Introduction
The rise of asylums in the Italian peninsula in the pre-unification and post-unification phases has been extensively researched within the historical and social sciences, but they have rarely been considered from within the disciplines of history of art and architecture. In part this is because asylum structures have been either repurposed or abandoned in a dilapidated state, slipping thereby from historical view. In part, as will be argued, the function of the “madmen’s hospital,” particularly in Italy, was given to buildings that came into being with other, more lofty, purposes (convents, patrician villas, etc.), so the hospital phase of these buildings has often been ignored by art-historical investigations. The research underpinning this article stems from a broader analysis of the status and evolution of hospital buildings in Milan, focused particularly on architecture and decor between the advent of the Napoleonic government and the Restoration. This article is bas...