Category: Modern

A military fortress needed a hospital to treat the wounded. We do not know where the hospital would have been located during the first century of the Citadel’s  existence, although it probably used  some building located within the medieval town.

The construction of a new hospital could be dated to the last third of the 17^th  century. Military plans  from that time draw  it as a building  organised around a rectangular courtyard, with access on the south side, a chapel protruding in the centre  of the north facade, and a garden area to the east, between the building and the embankment of the wall. In some plans, two staircases  are drawn inside the courtyard, which would indicate the existence of a first floor.

As  from the beginning of the 18^th  century, the plans indicate greater complexity with the addition of some small buildings in the courtyard and the exterior, and a new garden on the south side.

Of all this, only the foundations of the southern section of the building are currently preserved, consisting of a wide central space flanked by two quadrangular rooms, which must have acted as a lobby towards the two parallel naves for the sick and wounded located on the sides of the courtyard.

Regarding the surroundings of the building, archaeological excavations have been bringing to light the remains of a large cemetery intended for the troops.