Palazzo del Rettorato - Siena - Tuscany

The Palazzo del Rettorato of the University of Siena (former Monastery of San Vigilio), located in Via Banchi di Sotto, represents the heart of the glorious and centuries-old Sienese University. It officially became the seat of the university from 1815 when, after the end of the Napoleonic era and Ferdinand III of Habsburg-Lorraine was restored to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the university resumed its regular academic activity.

At that time, the building, which already housed several religious orders, needed major renovations and the Sienese Agostino Fantastici, the most important local architect of the time, was the first protagonist. Fantastici was tasked with the construction of the so-called Aula Magna Storica on the first floor of the building.

Palazzo del Rettorato interior court

Other changes to the building at the end of the nineteenth century are due to Giuseppe Partini, already author of restorations in the Duomo, in the Basilica of San Francesco and in piazza del Campo, which had become a point of reference for anyone wishing to intervene in historic Sienese buildings.

The last significant transformations of the building date back to the Fascist era when, at the behest of the Rector Gianni Petragnani, the engineer Guido Bonci Casuccini designed changes to the existing rooms and the construction of a new Aula Magna. For the artistic part, Bonci Casuccini turned to the inspiration of the eclectic Arturo Viligiardi, a former student of Giovanni Duprè, protagonist of the Sienese artistic world of the early twentieth century.

The pseudo-Renaissance Partinian courtyard houses sculptural works by Goro di Gregorio, Pietro Tenerani and Giuseppe Romolo Molteni, among others. The monument in the center of the courtyard, already visible from Via Banchi di Sotto, is an 1893 work dedicated to the fallen of Curtatone and Montanara sculpted by Raffaello Romanelli.

Willem Vandenameele