An intervention of our Lady of Loreto to the origin of Incurabili Hospital of Naples: The history of Venerable Maria Longo - II Alfredo Marranzini s.j. - [Translated by Antonella Nappo]

A letter of Saint Joseph Moscati-- Maria Longo pilgrim in Loreto in 1516 -- The miraculous recovery -- Return to Naples and foundation of the "Incurabili" Hospital -- A compelling example -- Maria Longo founder of Capuchin Clarisse Sisters -- Joseph Moscati at the Incurabili Hospital -- The hospital as a shrine and a vocational training field -- Maria Longo and Joseph Moscati -- Saint Joseph Moscati pilgrim in Loreto -- A prayer to Our Lady of Loreto

Joseph Moscati at the Incurabili Hospital

Saint Joseph Moscati (on the right), with two of his colleagues at the Incurabili Hospital.

We have to say that from the very beginning most of the famous and skilful physicians worked at the Incurabili hospital. They taught the theory and the practise of medicine and were pioneers of a flourishing school that was so famous during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We can mention Marco Severino, Mario Zuccaro, Leonardo di Capua, Luca Tozzi, Tommaso Cornelio and many others.

During the XIX century, the medical school of Salerno was abolished and clinical surgery, medicine, obstetrics and ophthalmology working at the Incurabili Hospital were part of Royal University. Notwithstanding, a medical and surgical board taught there thanks to the “libera docenza” (a university teaching qualification). So, we have to remember Domenico Cotugno, Domenico Cirillo, Michele Troia, Francesco Petrunti, Antonio Cardarelli, Giuseppe Moscati, Luigi D’Amato and many others.

Joseph Moscati, just graduated, wanted to begin his experience and career in the chemical and physiological laboratories, in order to understand the origin of diseases and try to cure them. Standing on the strong branch of microbiology, there were the pathologist and the physician.

Starting from the beginning Moscati’s profession at the Incurabili Hospital was great. He was very young but he was considered a real revelation among his older colleagues. The Hospital was always his first thought: it became his vocational training field, his favourite place and a magnet for teachers, young physicians and students.

For a while, it was quite surprising to see so many doctors going to wherever a diagnostic problem had to be resolved. It is easy to understand why the example given by Luciano Armanni, Amabile, Capozzi, Virnicchi, Biondi, Casini, D’Ambrosio, Fazio, Senise and many others was not followed very much. Then, the scepticism disappeared and the young doctors of Moscati were respected while someone started to work independently in the world of medicine and science.

Incurabili Hospital: cloister of Maternity ward.

Moscati, who followed as a researcher and a scientist, the new disciplines like physiology and biological chemistry, did not forget the pathological anatomy, becoming a real master in doing autopsies. He cared very much to the necroscopical check of cases he studied in the Hospital. He insisted on having by his side all the doctors and students who had looked after the patients because he thought that this was the best practical demonstration they could have for their instruction.

He confirms that in the letter to Prof. Pentimalli written on September 11th 1923: "I believed that all the deserving young, who started their noble medical profession… had the right to improve themselves, reading in a book which is not printed, but whose cover is made up of the hospital beds and the laboratory rooms, and whose content is formed of painful men and scientific material, a book that has to be read with endless love and great sacrifice for our neighbours.
I thought that my duty was to teach to the young, without keeping secret our own experience, but revealing it to them… so that they could bring relief to suffering people across our country..."

He had also the time to make a few useful remarks about the frailty of human nature. Luciano Armanni ordered to engrave on the Anatomic Room entrance this sentence: "Hic est locus ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitam" (= "This is the place where Death likes to help Life"). Prof. Moscati thought to put on the top of a wall in that room, dominating the whole place, a Crucifix with this other sentence:"Ero mors tua, o mors" (= Oh Death, I will be your death").

