Cleansing the Soul: Filarete and the Sewers of the Ospedale Maggiore in Milan

Antonio Averlino (1400–69), called Filarete, designed the Ospedale Maggiore (or Great Hospital) in Milan with an ingenious sewer and ventilation system, which this article connects to ancient medical treatises on the human body’s exhalation of air and evacuation of waste. Critical examination of the system in relation to Hippocratic and Galenic medical theory, Filarete’s architectural thought, and the medico-spiritual function of early modern hospitals suggests that the architect conceived the building as a living and breathing corpus mysticum, whose internal organs cleansed the souls of its corrupted members.