The Reinvention of Childhood in Everyday Life: Observations on the Recent Renovation of the Museo Degli Innocenti

On June 24, 2016, the Museo degli Innocenti reopened in Florence after an extensive renovation. The designers and curators transformed what was originally an art collection into a museum of the history of childhood. The museum provides both a context for institutionalized childhood and successfully integrates the history, art, and architecture of Florence's Innocenti foundling hospital, founded in 1419 and first opened in 1445. Although eliding the extent of mortality and potential economic exploitation of children, the stories told through documents, photographs, and video interviews confront honestly the emotional realities of abandonment, adoption, and fostering over the Innocenti's nearly six-hundred-year history.