ospedale degli Innocenti,” or Foundling Hospital on the “Piazza della SS. Annunziatia” in Florence, Italy. There is historic and symbolic importance to this sculptured infant, but pediatricians might well be interested in the greater significance of the building, the “Ospedale degli Innocenti.” It is the oldest known institution continuously devoted to the welfare of children. Historians of architecture identify it as the first truly Renaissance structure.3–5 It was also the first commission of Filippo Brunelleschi, the extraordinary architect and engineer of the early Italian Renaissance. Finally, the building itself and how it came into being represents an important social and cultural landmark of Humanism during the “quattrocento.”



 Fig 1. 
The current insignia of the AAP. Adapted from Beaven.10 Reprinted with the permission of the American Academy of Pediatrics.



In 1294, the General Council of the Florentine Population delegated responsibility for the care of the “innocenti” to a powerful guild in the city, the “Arte della Seta,” or Silk Guild. For more than a century, the guild had had substantial experience in providing sanctuary for foundlings. In 1419, they requested and obtained the right to a bequest of 1000 florins to build a facility entirely for children. “Arte della Seta” planned to present the “Ospedale degli Innocenti” to Florence as a grand demonstration of their beneficence to the city. It also reflected the importance they assigned to the care of abandoned infants “deserted by their parents contrary to the law of nature”.3

According to Saalman, “Ospedali” in Florence …