Aiutare il forestiero. L’assistenza di ospedali e confraternite nel medioevo (Italia centro-settentrionale)

Aim of the paper is to offer a view on medieval solutions to foreigners’ needs taken in northern and central Italy. The paper dwells on timeless necessities: the need for the foreigner to find, in a temporarily or stable way, help and therefore places to sleep, eat, give birth, raise children, socialise, pray, and be buried. The variety of these solutions is emphasized: although the culture of assistance was shared in medieval society, not all places elaborated the same solutions. The paper tries to understand the reasons for it: helping the foreigner depended not only on the Christian practice of mercy, but also on economic policies and on the system of international relationships among political potentates. Different contexts are compared: Rome and Venice, first of all, as destination points of both economical and religious migratory flows; and then centres of Lombardy, Emilia, Veneto and Tuscany regions, also characterized by foreigners presences, both passing through and definitive. The comparison shows how the care planning for foreigners, implemented mainly through hospitals and confraternities, in some cases tended to favor coordination, especially from the 14th century (Siena, Florence, Milan); in other cases, however, the assistance for foreigners remained fragmented but not less effective (Rome, Venice).