I took this photo in 2022 inside the receiving of the orphanage. The cupboard holds the drum-like wheel; the baptismal font is on the right. During times of widespread poverty, hunger and disease thousands died. In many cities, convents became foundling homes for abandoned babies. A small door to the wheel was built into the outer wall of the building (see slide show on front page). The mother opened the door and placed the baby on the wheel, pulled the cord to alert the nun on duty and turned the wheel inward. Often a mother would leave some token or remembrance, but very rarely did a baby arrive with a name, so they were named by the nuns; father listed as “unknown.”

In Naples, the boys commonly received the last name, Esposito (from the Latin, exposed, out of place). Girls were often given the name of the convent, such as Annunziata. The orphanage employed wet nurses or sent the foundlings to farms outside the city. In Naples, mothers were not allowed to nurse their infants in the homes.

La ruota di Sant’Annunziata was in use from the 1600’s to the mid-1800’s. The building remained an orphanage until the 1950’s; later it became a maternity home. It is now a pediatric hospital.

The poster titled, The Womb/belly of Naples (artist unknow). The script, signed by Francesco Netti, 1877, reads… The interior of the room where the infants arrived. At dawn, the light of the oil lamp is pale. Two women from the “intima classe,” (possibly to mean the lower class) keep watch (but) they are sleepy and cold in their chairs. The night was quiet and no swaddled infants arrived where there would be as many as twenty of them on the big bed. The baby has his mouth open and is screaming but does not wake the women. (I cannot make out a baby on the bed)

In the background is the wooden wheel similar to that at the entrance to the convent. It is secluded from view. Some dirty cushions form a type of cradle for the baby. There are two holes that allow the person in the room to see who is calling from outside. “I don’t know” says the author, but these two white holes look truly sinister; they seem like two eyes – shiny like a cat glowing in the shadow.