Ospedale Santa Orsola

A ward of the Ospedale Santa Orsola had been devoted to the care of psychiatric patients since its foundation in the eighteenth century. In September 1867, patients on this ward were transferred to Salesiane, a former convent on Via San Isaia, originally as a temporary expedient in the wake of a cholera epidemic in the city. In the event, the arrangement was made permanent, and patients never returned to the Ospedale Santa Orsola’s mental ward. However, the general wards of the hospital did not close; indeed the Ospedale Santa Orsola still exists under the name S. Orsola-Malpighi, and is now associated with Bologna University. Salesiane, the replacement facility for mental patients, fell under the provincial authority of Bologna in 1869. In 1906 it was renamed after its first superintendent, Francesco Roncati. The building now houses the Instituzione Minguzzi, a research and documentation centre for the history of psychiatry and social exclusion.