Re C (A Child) (Adoption: Duty of Local Authority) [2007] 3 FCR 659

Abstract

ANONYMITY AND ADOPTION - A CLASH OF RIGHTSThe Ospedale degli Innocenti in the Piazza della Santissima Annunziatia in Florence, which dates back to the 15th century, was a place of refuge for babies whose mothers could not cope with taking care of them. Brunelleschi, the Italian architect and engineer, was responsible for the design of the beautiful colonnaded building.  Its façade is adorned with blue and white glazed terra cotta bas-reliefs, sculpted by Andrea Della Robbia. These depict chubby Florentine babies, naked or wrapped in swaddling clothes, and are a symbol of the building’s function. Any mother who wished to surrender her baby into the care of the Ospedale could place it in a stoup below a small window in a wall of the building. The stoup opened onto an inner room where a woman waited and removed each baby immediately after it was placed there. In the 18th century the stoup was replaced by a wheel, rather like a “lazy Susan”. The baby was placed on the wheel, which was turned, and the baby was delivered into the arms of the woman waiting inside the orphanage. Babies were sent out to wet nurses until they were weaned and then returned to the orphanage where they remained until they were fostered out or became old enough to work or, in the case of girls, betrothed to marry. All the children acquired the same family name - Innocenti.