Social and Health Care of Children in Central Europe: The Italian Hospital in Prague in the 17th–18th Century

Particularly in the Romance lands of Europe (Italy, France and Spain), care of orphans and abandoned children was an important part of care of children from the Earlier Middle Ages. It is therefore not surprising that the first institution to take a major interest in the care of children in Prague (Bohemia – today in the Czech Republic) was founded by members of the Italian colony in what was then an imperial, but later only the provincial capital. At the beginning the Italian Congregation and its hospital provided lodging and aid for all, regardless of nationality, religion, age or sex. At the turn of the 17th/18th century, as a result of fruitful competition with other traditional hospitals and newly founded specialised hospitals, the Italian Hospital started to focus primarily on care of children – orphans and foundlings – and later also pregnant women and new mothers. The hospital was also distinctive for not having been set up by a religious order or other church organisation nor by the city authorities like other similar facilities, but by a special religious congregation of laymen, formed mainly (if not exclusively) for the purpose. In this context the Italian Congregation in Prague differed from all other religious congregations/brotherhoods in Bohemia. There is no other “hospital”