The educational buildings of Pius IV: variations upon a building type in urban monuments

Pope Pius IV (1559–1565) was a passionate patron of letters and the arts, seeking to enlist them in his reform of the Catholic Church. He commissioned numerous architectural projects in order to house and represent adequately various offices and institutions. In Piusʹs mind, architecture was an urbanistic art; his buildings demonstrated the reform and resurgence of the Church in the setting in which the faithful lived out their lives. Among his many endeavors, Pius sought to promote higher education. To support these efforts, Pius commissioned three buildings for educational institutions: the Archiginnasio for the University of Bologna, the Sapienza for the University in Rome, and the Collegio Borromeo for a recently founded college of the same name in Pavia. While these buildings share a common typology, they took advantage of the range of expression allowed for the type. The differences reflected the nature of the institution, allowing the buildings to be urban proclamations about the college or university. Piusʹs buildings were important examples of the type. Examining these three seminal buildings allows us to understand how this important yet understudied patron employed architecture to serve his reforms, without demanding standard forms or requiring a uniform architectural language.