The Collegio Romano

For one of my themes, I will be examining schooling in Rome. Our classroom building shares a piazza with the Collegio Romano. I snapped a couple quick photos of the high school today before I left the Sede for home. The scale of the school building is fantastic. It was not possible to capture the entirety of it, even from across the piazza.


According to the Eye Witness Guide, the school was originally founded in the sixteenth century by Ignatius of Loyola as a school for the Catholic church. Until 1870, the Collegio Romano educated the highest clergy of the church (1). Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops studied here. In 1870, the state took over the school. Today it serves as a large high school. Attending class in the Sede we can hear students come and go in the piazza that our classroom shares with the Collegio. The piazza is named after the school.


1. Fiona Wild, ed., Eye Witness Travel Rome (London: Dorling Kindersley Limited, 1993), 2007 edition, 106.