La sede
Collegio Elvetico - the Swiss seminary college - was founded in 1579 by archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo with the goal of opening another Milanese site, in addition to the Maggiore Episcopal Seminary of Porta Orientale (modern-day Corso Venezia), for the training of the secular clergy, and in particular the Swiss clergy, that worked in the parish churches of the Milanese diocese located in the Swiss cantons where the Protestant Reformation had already begun to spread.
Having been temporarily housed at the in commendam church of Santo Spirito, in 1583 the Collegio was transferred to the suppressed Humiliati monastery of Santa Maria di Vigevano in Porta Nuova, which “occupied almost the entirety of the south-west part of a neighbourhood located close to the Naviglio and delimited by the banks of the Naviglio itself, by what was known as Strada Marina, by the district of San Primo and by the road that led to the ancient basilica of San Dionigi” (S. Della Torre, L'Archivio di Stato di Milano [The Archive built from the architecture of Milan] in L'Archivio di Stato di Milano, by G. Cagliari Poli, Florence, 1992). The remaining portions of the neighbourhood were owned in part by private citizens, in part by the nearby convent of San Pietro Celestino and, finally, in part by the parish church of San Primo with the adjacent monastery of Sant'Ambrogio ad Nemus. Construction of the bona fide Collegio Elvetico - which began with the church - only began a few years later, in 1608, during the cardinalship of Federico Borromeo, cousin of Carlo.
Contrary to popular belief, it was not so much architect Fabio Mangone that oversaw the project and the work in the building in the early years of construction but rather two lesser-known figures in Milanese architectural circles, foreman Cesare Arano and engineer and architect Aurelio Trezzi. From 1613 Fabio Mangone was ingenierius of the Collegio. “It was he who wrote the specifications of the tender, defining every detail of the architectural elements: a portico with Doric columns topped by a loggia with Ionic columns, both trabeated and barrel vaulted” (N. Onida, Architetture milanesi. Collegio Elvetico, Centro per l'architettura di Milano, 1997).
The part of the building constructed by 1613 and corresponding to the height of the current first courtyard was aligned with Via San Primo. Work on the second courtyard, again carried out by Mangone, didn’t begin until after 1621-22, even if an extension plan had probably already been mooted as early as 1613. The porticoes along Via Marina were also completed under Mangone’s supervision.
Work only began on the facade of the Collegio in 1632, following the completion of the second courtyard. With Mangone having died of the plague in 1629, the facade was entrusted to Francesco Maria Richini, appointed “architect of ecclesiastical buildings” by cardinal Federico Borromeo. Richini found himself confronted with quite the problem: if the facade was aligned with the internal courtyards it wouldn’t be parallel with the Naviglio, as the facade of the church was. The architect’s original solution was a concave facade, not associated with any classical orders, which “partially hides (hid) its non-alignment with the courtyard” (Onida). As the facade displays the coat of arms of the Litta, we can be confident that it was not completed until after 1652 during the episcopate of Alfonso Litta. In 1664 the Collegio building was further expanded with the purchase of the monastery of San Primo, located next to the church, following the suppression of the order of Sant'Ambrogio ad Nemus on which its survival depended. The management of the worksite was taken over by architect Gerolamo Quadrio and subsequently his son, the architect Giovanni Battista Quadrio. “The former also did work on the church, creating new decorative elements and a retro-choir (circa 1674) and perhaps ordered the decoration of the staircase; the latter oversaw the construction of the portico between the two courtyards and the portico at the end of the second courtyard (circa 1713 and 1721)” (Onida). After over a century and a half of work, all that was left of the courtyards to complete were the porticoes along Via San Primo, which were finished after 1776 by architect Leopoldo Pollack who had taken over the construction of the Collegio.
After the closure of Collegio Elvetico and the transfer of the clerics to the Seminario della Canonica in 1786, the building had various different uses. From 1786 to 1796 it was the seat of the Governing Council of Milan, and underwent a number of modifications according to the plans of architects Giuseppe Piermarini and Marcellino Segrè.
In the 20-year Napoleonic era, the building was firstly the headquarters of the Great Council of the Juniors of the Cisalpine Republic (1797 - 1802); then of the Ministry of War of the Italian Republic (1802 - 1808); and finally of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy (1809 - 1814), the body from which it took the name by which it is still best known today despite the short duration and relative lack of importance of this institution.
During the subsequent Restoration period, the building housed the Imperial Command and the Austrian Records Office (1814 - 1816) and then became the State Accounting Office from 1816 to 1859. After Unification, Palazzo del Senato was used for cultural and study purposes. Firstly it was the seat of the Scientific and Literary Academy of Milan (1862 - 1863); later, from 1865, work began on transforming the site into the State Archive of Milan. At the start of the 1870s, quotes, surveys and bidding processes were carried out for the gradual transfer of the government records and the judicial and financial records to the former Collegio Elvetico.
For around fifteen years, the State Archive shared the building with other institutions such as the Court of Assize (1862 - 1881), the Higher technical education institute, i.e. the future Milan Polytechnic, the Permanent Exhibition of Fine Arts (1870 - 1886) and the Universal Exhibition of1881. Also transferred from San Fedele to the Archive in 1871 was the School of Palaeography, Archive Studies and Diplomatics which, founded in 1842, still exists today. Finally, from 1886 the State Archive of Milan became the permanent and exclusive tenant of the Palazzo del Senato; the gradual process of transferring almost all of the records deposited in various sites across the city to the State Archive concluded the same year. The vast archive of notarial acts, preserved at the Broletto Nuovo in Piazza Mercanti, was only deposited at the State Archive of Milan in 1944, however.
In August 1943, the building suffered significant damage - both structural and in terms of its archives - during the devastating bombardment of Milan. In regard to the former and the relative rebuilding work, “a decision was made to save the facade and the courtyards and to reconstruct the buildings to the rear in accordance with utilitarian criteria” (Onida). As for the latter, a substantial legacy of extremely important sources are currently preserved in almost 50 linear kilometres of shelving and available to visitors of the State Archive.
By Giovanni Liva, State archivist
