Ospedale degli Innocenti. The Ospedale degli Innocenti is a historic building in Florence, Italy. It was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi, who received the commission in 1419 from the Arte della Seta. It was originally a children's orphanage. It is regarded as a notable example of early Italian Renaissance architecture. The hospital, which features a nine bay loggia facing the Piazza SS. Annunziata, was built and managed by the Arte della Seta or Silk Guild of Florence. That guild was one of the wealthiest in the city and, like most guilds, took upon itself philanthropic duties. The façade is made up of nine semicircular arches springing from columns of the Composite order. The semicircular windows bring the building down, earthbound and is a revival of the classical style, no longer a pointed arch. In the spandrels of the arches there are glazed blue terracotta roundels with reliefs of babies designed by Andrea della Robbia suggesting the function of the building. There is an emphasis on the horizontal because the building is longer than it is tall. Above each semicircular arch is a tabernacle window. The building reveals a clean and clear sense of proportion. The height of the columns is the same as the width of the intercolumniation and the width of the arcade, making each bay a cube. The building's simple proportions reflect a new age, one of secular education, and a sense of great order and clarity. Similarly, the height of the entablature is half the column height, as is appropriate for a clear-minded society. Children were sometimes abandoned in a basin which was located at the front portico. However, this basin was removed in 1660 and replaced by a wheel for secret refuge. There was a door with a special rotating horizontal wheel that brought the baby into the building without the parent being seen. This allowed people to leave their babies, anonymously, to be cared for by the orphanage. This system was in operation until the hospital's closure in 1875. Today the building houses a small museum of Renaissance art with works by Luca della Robbia, Sandro Botticelli, Piero di Cosimo and Adoration of the Magi by Domenico Ghirlandaio. The Foundling Hospital was constructed in several phases and only the first phase was under Brunelleschi's direct supervision. Under Brunelleschi's supervision he managed to lay the foundations, raise the main walls, finish off the basement with a cryptoporticus beneath the cloister walks, and the lower part of the front facing loggia. Later phases added the attic story, but omitted the pilasters that Brunelleschi seems to have envisioned, and expanded the building by one bay to the south. Colored terracotta medallions by Andrea della Robbia can be seen in the spandrels of the arches, the so-called Infants, which were put up in 1485. Despite the popularity today of these medallions, they were not the original intentions of Brunelleschi. If it had been up to Brunelleschi, the medallions would have remained empty. The vaulted passageway in the bay to the left of the loggia was also added later. Since the loggia was started before the hospital was begun, the hospital was not formally opened until 1445. Brunelleschi's design was based on Classical Roman, Italian Romanesque and late Gothic architecture. The loggia was a well known building type, such as the Loggia dei Lanzi. But the use of round columns with classically correct capitals, in this case of the Composite Order, in conjunction with a dosserets was novel. So too, the circular arches and the segmented spherical domes behind them. The architectural elements were also all articulated in grey stone and set off against the white of the walls. This motif came to be known as pietra serena. Also novel was the proportional logic. The heights of the columns, for example, was not arbitrary. If a horizontal line is drawn along the tops of the columns, a square is created out of the height of the column and the distance from one column to the next. This desire for regularity and geometric order was to become an important element in Renaissance architecture. Above each column is a ceramic tondo. These were originally meant by Brunelleschi to be blank concavities, but around 1490 Andrea della Robbia was commissioned to fill them in. The design features a baby in swaddling clothes. A few of the tondi are still the original ones, but some are nineteenth century copies. The insignia of the American Academy of Pediatrics is based on one of the tondi. The Foundling Hospital defines the eastern side of the Piazza Santissima Annunziata, the other two principal facades of which were built later to imitate Brunelleschi's loggia. The piazza was not designed by Brunelleschi, as is sometimes reported in guide books.