History

The ambitious Savoy project to refound the University of Cagliari, part of the reformist process initiated by Charles Emmanuel III, who for this purpose established the Secretariat for Sardinian Affairs, entrusting its management to the Valsesian lawyer Giovanni Battista Lorenzo Bogino, culminated in 1764 with the publication in Turin, at the Royal Printing House, of the university’s founding act, the “Constitutions of His Majesty for the University of Cagliari.” It was therefore necessary to build a new building worthy of housing the nascent institution. The task of designing the new cultural center was entrusted to a young Piedmontese military engineer, the aristocrat Saverio Belgrano di Famolasco, captain of the Artillery Corps. It included not only the University Palace, but also the new Palazzo del Seminario Tridentino, and, between the two buildings, a theater, which was never built. As early as 1765, construction began on the Bastioni del Balice, near the 
Elephant Tower , of the most significant late-Baroque civil architecture complex on the entire island. It began with the 
University Palace.

The first intense construction phase, which lasted four years, allowed the first phase of work to be inaugurated with a solemn ceremony in July 1769. In 1772, work began on the Seminary Palace, with the first phase completed in 1778. Belgrano, who had returned to his homeland in 1769, was succeeded in the direction of the Factory by several other Piedmontese military architects, including Viana, Perini, and the surveyor of the Kingdom Carlo Maino, who made changes to the Belgrano project. Work continued in several stages and lasted a long time, until completion in the second half of the nineteenth century. The two buildings form a single architectural complex, elegant and sober, with large entrance doors; the Seminary’s is more elaborate and more ornate with Rococo motifs, while the University’s is more essential, surmounted by a broken curvilinear tympanum. The façades, punctuated by tall pilasters, between which stand the three rows of windows on the various floors, are characterized by the presence of projecting cornices, moldings, and curvilinear tympanums.

The main doors lead to spacious atriums, illuminated by large arched windows, overlooking the internal, quadrangular courtyards, which feature a central well. From the atriums of both buildings, an austere staircase leads to the upper floors, while a symmetrical double staircase leads from the courtyard of the University Building to a panoramic terrace overlooking the bastion behind it. Worthy of note are the Aula Magna and the Rector’s Office, as well as the room that housed the Library since its inception, known as the “Eighteenth-Century Hall.” The Seminary building, which housed the institution until the mid-1950s, was donated to the University by the then Bishop, Monsignor Paolo Botto. Partially restored in the 1960s, the first floor has housed the Library’s rooms and offices since then. Renovated again in the 1980s, the upper floor was used to house University offices, and the basement was used for the University’s computing center. On the ground floor are the rooms of the “Luigi Piloni Sardinian Collection,” also belonging to the University, and the Chapel of the former Seminary , which houses the oldest and most significant part of the Library’s rare and valuable holdings.