ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the economics of confinement dovetailed with the management of illness. Paralleling the recovery of power from ecclesiastical authorities in other realms, between 1737 and 1790, reformers transformed a loosely configured network of hospitals under ecclesiastical jurisdiction, into a centralized and laicized public health system run out of Santa Maria Nuova, Florence’s largest and most prestigious hospital. This venerable institution was founded during the late Middle Ages by the father of Dante’s beloved Beatrice and transformed by Peter Leopold into a center for educating physicians and midwives as well as treating patients. Peter Leopold believed that hospitals were poorly maintained before his accession. However, the program of reform that he superintended owed less to new medical principles than to a more rational approach to administering hospital finances.
