Saint John's Hospital and the Memling Museum

Saint John's Hospital, which has existed since 1188, remains one of Europe's oldest surviving hospital buildings. Some 500 years ago, Bruges was a major destination for pilgrims, both healthy and frail, who trekked here to see the relic of Christ's blood at the Church of the Holy Blood. Saint John's was built to take care of any pilgrims who required it, except those with the plague or leprosy or who were mentally ill. Sadly, the average age of death in those days was only 40.

As one of the scenes shown in this painting, "De Oude Ziekenzalen" (1778) by Jan Beerblock, Daniella pointed out how the hall was lined with beds filled with the sick and dying. Nuns served as nurses; women cooked vegetables because meat was too expensive; a sedan chair (hand-held ambulance taxi) in the painting awaits a patient; dogs were welcomed; floors needed mopping; and clergymen dropped in to visit patients.

The building is now owned by the city and displays furniture from the original hospital, old medical instruments, and medical writings as well as religious art. A chapel was situated so those in the hospital beds could see the famous Saint John Altarpiece by Memling ("The Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine," 1474). Patients could pray for recovery or a speedy death. In many ways, Saint John's was less a hospital than a hospice, helping the dying make the transition from this world to the next.

The hospital still houses the altarpiece and Daniella very excitedly explained its many details. The colorful three-part work was dedicated to the hospital's patron saints, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, but Memling broadened the focus to take in a vision of Heaven and the end of the world. St. Catherine of Alexandria, born rich, smart, and pagan to Roman parents, joined the outlawed Christian faith and is shown in the central panel receiving a ring from Jesus to seal the "mystical marriage" between them. Unfortunately, Catherine still came to a brutal death because she refused to marry her emperor, Maxentius.