This quotation (5), paid tribute to Christ, life came back in that desolate place after a long time and it gave a new full meaning to the other sentence put at the entrance, because just if you study carefully the organic lesions you can get so many useful indications for preventing, diagnosing and curing diseases. So death is in the hands of the physician who is an instrument to love our neighbour.

The Hospital as a shrine and a vocational training field

Moscati loved very much the Incurabili Hospital, a shrine for the patients and a vocational training field for the young doctors and students. This love persuaded him to write to Benedetto Croce in order to protest against a decree issued by the Ministry of Education authorizing university clinics to teach in the hospitals and preventing all the head physicians from practising the “libera docenza”.

Traditionally, the Neapolitan hospitals were the vocational training field of this kind of teaching and most of the southern doctors had started their experience there. So, their exclusion stifled a flourishing school.

Moscati was indignant and, in spite of the ministerial decree, wrote a tirade against a decree that "would like to subordinate the hospitals to the university clinics", allowing "the invasion of clinic official professors and their lackeys" and the "monopolization of the clinic vocational training field" (6).

These are just few passages about the work of the Holy Doctor in his Hospital and I would like to quote some words of his colleague Pietro Capasso: "There were... some mystic aspects in the Moscati’s school at the Incurabili, where the rigid science was followed without interferences, with a severe austerity and a high morality, illuminated by a continuous example.

So, many clinic minds and souls trained in the large and old III Ward. It was the beautiful synthesis of a spiritual meeting place, where the ethics and the learning were linked to elevate the man and the physician on the threshold of the apostolate" (7).

Maria Lorenza Longo and Joseph Moscati: a demanding request

We said that so many big figures of doctors contributed to make famous the Incurabili Hospital, but we have not to forget some marvellous figures of Saints and Blessed who worked there to help patients. Joseph Moscati, the last of this list, matches in himself both of these aspects, the great physician and researcher and the Saint, canonised in 1987.

Father Agostino Falanga says, "the story of this Hospital, 'Prince' among all the others, had a big influence under all the aspects: ethic, religious, scientific and humanitarian. The long list of famous people who worked there confirms that.” (Father Agostino Falanga op.cit., p.93).

Concerning the list of Saints, we mention some included in Father Falanga’s book: Saint Gaetano Thiene (1480-1547), Saint Andrea Avellino (1521-1608), Saint Francesco Caracciolo (1563-1608), Saint Francesco de Geronimo s.j. (1642-1716), Saint Alfonso Maria de' Liguori (1696-1787), Sainte Maria Francesca delle Cinque Piaghe (1715-1791) still invoked by the Neapolitan people, Blessed Placido Placido Baccher (1781-1836), Sainte Giovanna Antida Thouret (1765-1826), (sisters of this order are still working in the hospital), Blessed Caterina Volpicelli (1839-1894),a fundamental figure for Saint Joseph Moscati and the Blessed Bartolo Longo, founder of the famous shrine of Pompei, the Blessed Ludovico da Casoria (1814-1885)and Saint Joseph Moscati (1880-1927).

Before the last world war, you could see the big building of the Incurabili Hospital from Cavour Square. It had walls like a bastion and it was in the zone called Foria-Museo from which it arrived at Saint Aniello on Cape Naples.

The bombs destroyed the part of the hospital facing Via Foria; nowadays it remains the central body, with the big portal made of “piperno” and the monumental courtyard. If you go inside you can admire the statue of Maria Lorenza Longo, the noble woman coming from Catatonia who made Naples her second mother country and left a monument of faith and charity.

At the entrance, on a wall, there is a memorial tablet put in occasion of canonisation in 1987. It is dedicated to Joseph Moscati, marvellous "example of scientist and laic, who daily worked with charity in these wards of pain and hopes, where he started his career and worked with a big passion till his death, by doing everything just for love and giving without half measures his treasures of science illuminated by the grace of God". (8).
Maria Lorenza Longo and Joseph Moscati invite everybody to follow them along the way of the assistance and of love.

