| Old Campus of the University of Pavia | |
|---|---|
 Facade | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Type | Palace |
| Town or city | Pavia |
| Country | Italy |
| Coordinates | 45°11′12″N9°9′21″E / 45.18667°N 9.15583°E Coordinates: 45°11′12″N9°9′21″E / 45.18667°N 9.15583°E |
| Opened | 16th century |
| Owner | University of Pavia |
The Old Campus of the University of Pavia is a complex located in Pavia, in Lombardy, home to the rectorate and some university faculties and the University History Museum of the University of Pavia.
The University of Pavia was founded in 1360, [1] but for a long time the lessons took place in different places, such as in the rooms of the Dominican monastery of San Tommaso, in private homes or in the broletto, only between 1485 and 1490 Ludovico il Moro decided to donate to the university, the only one of the duchy of Milan and in great growth in those years, the palace of Azzone Visconti which was located along Strada Nuova, near the San Matteo hospital. [2] The building was renovated in 1534 and during these works two courtyards with arcades and loggias were created, one intended for students of civil and canon law called "Legal" and the second, originally called "Doctor" along which the classrooms overlooked which housed the teachings of medicine, philosophy and liberal arts. [3]
The two courtyards were modified between 1661 and 1671, based on a project by Giovanni Ambrogio Pessina, who also worked on the Fabbrica del Duomo of Milan. [4]
Pessina designed the courtyards on a double portico, supported by paired Doric columns in pink Baveno granite, joined by balustrades on the upper floor and connected by polygonal arches. In the eighteenth century, Empress Maria Theresa revitalized the university, renewing its teachings, calling in teachers of European fame, but also having the complex completely renovated. The project was entrusted to Giuseppe Piermarini, who designed, between 1771 and 1773, the sober facade along Strada Nuova, enriched by two portals and modified the courtyards, replacing the coffered roofs with vaults and transforming the polygonal arches into round ones. The library (1772) and the Foscoliana hall (1775-1782) for graduation ceremonies were also completed. The growth that the university underwent in those years made new building interventions necessary, in 1783 the emperor Joseph II granted the university the complex of the monastery of Leano, recently suppressed and bordering the “Legal” courtyard. The new body, designed by Leopoldo Pollack and structured on a third courtyard, also equipped with a double loggia on coupled Doric columns, completed in 1785, was destined for the faculty of Theology. [5] Also in the same areas, thanks to the funding granted by the emperor, the new anatomical theater (aula Scarpa) between 1785 and 1786 and the physical theater, today aula Volta, were created in 1787, again on a project by Leopoldo Pollack. [6]
Between 1819 and 1850 the complex underwent a new expansion, in fact, with the acquisition and subsequent demolition, of the southern part of the former monastery of the Leano and the respective church, two other courtyards with porticoes were built on a project by Giuseppe Marchesi, where numerous epigraphs and stone finds from the Roman age were placed walled up under the arcades, while, between 1822 and 1823 the great staircase was built. [7] [8]
The new large hall was also built between 1845 and 1850, initially designed by Giuseppe Marchesi, but built under the direction of Giovanni Battista Vergani. [9] Also in the same years, due to the demolition of many religious buildings in the city, many epigraphs and tomb monuments were recovered, especially from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of university professors who were positioned under the arcades of the courtyards and in particular in the Volta courtyard, where the great funeral monument of Andrea Alciato and the earthen slab of Baldus de Ubaldis are kept. [10]
In 1932 the complex underwent a new large expansion, in fact the San Matteo hospital was transferred to the new clinics built in viale Golgi, and the university therefore acquired the neighboring fifteenth-century complex of the former hospital.
In 1448, twelve citizens of Pavia, coming from both the aristocracy and the bourgeois and mercantile classes, gave life to a brotherhood destined to create a modern welfare and charitable institution, providing not only for the distribution of food and basic necessities to poor, but also to the care and reception of the sick, which later became the main purpose of the institution, with the exclusion of individuals affected by contagious diseases, for which there were other structures in the city. The impetus for the construction of the new hospital came from the preaching of the Dominican monk Dominic of Catalonia, who had moved from Bologna to Pavia around 1450, and in the new location he soon gained the esteem of the major urban classes. He was also responsible for the statutes of the hospital, drawn up in 1451. In 1449 the new institution was recognized and endowed with privileges by both Francesco Sforza, the bishop of Pavia and Pope Nicholas V and, in the area where the ancient priory of San Matteo, the bishop Giacomo Borromeo laid the first stone of the building. [11]
The hospital project was carried out by master Antonio Varassio "de Burgo", himself a member of the brotherhood that set out to build the new hospital, which was sent to Florence, to view the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova and Brescia, where from a new large clinic was soon built in order to identify models for the new hospital in Pavia. The plan, in the shape of a cross inscribed in a square within which four courtyards open, is very similar to that adopted, again in the same years, by Filarete for the Ca 'Granda in Milan, highlighting a notable opening towards the new architectural dictates Renaissance that, in those years, from Florence were radiating towards Lombardy.
