Mario Tobino, the famous writer and psychiatrist, worked and lived for almost forty years in the psychiatric hospital in Maggiano, in the hamlet of Santa Maria a Colle.
Contatti
INDIRIZZO: Via di Fregionaia, 692 Maggiano
TELEFONO: 0583 327243
E-MAIL: info@fondazionemariotobino.it
SITO WEB: fondazionemariotobino.it
He began working in the Women's Ward of Maggiano asylum in 1942 and from '47 to '80. His 'mission' was to make the asylum a human, civilised, free place, capable of welcoming those affected by illness, giving space to listen and share emotions, suffering and pain.
Spectator and protagonist of thousands of stories, the sick are his life and his family. After retirement, he asked and obtained permission to continue living in the hospital. Since then, he lives day and night in the two small rooms inside Casa Medici, where he composes most of his literary works.
In addition to being a doctor, Tobino is also a poet and award-winning writer: in 1962 he won the Strega prize with Il Clandestino and in 1972 the Campiello prize with Per le antiche scale. His most famous book, Libere donne di Magliano, (Maggiano) dates back, however, to a few years earlier (1953), an intense autobiographical novel that traces the stories, thoughts, and 'voices' of the asylum and the 'madmen' in a sort of 'normality' suspended in time and space.
In 2006, his grandchildren created the Foundation dedicated to him, with the aim of preserving, protecting and enhancing Tobino's great scientific and cultural legacy and bringing to light the hospital's history and events, transforming it into a modern museum.
The 'Spedale de' pazzi, as the locals called it, was active for over two hundred years, from 1773 to 1999.
Today this place, in all its emotional drama, is open to all. Guides accompany visitors to the most evocative and touching spaces: the Management Garden, the Well Cloister and those of the female and male divisions, the church, the dormitory, the kitchens, the painting room, the radiology room, and finally Casa Medici with the two famous rooms of the doctor-writer.
Along the itinerary, it is possible to retrace the history of psychiatry from the 19th century to the present day and the great progress made in the treatment and prevention of mental illness: a rich collection of medical-scientific instruments, the medical records recovered from the archives and the subject of studies and research, Tobino's writings and precious papers, from which the life of a man, a doctor, a man of letters, emerges.