Page 44 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL SUMMER 2019 PORTUGAL
P. 44
A COMPASSIONATE REPUBLIC
We headed down a narrow street to get dren, they were compassionate to the indi‐
out of the blazing sun and came across all viduals who had to make the gut wrenching
that remains of perhaps the first known or‐ decision to part with their child. Many of the
phanage established in 1432. There’s not children were abandoned because of extreme
much there now. A brick-filled doorway with a poverty and the inability to feed their family.
next to small window in the heart of the Old To reduce the shame of handing over their
Town opposite a Franciscan monastery. children, they built a special entrance to a
There’s a Latin inscription above the doorway room where parents could secretly leave the
that said, “My heart was hot within me, while I child, then ringing a bell to alert the nuns that
was musing the fire burned”. a new package had arrived. Normally the
It symbolized the progressive and enlight‐ children would stay in the orphanage until the
ened city leaders in Ragusa way ahead of age of six. After that they were given up for
their time in in caring about abandoned chil‐ adoption, and even returned to their parents
dren. In the council’s decree to open the or‐ if their fortunes improved.
phanage, they resolved that “ children were The Orphanage was closed in 1808, during
not abandoned in the city like animals.” the occupation of Napoleon turning it into an
Not only were they caring about the chil‐ ammunition storehouse and stable.
44 WINE DINE & TRAVEL MAGAZINE WINTER/SPRING 2024
