Pietas Romana et Parisiensis, or, A faithful relation of the several sorts of charitable and pious works eminent in the cities of Rome and Paris the one taken out of the book written by Theodorus Amydenus ; the other out of that by Mr. Carr.

III. The Hospital of St. Mary of Consolation.

There was an Hospital in Rome called St. Maria in Portico, so ancient that we have no Memorial left of its beginning: That such there was an inscription tells us.

Divae Mariae in Portico sacrum Societatis Hospitale.

Or else surely the memory of it was lost either in that miserable sack of the town under Cle∣ment the seventh; or else by the frequent over∣flowing of Tyber, as many other things there unhappily perished. The Church thereof is still standing, tho to another use.

Not far from hence another Sodality devoted to the Blessed Virgin under the Invocation of Graces and given to good works erected an Hospital for the sick.

And not far from this again another Soda∣lity devoted to the Virgin too, under the litle of Consolation, founded another Hospital for the sick. The near standing together of these

Hospitals hath reduced them all three, to that of the Consolation, at this day: the other titles being grown out of use, it is called by that name only of Consolation: perhaps there∣fore because it is a name that sounds well to sick people.

Here are received, as in the other Hospitals abovenamed, in several apartments both men and women of what condition soever, if they be sick of Fevers, or have any wounds or sores; there they have Physicians, and Sur∣geons, and servants to attend them.

The Church is all built of Tivoli-stone, ex∣cept the Frontispeice that is yet unfinished.

To it belongs a convenient number of Priests. There are beds made for the sick in the winter a hundred: and in the summer two hundred.

The whole fabrick takes up a great deal of ground; and all the care of it belongs to that Confraternity, as I said, of the Consolation. The yearly Revenue is great, and every day addition made to it by the charity of good people.