Saint Joseph Moscati pilgrim in Loreto

The Incurabili Hospital is linked with the Shrine of Loreto – spiritually and traditionally – as the figure of Saint Joseph Moscati, who was so devoted to the Virgin.
But it is very interesting to know that – when he was very young - Joseph Moscati went to Loreto with his family for a pilgrimage.

Moscati’s family in fact, we know, lived in Ancona from 1881 to 1884, and this city is not very far from Loreto. The first biographer of Moscati, Mons. Ercolano Marini, Archbishop of Amalfi, talks about this pilgrimage to the "Holy House" of Loreto, and we know that the main source of his writing is the Saint’s sister, Nina Moscati, a very important figure in the spiritual and human life of her brother.
We quote what Monsignor Marini writes in his biography, which is printed and published starting from 1929, just two years after Prof. Moscati’s death.

"In 1881 Moscati’s moved to Ancona, the Dorian city, capital of Marche. At that time, it seemed that the city did not remember the old religious glories, which had contributed to make it so famous during the centuries. […] It was a bad period for the religion; it was very easy to take risks and reprisals. The official functionaries had to decide between their career and their religion. […]

The judge of the Court of Appeal, Francesco Moscati, with no fear or arrogance, went to the Mass and received the Holy Communion, surrounded by his children. His favourite church was that dedicated to the Saints Cosma and Damiano, because it was very near to Posta Square, where there was Rosini Palace, his home.

His example was an encouragement for many people, especially for the youth, persecuted during the work of unchristianizing. He showed that it is possible to link faith and culture, the high charges of the State with the love for one’s country. […]

During this time a dream came true. The judge Moscati went to Loreto with his family for a pilgrimage. The place is on the Lauro hill, near the marvellous Piceno, where the Angels brought in 1294 the Holy House of Nazareth, the Home that was the Shrine of the Incarnation of the Word, in which the Holiest Family lived and that still keeps its appeal because it is unique in the world.

The hand of the art has preciously covered that inside, the pity of the Christian world has protected this place, by surrounding that by an imposing Basilica, the work of the Popes and the generosity of Kings have enriched the Holy House with so many treasures.

When you go to Loreto, the shaking light of the humble House of Nazareth overshadows wealth. Its rough walls are made smooth by the passionate kiss of many generations kindling the flames of love and souls.

Moscati’s family, with a deep veneration and full of Christian pity, went there and never forgot that experience. Joseph, who was three, often thought of his visit to the Holy House of Nazareth when he became an adult. The little house had seen the incarnation of the Word, the creation of the Firstborn, the King of the church, the Saviour of the world.

In 1884 Francesco Moscati became judge of the Court of Appeal of Naples"."

(Mons. Ercolano Marini, Archbishop of Amalfi, Il Prof. Giuseppe Moscati della R.Università di Napoli, Giannini, Naples, 1930, pp.15-19.)

Prayer to Mary, Virgin of Loreto by Angelo Comastri, Archbishop of Loreto

Notes:
5. Quotation of the Prophet Osea, 13,14.
6. Cfr. Compare two letters to Benedetto Croce and the complain to the president of Riuniti Hospitals, in Marranzini, op.cit., pp.118-137.
7. In E.Marini, II Prof. Giuseppe Moscali, Naples, 1929, p.148.
8. See the article of Prof.Guerrieri: Il Prof. Giuseppe Moscati preferì il lavoro nell'ospedale alle glorie accademiche.

A letter of Saint Joseph Moscati-- Maria Longo pilgrim in Loreto in 1516 -- The miraculous recovery -- Return to Naples and foundation of the "Incurabili" Hospital -- A compelling example -- Maria Longo founder of Capuchin Clarisse Sisters -- Joseph Moscati at the Incurabili Hospital -- The hospital as a shrine and a vocational training field -- Maria Longo and Joseph Moscati -- Saint Joseph Moscati pilgrim in Loreto -- A prayer to Our Lady of Loreto

Part I

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