Pomegranate Pharmacy History Museum
The pharmacy opened by the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God in 1769 became known as the Misericordianorum, and later, under the name Pomegranate Pharmacy, remained in operation until the recent past, closing in 2014. Initially, the pharmacy consisted of two rooms: the officina, or dispensing room, and the apothecary’s cell, and served exclusively the hospital. It was subsequently expanded to include a kitchen, that is, a laboratory; an aquarium, a cellar space suitable for storing moist substances; a storeroom for medicinal materials, located on the upper floor; and a herbarium situated in the attic.
The Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God settled in Oradea in the autumn of 1760, during the episcopate of Bishop Ádám Patachich, after Canon György Gyöngyösi of Poroszló bequeathed the sum of 25,000 florins for the establishment of a hospital providing care for the poor and sick. On the grounds of the Brothers’ monastery and hospital, a chapel dedicated to the Guardian Angels was first erected in 1753. With its elliptical dome, the chapel represents one of the distinctive achievements of Hungarian architecture.
João Cidade was born on 8 March 1495 in Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal. Known as Saint John of God, he was canonised by the Roman Catholic Church in 1690. A protector of the poor, the sick and the destitute, he experienced a profound religious conversion at the age of forty-two, inspired by the preaching of Saint John of Ávila. Renouncing his former way of life, he founded his first hospital in Granada, Spain. Thirty-six years after the founder’s death, Pope Sixtus V officially recognised the Order of the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God, adopting the Rule of Saint Augustine as the foundation for the religious and healing life of its members.
The officina’s present Neoclassical furnishings were made by Christianus Heinricher, the new carpenter of the monastery. The Baroque wall clock in the officina was presented to the Brothers Hospitallers of Oradea in 1768 as a donation from their monastery in Vienna. The design of the room is inspired by Greco-Roman mythology. At the centre of the ceiling fresco stands Hygieia, goddess of health and cleanliness, depicted in the company of putti and holding the rose, the flower of the gods.
This was followed, in 1763, by the construction of the two-storey monastery building, arranged in three wings and set perpendicular to the church. The first hospital, at that time still a single-storey building, was erected in 1766 parallel to the line of the street. The hospital was solemnly inaugurated on 30 August 1767, on the Feast of the Guardian Angels.
