Ex Ospedale Vecchio (Old Hospital)

By the end of the XV century to 1926 this huge complex has been the seat of the Parma Hospital and from the institutional point of view it can be considered one of the oldest in Italy.

Its foundation dates back to 1201 and was built by Rodolfo Tanzi, knight of the Teutonic Order, who set up a first tenement as a shelter for the infirm, located in Borgo Taschieri (today via Cocconi). Around 1250 when these premises became insufficient they were abandoned and the construction of a new hospital for waifs was built, called “degli Esposti” in Strada Maestra di Santa Croce (today via D'Azeglio).

The construction of the first nucleus of the present building commenced in the second half of the fifteenth century on the ruins of that building. In September 1476 the new building was already underway and lasted approximately forty years. The part of the building attributed to the first campaign of works, characterized by infirmaries in the shape of a cross, flanked by cloisters, is owed to Gian Antonio da Erba. When the first part was completed, it had to be expanded towards the east shortly after the construction due to the increased number of waifs.

A further and more important extension of the northern ward up to the current size was carried out in the second half of the XVIII century, during the renovation works commissioned by Ferdinand I of Bourbon. The last intervention was the transformation desired by the duchess Maria Luigia, and carried out by the architect Bettoli in 1843, of the western end of the hospital into a hospice for the Vincentian Sisters, employed in the hospital.

Since 1926, the year in which the hospital was transferred elsewhere, the complex has been used for multiple purposes. Today it houses, among other things, the State Archive and the Municipal Library.