The Degl'Innocenti Family Crest

   The Ospedale degli Innocenti is one of the most famous works of Renaissance architecture in Florence, Italy. The orphanage was founded in 1410 and construction, funded by the Silk Guild, began in 1419. It is named in memory of “The Innocents”- the children of Bethlehem massacred by King Herod1.

   It was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi who later designed the Duomo on the cathedral. He first pioneered a modular, geometric system using the square and the circle on the orphans' hospital2. This style would then be replicated in palace architecture commissioned by the Medici family among others. In 1490 the triangular areas between the arches were decorated by sculptor Andrea della Robbia and fashioned with beautiful medallions glazed with terracotta reliefs depicting swaddled infants. These round tondi figures have become the Degl'Innocenti family crest as well as one being used as the logo of the American Academy of Pediatrics. 

   The building opened in 1445 and admitted sixty-two orphan infants3. It continued to house orphans until 2000, however the degli Innocenti Institute itself continues to service and support children to this day uninterrupted from 1410. On the east side of the building sits the Piazza Santissima Annunziata. It was not designed by Brunelleschi as some tourist pamphlets inaccurately state4.

   The Instituto degli Innocenti today consists of several branches serving children and adults in the Tuscany Region of Italy. The institute's areas of interest include research, documentation, historical archives, training, education, artistic heritage, museums, galleries, art restoration, architecture, child refugees, adolescents and their families, and, of course, orphans5.

   The degli Innocenti name itself may have even older roots in Tuscany, dating back to the bubonic plague of 1348. Sixty percent of the inhabitants of Florence died that year6, and many children and infants became orphans. Some of the surviving infants were left on the doorsteps of convents throughout the region7. The nuns took pity on them and named them “of the innocent”, therefore the surname, in its various forms, is found principally in Tuscany. However, it is most common in Florence, because it was the surname given to the foundlings received into the Ospedale degli Innocenti throughout the centuries8.

   There is even a small cafe located in Florence, Italy that bears the name Caffe' Degl'Innocenti, which is just one of the various forms of the surname9.

By Capt. Marc D. Degl'Innocenti

REFERENCES

1. Matthew 2:16-1
2. Protecting the Innocents by Heidi J. Hornik, copyright 2007 Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University
3. Charity and Children in Renaissance Florence: The Ospedale degli Innocenti, 1410-1536. University of Michigan Press, 1990
4. Wikipedia: Ospedale degli Innocenti
5. Institute degli Innocenti
6. www.historytoday.com/ole-j-benedictow/black-death-greatest-catastrophe-ever
7. Children during the Black Death: Italian Accounts of the Black Death, Shona Kelly Wray, University of Missouri-Kansas City
8. www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=innocenti
9. www.caffedeglinnocenti.it/contatti.html