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This institution was founded as Santa Maria dell Śmiltą in 1380 by Simone Vespucci to extend hospitality to paupers and pilgrims. In the fifteenth century, it was passed on to the congregation of Capitani del Bigallo, which owned all other Florentine hospitals. In 1588 the order of St John de Deo assumed the administration of the Ospedale di San Giovanni di Dio; then in 1982 the building, now no longer hospital accommodation, became a city possession. Since 1998, it has housed an archive (Centro di Documentazione per la Storia dellAssistenza e della Sanitį Fiorentina) documenting the history of Florences Ospedale Santa Maria Nuova, and the history of Florentine psychiatry more generally.
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