Not to be confused with the Order of the Holy Spirit

Order of the Holy Spirit

The Order of the Holy Spirit, also known as the Order of the Knights of the Holy Spirit, was an Order of Chivalry under the French Monarchy. It should not be confused with the Congregation of the Holy Ghost or with the Order of the Holy Ghost...

 or the Congregation of the Holy Ghost

Congregation of the Holy Ghost

The name Congregation of the Holy Ghost applies to five Catholic Congregations: the Holy Ghost Fathers and four female congregations.* Holy Ghost Fathers also known as the Spiritans...

"Hospital of the Holy Ghost" redirects here. For the Danish institution, see: Hospital of the Holy Ghost, Copenhagen

Hospital of the Holy Ghost, Copenhagen

The House of the Holy Ghost in Copenhagen, Denmark is a historic building owned and operated as an exhibition space by the adjacent Church of the Holy Ghost.One of the oldest buildings in Copenhagen, it was part of the largest medieval hospital in Denmark which King Christian I turned into an...

.

The Order of the Holy Ghost was a Roman Catholic religious order

Religious order

A religious order is a lineage of communities and organizations of people who live in some way set apart from society in accordance with their specific religious devotion, usually characterized by the principles of its founder's religious practice. The order is composed of initiates and, in some...

, founded by Guy de Montpellier in Provence

Provence

Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...

 for the care of the sick by groups of lay people. The order was officially established by Pope Innocent III

Pope Innocent III

Pope Innocent III was Pope from 8 January 1198 until his death. His birth name was Lotario dei Conti di Segni, sometimes anglicised to Lothar of Segni....

 (ca. 1161–June 16, 1216) in the Santo Spirito in Sassia

Santo Spirito in Sassia

Santo Spirito in Sassia is a 12th century basilica church in Rome.It has been erected in Borgo Santo Spirito, a street which got its name from the church, placed in the southern part of Rione Borgo....

 in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

.

The order was responsible for running hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

s - Hospitals of the Holy Ghost - throughout Europe for centuries, and in its heyday the number of its houses ran into many hundreds. The wealth of its endowment

Financial endowment

A financial endowment is a transfer of money or property donated to an institution. The total value of an institution's investments is often referred to as the institution's endowment and is typically organized as a public charity, private foundation, or trust....

s made it a repeated target for the unscrupulous, and the lay Knights of the Holy Ghost, formed on analogy to the major military orders but without their military function, repeatedly attempted to divert its assets to their own use. Several pope

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

s made efforts to protect the order as a purely religious body, but Pope Pius V

Pope Pius V

Pope Saint Pius V , born Antonio Ghislieri , was Pope from 1566 to 1572 and is a saint of the Catholic Church. He is chiefly notable for his role in the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation, and the standardization of the Roman liturgy within the Latin Church...

 in 1619 re-created the Knights and again diverted the Order's assets into their hands. In 1692 Louis XIV reapplied the property in the possession of the Knights for the benefit of his own Order of Our Lady of Carmel, in effect a pension fund

Pension fund

A pension fund is any plan, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income.Pension funds are important shareholders of listed and private companies. They are especially important to the stock market where large institutional investors dominate. The largest 300 pension funds collectively hold...

 for his own retired soldiers. The remaining religious members of the order were successful in obtaining an edict in 1700 which again confirmed the purely religious nature of the order and regaining the use of the funds for religious and charitable purposes.

These now focused on a single institution, the original and by this time extremely large Arcispedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia, the buildings of which dated from the time of Pope Sixtus IV

Pope Sixtus IV

Pope Sixtus IV , born Francesco della Rovere, was Pope from 1471 to 1484. His accomplishments as Pope included the establishment of the Sistine Chapel; the group of artists that he brought together introduced the Early Renaissance into Rome with the first masterpiece of the city's new artistic age,...

 (1471-84), which at its height was capable of accommodating over 1,000 patients, with additional spaces for contagious and for dangerously insane cases, and more than 100 medical staff, and an international remit. Over time it became a municipal hospital for the inhabitants of Rome, and is now a museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

and conference centre. The Order in Rome gradually merged into the medical profession, though offshoots of the order in France survived into the 20th century.