Sant'Erasmo Hospice is a hospice in Legnano. The original hospice, which was built between the 13th and 14th centuries, was demolished in 1926. It was replaced in 1927 by a modern building with the same function and name.. It stands next to the church of the same name and is the oldest charitable institution in Legnano..
History
Origins In the same place where the Sant'Erasmo Hospice was founded in the Middle Ages there probably existed a very ancient building. In fact, the earliest traces of human presence in this place are linked to a 3rd-century B.C. tomb found by Guido Sutermeister, which dates back to the period of the Roman conquest of the Po Valley.
In Roman times Legnano was connected to neighboring areas by important communication routes, the most important of which was a Roman road built in the 1st century that ran along the Olona River at the modern Corso Sempione and connected ancient Milan to Verbano, the Via Severiana Augusta..
Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that an important landmark building for wayfarers was built along this route already in ancient times, which in medieval times became the Sant'Erasmo Hospice. Indeed, the Middle Ages were marked by intense religious turmoil, which led, among other things, to the construction of many churches, shrines, monasteries and hospices run by religious men, as well as the calling of crusades.
The first document that mentions the hospice of Sant'Erasmo is dated June 7, 1290. This written record refers to a testamentary bequest by a Milanese merchant, Paxius de Ossona, who donated part of his wealth to some thirty hospital facilities in the archdiocese of Milan, including the hospice of Sant'Erasmo, to which he left 20 soldi. On another document, however, it is reported that a year and a half after the date of the testamentary bequest, a certain friar Bernabò was magister of the hospice of Sant'Erasmo.
Bonvesin de la Riva and the hospice Some authors trace its origin to Bonvesin de la Riva, a thirteenth-century writer and poet who stayed in Legnano for a long time. His tombstone in fact stated that:.
Moreover, on a testamentary bequest of the Lombard writer and poet that is dated August 18, 1304, Bonvesin de la Riva's wish to leave part of his wealth to the friars of the hospice of Sant'Erasmo is mentioned. On the will, in particular, it was also reported that Bonvesin de la Riva had earmarked for the hospice a donation equal to the rent of 100 soldi, money that the monks paid him annually, with the obligation, on the part of the religious, defined in the documents as the fratres, to dedicate a weekly mass to the thirteenth-century poet in perpetuum, that is, forever; this also testifies, among other things, to the strong bond between the hospice and the poet..
Bonvesin de la Riva's connection with the Sant'Erasmo Hospice is also explained by the poet's interest in pilgrims, the sick, and places of healing. In his work Vulgare de Elymosinis, which is dedicated to charity, Bonvesin de la Riva suggests three things that penitents who ask for forgiveness should do (“tre cosse fazan,” as the poet writes): devotion to the Virgin, confession of sins, and almsgiving. Moreover, among the most important actions related to piety that penitents should do, again according to the thirteenth-century poet, are visiting the imprisoned, the sick and the infirm:.
With regard to the seriously ill, Bonvesin de la Riva, in his work Vulgare de Elymosinis, emphasizes the role of hospitals, places where religious communities cared for people who were unable to meet their most basic needs independently and who often lived in solitude. These places, again according to Bonvesin de la Riva, were also important for passing pilgrims, since they provided the refreshment they needed.
Other authors, who instead rely on a document preserved at the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan, believe that Bonvesin de la Riva merely enlarged, restored or reconstructed a previously existing structure. According to these scholars, the epitaph stating that the hospice was founded by Bonvesin de la Riva was not placed on the tomb until a century after his death, which would cause it to lose some of its historical value, assuming that there is no documented evidence for this hypothesis.
The same scholars also add the fact that, at the time, in the Sant'Erasmo Hospice, there were no friars of the order of the Humiliati, an order to which Bonvesin de la Riva belonged: confirmation of this fact would come from a source of the time that does not list, among the places of headquarters of this monastic order, the Legnanese hospice. Moreover, in this document, the Notitia Cleri Mediolanensis, the Fratres hospitalis S. Erasmi are mentioned and not the Fratres Humiliati. This thesis is also supported, among others, by the scholar Augusto Marinoni, who observes that at that time the friars who ran these kinds of facilities were generally part of the monastic order of Augustinians.
Thus, the documents that have come down to us do not clarify the facts that led to the foundation of the hospice.
The dedication to St. Erasmus The dedication of the hospice to St. Erasmus of Formia, according to scholars, is related to the fact that the saint was considered in the Middle Ages to be one of the Holy Helpers, that is, he was part of a group of fourteen saints to whom the Christian community referred in special cases, usually to heal diseases. For this reason, hospitals and shrines were named after St. Erasmus, as well as the other thirteen saints, especially in the Middle Ages.
