Sapienza Nuova

Bishop Benedetto Guidalotti of Recanati bought the Albergo del Leone in 1427 to provide premises for a new college, the Collegio di S. Girolamo (later called the  Sapienza Nuova) for impecunious foreigners who wished to study law and medicine the Studium.   He died in 1429, and Pope Martin Vappointed Cardinal Antonio Cassino to complete the foundation of the college.  Pope Eugenius IV formally recognised it in 1431 and the first twenty students were in residence by 1443.

Alberto Guidalotti, Benedetto's father, who had taught civil law at the Studium, had been the only senior member of the family to escape the retribution that followed the murder of Biordo Michelotti by Francesco Guidalotti in 1398.  Benedetto had nevertheless found it prudent to develop his career at the papal court, becoming Treasurer to Pope Martin V.  The establishment of the new college was part of a program to rehabilitate his family's reputation after his return from what had, in effect, been a period of self-imposed exile.

Bishop Guidalotti's sister, Elisabetta, whose father-in-law Onofrio Bartolini had taught civil law at the Studium in the period 1396-1404, took over the quest to rehabilitate the Guidalotti family.  She is documented among it donors after her brother’s death and was named in its statutes as the only woman allowed to enter its chapel. 

The original buildings of the Sapienza Nuova were demolished in 1540 to make way for the Rocca Paolina, and the students moved to a surviving part of the convent of Santa Maria dei Servi that stood on the left hand corner of what is now Via Luigi Bonazzi and Viale Indipendenza.  (A second part of Hotel Brufani was built on this site in 1902.)

The French suppressed the Sapienza Nuova in 1798, but Pope Pius VII reopened it in 1807 as the Collegio Pio della Sapienza.  It became part of the University in 1811.  In 1824, Pope Leo XII made it the chief college of the university, and in 1829 it moved to the complex of Sapienza Vecchia.

Works Removed from the Sapienza Nuova

Sapienza Nuova Altarpiece (1456)

This altarpiece by Benozzo Gozzoli, which is signed and dated, was commissioned for the altar of the Cappella di San Girolamo.  The presence of the Guidalotti arms on the predella and of St Elizabeth among the depicted saints suggests that it was commissioned by Elisabetta Guidalotti.  The college gave to the Academia di Belle Arti in 1816 and it is now in the Galleria Nazionale (Room 10).

Return to Walk VII.