Cagliari, University Palace

The palace is located in the historic district that was the center of political and religious power in Cagliari between the 13th and 19th centuries.
The University of Cagliari was established in 1626. In the 18th century, the Savoy administration decided to assign it a new and dignified headquarters in view of the illuministic program of reform of the Sardinian universities wanted by Carlo Emanuele III and implemented by his Secretary of State for Sardinian Affairs Count Bogino.
The project was entrusted to the Piedmontese military engineer Saverio Belgrano di Famolasco, who was engaged in works in Sardinia from 1761 to 1769 to fortify the island but also in public and private buildings. He created a cultural center, consisting of the University, the theater and the Tridentine Seminary, on the Bastion of the Balice, near the Elephant Tower. In 1770, the university building was already finished, but the project, preserved in the State Archives of Turin, has significant differences compared to its construction. The theater, for example, which should have been in the center of the long building and equipped with a large access porch, was never built. As for the part destined for Seminary, later incorporated by the University, it was completed in 1778 by the Piedmontese military architect Perini and later taken up by Giuseppe Viana.
The building is spread out in length and has a series of windows regularly arranged on three floors on its façade. The entire façade is vertically punctuated by tall pilasters while long frames cross it horizontally. In the second order, the windows are all equipped with a gable while on the lower floor they are surmounted by slightly projecting shelves.
On the ground floor there are two majestic portals, one of which, more sober, framed between pilasters with a tympanum with broken wings, while the other, that of the former Seminary, has a fuss marked by marked late-baroque moldings in a strong projection compared to the prospectus.
Inside, the building stands out for the presence of a spacious porched atrium, around the inner courtyard from which it receives light through the large windows that close the loggias. The main hall, with the wall paintings by Filippo Figari, and the eighteenth-century library room, whose original furnishings are preserved, are the most intact and appreciable rooms for their formal quality.

History of studies
The palace is the subject of a summary fact sheet in Salvatore Naitza's volume on late seventeenth-century and purist architecture (1992).

Bibliography
R. Salinas, “Piedmontese Architects in Sardinia”, in Proceedings of the X Congress on the History of Architecture, Rome, 1959;
A. Cavallari Murat, “Saverio Belgrano di Famolasco, engineer from Savoy as an architect in Sardinia”, in Proceedings and Technical Review of the Society of Engineers and Architects in Turin, XIV, n. 12, December 1960;
C. Maltese, Art in Sardinia from V to XVIII, Rome, De Luca, 1962; A. Cavallari, Murat, “The Architecture of the Eighteenth Century in Sardinia”, in Acts of the XIII Congress on the History of Architecture, Rome, 1963;
V. Mossa, From Gothic to Baroque in Sardinia, Sassari, Carlo Delfino, 1982;
S. Naitza, Architecture from the late 17th century to purist classicism. Nuoro, Ilisso, 1992, sheet 20.