The Innocents of Florence by Professor Joseph Luzzi Reviewed in the New Yorker

A new book by Joseph Luzzi, professor of comparative literature at Bard College, has been reviewed in the New Yorker. The Innocents of Florence chronicles the formation of what came to be known as the Innocenti in 15th-century Florence, which was the first orphanage in Europe devoted exclusively to abandoned children and would go on to care for nearly 400,000 young lives over the next five centuries. Luzzi examines the tragic and complex history of the groundbreaking humanitarian institution, that ultimately—in recognizing poor and abandoned children as worthy of nurture—would shape education and childcare for generations to come. Harrowing accounts of “sexual violence, family separation, child abuse, and mass death” are examined alongside the “historic Tuscan superbloom of human creativity and innovation,” writes Jessica Winter for the New Yorker.  It also, Winter notes, contains distressing echoes of the present: “Since the Dobbs decision abolished the constitutional right to abortion, in 2022, at least ten states have passed new or expanded ‘safe haven’ laws for relinquishing infants, and hundreds of temperature-controlled ‘baby boxes’ have cropped up in Indiana, Kentucky, and elsewhere—the contemporary equivalent of the Innocenti’s holy-water font.” 

The Literature Program at Bard challenges national, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries that have often dictated the terms by which we understand the meaning and value of the written word, and has a long-standing commitment to fostering the work of writers and thinkers who expand the parameters of public discourse.

Post Date: 11-11-2025