St. John’s Hospital Museum in Bruges Reopens After Long Restoration

After a lengthy restoration, the St. John’s Hospital Museum in Bruges has reopened with a renewed focus on the history of medicine and care from the Middle Ages until 1977. The museum, originally a hospital run by a religious order, now connects its collection to universal themes such as hospitality, empathy, life and death, and the meaning of suffering. The visit includes the original 17th-century pharmacy and an attached herb garden. The museum houses a unique collection of paintings by Hans Memling, including works commissioned by the nuns who managed the hospital, making it the second largest Memling collection worldwide. It also holds sculptures of patron saints of medicine and historical medical instruments. In the adjacent hospital church, Memling's Reliquary of Saint Ursula is displayed alongside Berlinde De Bruyckere's contemporary work Liggende-Arcangelo II, illustrating a dialogue between ancient and contemporary art. The hospital was founded around 1150 by the city administration, with nursing care taken over by Franciscan nuns in 1391 and later by Augustinian nuns in the 17th century. A modern hospital complex operated from 1864 to 1977, when it closed after a new clinic was built outside the city in 1966.