Order et Government

The publication traces the unpublished writings of Vincenzo Borghini, a philologist and historian active at the court of Cosimo I de' Medici as well as Prior to the Innocenti from 1552, collected in one of the "filze degli affari" in the Archives of theIstituto degli Innocenti

The volume Ordine et Governo, edited by Giuseppe Sparnacci, a member of the Board of Directors of theIstituto degli Innocenti, comes after a long period of analysis of a number of documents left by the philologist and historian Vincenzo Borghini as well as Prior to the Innocenti and preserved in the historical archives of the institution. Such a study makes it possible to project into the complex organization of the large family of the Spedale degli Innocenti in the year 1556, whose architectural design by Brunelleschi had been enlarged precisely to meet the needs of an ever-increasing number of girls and boys taken in at the brefotrophy.

Sparnacci with this work of transcription and analysis of the documents and descriptions left by Borghini succeeds in giving, thanks also to some elements contained in other files kept in the Historical Archives, a detailed and always interesting picture of the organization of the Spedale in the twenty years from 1556 to 1577, bringing to light also important information at the historical and architectural level about the places used by the great family of the Innocenti.