Hotel-Dieu

The Beaune charity hospital, the Hotel-Dieu, was founded in 1443, and operated continuously for centuries. Now it is simply a great museum of life in late Medieval times and of charity and human kindness.

The exterior is not particularly impressive; but the interior

courtyard, with its weathervanes and tiled roof is most

impressive; the Hotel-Dieu must be in the Guiness Book

for most weathervanes on a single building...

The main ward

Detail

Gorgeous ceiling

Surgical--ouch!--instruments

More ditto; or possibly for lubicating your transaxle

Intensive care; aka, rich person's ward

In the kitchen, a spit-timer

Part of the Hotel-Dieu's historic endowment was several

hundred acres of prime (i.e., grand cru) vineyards; Hospices

de Beaune is one of the greatest of wines; and the annual

Hospices de Beaune auction is still the largest of all wine 

auctions

In the hospital's pharmacy

Producing whatever's good for whatever ails

you

The Hospices' artistic masterpiece, Roger van der Weyden's

15th century Last Judgment polyptych

Funny Beaune