I disordini di S. Giovanni Battista, ospedale e confraternita dei Genovesi di Roma (1632-1651)

The history of the hospital runs by the confraternity of S. Giovanni Battista, the most emblematic institution of the Genoese community in papal Rome, has not been fully detailed, primarily due to difficulties in accessing the scarce archive resources available. The hospital, however, is a chapter of the broader history of the social, cultural, political, and financial exchanges between Genoa and the papacy, in the context of that “Genoese Rome” which is still, overall, poorly documented. The hospital was founded in the early sixteenth century to assist the Genoese seamen who landed at the Rome port of Ripa Grande, continuing operating until 1704, even with some shady crisis in the decades leading up to the mid-seventeenth century. Specifically, this paper analyses that crisis thanks to the dispatches exchanged by the government of the Republic and its emissaries at the papal court. It seems that S. Giovanni Battista greatly strayed from the eminent standards set by the Genoese administration, representing a charitable institution (largely subsidized by means of bequeaths) the efficiency of which was disputed by the Genoese philosopher and political theorist Andrea Spinola (1562-1631).