It was constructed on a piece of land called "Champ-Pourri",[1] an area lying a short distance west of the Louvre fortress, outside the fortified wall built by Philippe Augustus from 1190 to 1209.

The name Quinze-Vingts, which means three hundred (15 × 20 = 300), comes from the vigesimal (based on 20) numeral system used in the Middle Ages: it referred to the number of beds in the hospital, and was intended to house 300 poor, blind city-dwellers.

[2] In 1779, during the reign of king Louis XVI, the Cardinal de Rohan transferred the hospital to its current location, rue de Charenton, in the former barracks of the "Black Musketeers", (Mousquetaires noirs, named for the color of their horses), which had been disbanded in 1775.

The courtyard is decorated with a statue of king Saint Louis, created by French sculptor François-Léon Sicard and completed by his student, Gabrielle Maurion.

[6] Zina Weygand, The Blind in French Society from the Middle Ages to the Century of Louis Braille, Stanford University Press, 2009