Saint Anthony's Fire at the Butchers'

Today my curiosity got the better of me, and I finally asked Andrea and Paola what in the world their building had been before.  It's this lovely arcaded space with a portion of an obviously very old fresco.  Andrea told me that most recently it had been a cooperative/insurance office for a guild, essentially -- that is, around 1862 or so.
They had also found some engraved stones at some point during renovations that indicated that in the 1300s it had been a hospital associated with the next-door church (Sant'Antonio) as a treatment center for Saint Anthony's Fire.  Consumed by curiosity rather than said fire, I did some research.  There are three possible ailments that are referred to by this name.  The first is shingles.  The second is erisipelas.  However, the one that I suspect they were treating is ergotism.  This one is pretty interesting -- caused by an alkaloid produced by a particular fungus that grows on various grains in the proper conditions.  Apparently there were a few plagues (? for want of a better word) of ergotism during medieval times.  If you check out the link, there are some fairly dramatic paintings of what we're talking about.

I'm not in a hurry to eat moldy rye now.  Maybe I'll get Andrea to give me some sausages instead...

Alexandra