At the end of the 16th century, the Jesuit Order settled in Mantua, with the approval of the Gonzaga family, who identified a strategic area of the city, on the outskirts of the Jewish quarter, as a base for the Order's development. Here, in 1584, the Jesuits founded the first college, structured like a modern university, to educate the youth of Mantua's most prominent families. The Order quickly gained social and economic power and expanded the college's size with the construction of the Church of the Holy Trinity, now the State Archives. The Palazzo degli Studi was renovated and expanded in 1763, designed by Alfonso Torreggiani, as the new home of the Jesuit college, which today houses the Liceo Classico "Virgilio.".
Ten years later, with the suppression of the Order, the Habsburg government took direct control of education, expanded the curriculum, and created a natural history museum, with chemistry and physics laboratories. The complex also housed a new public library, inaugurated on March 30, 1780, designed by royal architect Paolo Pozzo. For over two hundred years, the Teresian Library It welcomes visitors and scholars and preserves the most precious bibliographic, cartographic and documentary collections of the Mantua area.
What you see in Piazza Dante Alighieri was once a university campus. In 1768, Maria Theresa of Austria expanded the area dedicated to studies: the Gymnasium with its scientific collections, the Library, and the Virgilian National Academy, with the magnificent Scientific Theater by Antonio Galli Bibiena.
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Teresian Library
Palace of Studies and the Jesuits
State Archives
Observatory
