Collegio Borromeo

History

Collegio Borromeo was founded in 1561 by the estate of cardinal St. Charles Borromeo which aimed to create an institution to accommodate young promising students experiencing economic hardship. This is still the aim of the Fondazione Collegio Borromeo. On May 10, 2009, the Women's Section was opened in the presence of Minister Mariastella Gelmini and Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi; it is intended to accommodate approximately fifty of the most deserving female students from the University of Pavia.

Rooms

The student rooms are divided according to the sides of the building: "Piazza" ("Square") on the western side, facing Piazza Borromeo, "Giardino" ("Garden") on the south side, "Vicolo" ("Lane") on the north side, looking onto Via Cardinal Tosi. The east side is called "Richini", as it is situated on a seventeenth-century garden designed by Francesco Maria Richini, and houses two auditorium-style rooms ("White Room" and "Mural Room") with private upstairs rooms for guests. The rooms are also divided into several levels: "Mezzanino" (mezzanine), "Nobile" (piano nobile), "Paradiso" (second mezzanine) and "Iperuranio" (attic). Also on the south side are "Sangiovannino alto" and "basso" ("Upper" and "Lower"), saved from the Church of San Giovanni in Borgo before demolition in the nineteenth century.

State rooms

The White Room, located on the main floor, on the Francesco Maria Richini side of the College, is used for seminars and conferences. It seats about 100 people and is characterized by high eighteenth-century wooden doors in pastel green and gold foil. Paintings of the patrons of the College, members of the Borromeo family, decorate the walls.

The Hall of frescoes, adjacent to the white room, takes its name from a series of frescoes that illustrate different moments in the life of Carlo Borromeo, founder of the College. It has a capacity of about 200 people and is used for congresses, conventions and concerts. On the eastern and western walls, which are not frescoed, hang a series of paintings representing cardinals of the Borromeo family from various eras. The frescoes, due to Cesare Nebbia, Federico Zuccari and aides, were made at the beginning of the 17th century on commission by Federico Borromeo; they cover the entrance wall (North), the back wall (South) and the ceiling of the hall. The larger wall frescoes refer to the cardinal appointment of Charles Borromeo and to various episodes relating to the plague of 1576–1577, known as the "plague of Saint Charles".

Chapel

The Chapel, dedicated to St. Justina, the patron saint of the Borromeo family, and to Saint Charles Borromeo, was completed in 1581 and is regularly officiated. Externally it has an important seventeenth-century marble portal, surmounted by the bust of Saint Charles. The barrel vault is decorated with the oldest frescoes in the Palace, made by the painter Giovanni Battista Muttoni in 1579, in late Mannerist style, and represent four scenes from the Old Testament, inserted in perspective squares and multiple and exuberant frames, full of geometric ornaments, fruit and vegetable borders and grotesque decorations. The walls are frescoed in 1909 by Manlio Oppio, Osvaldo Bignami: the patron saints of the college and university students face the four rounds. The floor is the original sixteenth-century one, in Lombard terracotta, with the typical two-tone veins reminiscent of wood, while the choir was added in the nineteenth century.