Hospes venit, Christus venit: Hospitality, Healing, and the Opera Misericordiae in the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala

Abstract

For almost a thousand years (1090–1990), Santa Maria della Scala in Siena—arguably one of the oldest surviving hospitals in the world—opened its doors to pilgrims, travelers, the sick, the poor, and the gittati (children who were “cast off” and left on its steps). Making manifest the traditional adage of hospitality, all the guests who presented themselves there were to be welcomed as Christ himself. In this paper, I explore this broadening of the Church’s vision of its healing ministry (that is, beyond care for the sick) alongside the increasing dedication of the laity to the opera misericordiae (the works of mercy) in the late and high Middle Ages with the Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala in Siena as a case in point. I will make reference to the mid-fifteenth century fresco cycle in the Pellegrinaio of the hospital that bears witness to its celebrated functions and speaks to how and by whom these were carried out.