A casa da misericórdia:: Espaços assistenciais e arquitetura civil*

• Joana Balsa de Pinho ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidade de Lisboa

     Universidade de Lisboa

     Socorro, Portugal

     
• Localización: LEXICON: Storie e Architettura in Sicilia, ISSN-e 1827-3416, ISSN 1827-3416, Nº. Extra 2, 2021, págs. 315-322
• Idioma: italiano
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen

  • The House of Mercy: welfare spaces and civil architecture From the end of the Middle Ages until the early Modern Age, procedures and institutions related to assistance underwent a process of reorganization and reform, across Europe as a whole. In Portugal, this process had a particularity, with the creation and dissemination, throughout the territory, of the confraternities of Mercy (Misericórdias), that would ensure the practice and management of assistance works and institutions.

    Since the first foundations, it is possible to see a very close relation between the Misericórdias and architecture, since the existence of a built space was essential for the confraternities to carry out a charitable program, manage their assets and their daily lives. It is in this context that a specific architectural type is developed, the House of Mercy.

    This paper aims, on the one hand, to highlight the profound relation that can be established between residential spaces and care spaces, as well as the different forms that this has taken, and, on the other hand, to contribute to the debate around the understanding and the typological classification of House of Mercy, as an example of civil architecture.