Ex Collegio degli Scolopi

The Ex Collegio degli Scolopi is a curious piece of urban architecture, its granite-block façade on Piazza Mazzini suggesting an authority that its asymmetrical front door quietly undermines. Built in a C-shape around an internal courtyard, once the site of a cemetery, the building is an essay in disciplined geometry that has been gradually, gently corrupted by time.

The courtyard is porticoed along its central side; the other wings present a study in contrasts. Those facing Via Mazzini and Via Settembrini maintain a stern regularity, while the wing overlooking the piazza is more haphazard, as if the architect’s attention wandered. Inside, long corridors distribute rooms across two floors, with the first floor still carrying cross and barrel vaults, remnants of an earlier, more coherent scheme.

The building has undergone many transformations, and it shows. What remains is a solid, workmanlike structure of granite and brick, whose modest irregularities are more interesting than any perfect symmetry would be.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.