Palazzo dell’Università

The original Palazzo dell’Università’s plant is dated back to 1434. It was built by Alfonso the Magnanimous, founder of “Siculorum Gymnasium”, indeed the Academic University’s seal celebrate him.

This building was totally destroyed by the earthquake in 1693 and it was rebuilt and then severely damaged by the earthquake of 1818. Now it’s largely a nineteenth-century building.

The facade was constructed in the nineteenth century by the architect Mario Di Stefano, the internal courtyard with two rows of arcades, however, is an exemplary architectural realization by Vaccarini. The Palazzo dell’Università is a cultural heritage not only for the architectural grandeur but also for the eighteenth-century frescoes by Giovanni Battista Piparo, the tapestry of the Aragonese period and damask wallpaper covering the Great Hall’s walls and, not least, it’s important for the wealth University Library that was founded in 1755 by the Benedictine Vito D’Amico, it keeps more than two hundred and ten thousand volumes, some dating from the fifteenth century.

The palace is now the seat of the University, the University Rector’s Office and the Regional Library.