There is also a popular legend that explains the naming of the hospice after Saint Erasmus. This legend says that from the Legnano monastery of St. Catherine, food suddenly began to vanish. The father superior then decided to establish a guard service to keep an eye on the kitchens. The day after the guard service was established, the religious saw a raven enter through the window. The bird, after taking some bread and cheese from the pantry, went out the window. The religious then followed the crow out of the convent. The friars saw the bird head toward a group of elderly people gathered around a tablecloth and give them the food stolen from the pantry. To thank God for the miracle, the religious congregation decided to build a hospice and dedicate this new building to St. Erasmus, since a small chapel named after the saint was located near the place where the miracle occurred. The crow later also became the symbol of the .
As a stopping place of one of the Roman roads In the Middle Ages, pilgrims traveling along one of the Roman roads heading to Milan had among their stops the hospice of Sant'Erasmo. Legnano was in fact the fourth stopping place from the Simplon Pass and the last before Milan. From Milan, pilgrims then headed to Rome or Venice, where they could embark for the Holy Land. The Sant'Erasmo Hospice thus functioned as a place of shelter, prayer and care for wayfarers, as well as a hospital and orphanage for the local inhabitants. The Sant'Erasmo Hospice was perhaps also a reference for crusaders. It was possible to change horses at the hospice because there was a stable there.
During the period when the Sant'Erasmo Hospice was a stopping place on the Via Romea, Europe was characterized by a large movement of people to the Holy Land.. This movement of people brought wealth just about everywhere, and Legnano was no exception. This economic stimulus helped the territories once part of the Western Roman Empire overcome the deep economic and social crisis caused by the barbarian invasions. Another consequence of this steady flow of pilgrims was the emergence of xenodochia and hospices intended for the accommodation of wayfarers.
Specifically, this growth of the local economy affected all sectors, from agriculture to handicrafts, and prompted the inhabitants of these areas, who had once taken refuge in the isolated countryside to escape the barbarian invasions, to seek aggregation again, with the return to the cities and the founding of new hamlets and villages. All social classes were represented by this flow of people to the Holy Land, from the rich, to the poor, to merchants: the latter, in particular, did business with the inhabitants of the areas affected by this migration phenomenon, contributing to the economic growth of the areas they visited. In this context, Legnano with the Sant'Erasmo Hospice also played an important role.
The 15th century: the new type of management In the 15th century, already several years after the death of Bonvesin de la Riva, Giovanni Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, had decreed the centralization of the care of the sick in the local hospitals on the newly established Ospedale Maggiore in Milan.. Added to this was a papal bull by Pope Pius II dated December 9, 1456, which decreed the transfer of the management of the small local hospitals that were located in the Milanese countryside and were led by religious communities, to the historic Milanese hospital.
Baldassarre Lampugnani, a local nobleman who had become president and administrator of the charity of Sant'Erasmo, was placed at the head of the Sant'Erasmo Hospice: the Legnanese care facility was nevertheless granted a certain autonomy. In the 14th and 15th centuries on the exterior walls of the main building of the hospice were painted by the Lampugnani brothers some frescoes depicting the martyrdom of Saint Erasmus.
Baldassare Lampugnani was succeeded in 1477 by Gian Rodolfo Vismara, that is, the most prominent nobleman of Legnano at the time, as well as an esteemed physician, who built, among other things, the eponymous palace, the convent of Sant'Angelo and the convent of Santa Chiara in the town. As for the hospice, Gian Rodolfo Vismara administratively restructured it, also doing some restoration work on the building and rebuilding, in 1490, the church of Sant'Erasmo. Gian Rodolfo Vismara also donated to the religious community that ran the hospice, a valuable altarpiece made by Benvenuto Tisi, known as "Il Garofalo," or attributable to Cristoforo Lampugnani (the attribution is doubtful), reproducing a Madonna and Child. On the left of the Virgin is depicted Saint Erasmus, while on the right is painted Saint Magnus, who is also the patron saint of Legnano. Gian Rodolfo Vismara died in 1495, and as his successor the Duke of Milan Ludovico Sforza chose the friar Giacomo Lampugnani.
The Sant'Erasmo Hospice also continued its activities thanks to the income from the sale of wine from the Sant'Erasmo hills (or "Ronchi di Sant'Erasmo"). Wine cultivation in the once flourishing Sant'Erasmo district then went into crisis in the mid-19th century due to some vine diseases.. As a result of these infections, towards the end of the aforementioned century, viticulture disappeared from the entire Alto Milanese, and local farmers turned to agricultural production of cereals and silkworm breeding. In other wine-growing areas of Lombardy, the problem was solved by grafting disease-immune vine species (fox grape). The last fields of the Sant'Erasmo hills planted with vines were removed in 1987 to allow the construction, between the Sant'Erasmo hills street, Canazza street and Trivulzio street, of a parking lot to serve the historic and nearby civil hospital, which in 2010 was transferred to another area of Legnano..
Life inside the Sant'Erasmo Hospice was dictated by very precise and strict rules.. A document dated May 29, 1477 found in the historical archives of the Ospedale Maggiore of Milan, in this regard, reports that:
The two pastoral visits of the 16th century