The cross is made up of two large corridors, where the inmates were housed, crossed, so as to form four porticoed courtyards, while the perimeter was made up of buildings intended for service rooms. All the courtyards are equipped with arcades and in particular the south-west one, called Sforzesco, so called the terracotta decorations depicting the quince, the heraldic emblem of Francesco Sforza, made by the Cremonese Rinaldo De Stauris in 1484, and provided also of loggetta. [12] The roof with wooden beams, painted in the fifteenth century with figures of angels, in the rooms of the south arm that housed the Art History Library, overlooking the charming courtyard of the Magnolias, is also original. [13]
The University of Pavia is a university located in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. There was evidence of teaching as early as 1361, making it one of the oldest universities in the world. It was the sole university in Milan and the greater Lombardy region until the end of the 19th century.
The Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze is an instructional art academy in Florence, in Tuscany, in central Italy.
Palazzo Brera or Palazzo di Brera is a monumental palace in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It was a Jesuit college for two hundred years. It now houses several cultural institutions including the Accademia di Brera, the art academy of the city, and its gallery, the Pinacoteca di Brera; the Orto Botanico di Brera, a botanical garden; an observatory, the Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera; the Istituto Lombardo Accademia di Scienze e Lettere, a learned society; and an important library, the Biblioteca di Brera.
Santa Maria del Carmine is a church in Pavia, Lombardy, northern Italy, considered amongst the best examples of Lombard Gothic architecture. It was begun in 1374 by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, on a project attributed to Bernardo da Venezia. The construction followed a slow pace, and was restarted in 1432, being finished in 1461.
The Civic Museums of Pavia are a number of museums in Pavia, Lombardy, northern Italy. They are housed in the Castello Visconteo, or Visconti Castle, built in 1360 by Galeazzo II Visconti, soon after taking the city, a free city-state until then. The credited architect is Bartolino da Novara. The castle used to be the main residence of the Visconti family, while the political capital of the state was Milan. North of the castle a wide park was enclosed, also including the Certosa of Pavia, founded 1396 according to a vow of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, meant to be a sort of private chapel of the Visconti dynasty. The Battle of Pavia (1525), climax of the Italian Wars, took place inside the castle park.
San Teodoro is a Romanesque-style Roman Catholic church in the town center of Pavia, Italy.
The Visconti Park or Parco Visconteo is an area in Lombardy, northern Italy, between Pavia and Certosa di Pavia of about 2,200 hectares (22 km2) corresponding to what was once the private park of the Visconti family, lords and dukes of Milan.
San Lanfranco is a Romanesque-style Roman Catholic church and former abbey, located on via San Lanfranco Vescovo, 4/6, just west of the town center of Pavia, region of Lombardy, Italy.
The Visconti Castle of Crenna is a castle of mediaeval origin located in Crenna, frazione of Gallarate, Lombardy, Northern Italy. It is linked to the fame of Lodrisio Visconti, who raised against and then reconciled with the members of the family of his cousin Matteo Visconti, Lord of Milan. In the 14th century, the castle underwent expansion and destruction according to the alternative fortunes of Lodrisio.
The Visconti Castle of Pavia is a medieval castle in Pavia, Lombardy, Northern Italy. It was built after 1360 in a few years by Galeazzo II Visconti, Lord of Milan, and used as a sovereign residence by him and his son Gian Galeazzo, first duke of Milan. Its wide dimensions induced Petrarch, who visited Pavia in the fall of 1365, to call it "an enormous palace in the citadel, a truly remarkable and costly structure". Adjacent to the castle, the Visconti created a vast walled park that reached the Certosa di Pavia, a Carthusian monastery founded in 1396 by the Visconti as well and located about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) to the north.
Characteristic of the historic center of Pavia is the presence of medieval noble towers that survive in its urban fabric, despite having once been more numerous, as evidenced by the sixteenth-century representation of the city frescoed in the church of San Teodoro. They were mostly built between the 11th and 13th centuries when the Ghibelline city was at the height of its Romanesque flowering.
The church of San Francesco of Assisi is a Catholic religious building in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy.
The church of Sant'Eusebio was a church of Pavia, of which today only the crypt remains. The church was probably built by the Lombard king Rothari (636-652) as the city's Arian cathedral. It later became the fulcrum of the conversion to Catholicism of the Lombards initiated by Theodolinda and the monks of San Colombano and which later received, precisely in Pavia, a great impulse from King Aripert I (653-661) and from Bishop Anastasius.
The church of San Giovanni Domnarum is one of the oldest in Pavia. In the crypt, which was rediscovered after centuries in 1914, remains of frescoes are visible.
The Basilica of Santissimo Salvatore is a church of Pavia. It was founded in 657 by the Lombard king Aripert I and became a mausoleum for many of the Lombard kings.
The church of Santa Maria in Betlem, founded around 1130, stands in the characteristic district of the Borgo of Pavia, located, after the Ponte Coperto, on the other bank of the Ticino river from the city center.
The monastery of San Felice was one of the main female Benedictine monasteries of Pavia; founded since the Lombard period, it was suppressed in the 18th century.
The Teatro Fraschini is an opera house in Pavia, Italy.
The Broletto or Broletto Palace of Pavia, Italy has for centuries housed the civic government offices of this city found in the region of Lombardy, Italy. The term Broletto refers to a buildings equivalent to the town hall or town assembly.
The church of San Marino is a Catholic church in Pavia, in Lombardy.