Assistenza, ospitalità e ospedali presso monasteri e canoniche regolari del medioevo europeo: l’ospedale di Sant’Andrea di Vercelli in contesto

Care, Hospitality and Hospitals in Monasteries and Houses of Regular Canons in Medieval Europe: The Hospital of Sant’Andrea in Vercelli in Context

Edited by Eleonora Destefanis Edited by Isabelle Cochelin Edited by Alice Borgna

Book cover: Assistenza, ospitalità e ospedali presso monasteri e canoniche regolari del medioevo europeo: l’ospedale di Sant’Andrea di Vercelli in contesto

Extent: 350 pages

Publisher: Brepols Publishers (Brepnd)

Subjects: Medieval Studies, Religious Studies

Series: Disciplina Monastica

Series volume number: 15

Language: Italian

Paperback (Forthcoming)

(August 2026)

ISBN: 9782503618234

Price: $163.00

Out of stock

A sweeping, interdisciplinary exploration of how medieval religious communities transformed the duty of hospitality into lived structures of care across Europe.


Hospitality stands as one of the defining themes of medieval monastic and canonical life throughout the Middle Ages. This volume explores its many dimensions across a broad chronological and geographical span. From Late Antiquity to the threshold of the Modern Age, it examines how religious communities negotiated the tension between the duty of hospitality and maintaining separation from the world. Taking the northern Italian complex of the abbey of the Victorian canons of Sant’Andrea in Vercelli (Piedmont, Italy) as its point of departure, the book expands outward across the Mediterranean and Europe to compare diverse experiences of hospitality. Regulatory ideals—rules, prescriptions, and spiritual models—are set alongside the material realities of buildings, spatial arrangements, and daily practices. The result is a richly interdisciplinary portrait of medieval hospitality, revealing how communities transformed a moral duty into lived structures of care. By interweaving conceptual frameworks and materiality, the volume brings renewed vitality to a theme central to understanding how medieval religious institutions positioned themselves between enclosure and engagement, solitude and service.

  • Edited by Eleonora Destefanis
  • Edited by Isabelle Cochelin
  • Edited by Alice Borgna