The Palace of the Palatine School (in Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

: Palazzo delle Scuole Palatine, or just Scuole Palatine) is a historic building of Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, located in Piazza Mercanti

Piazza Mercanti

Piazza Mercanti is a central city square of Milan, Italy. It is located between Piazza del Duomo, which marks the centre of the modern city of Milan, and Piazza Cordusio, and it used to be the heart of the city in the Middle Ages...

, the former city centre in the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

. It served as the seat of the most prestigious higher school of medieval Milan. Many notable Milanese scholars of different ages studied or taught in these schools; Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...

 and Cesare Beccaria, among others, served as teachers in the Palatine. The current building dates back to 1644, when it replaced an older one, which had the same function and was destroyed by a fire.

The school was established in Piazza Mercanti under Giovanni Maria Visconti. In 1644, they were destroyed by a fire, and rebuilt based on the prestigious model of the nearby Palazzo dei Giureconsulti

Palazzo dei Giureconsulti

The Giureconsulti Palace , also known as Palazzo Affari ai Giureconsulti or simply Palazzo Affari, is a 16th century building of Milan, Italy. It is located in Piazza Mercanti, former city centre in the Middle Ages.The construction of the palace began in 1562 on a design by architect Vincenzo Seregni...

, by architect Carlo Buzzi.

The building is decorated with several monuments, including a plaque with an epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

 by Ausonius

Ausonius

Decimius Magnus Ausonius was a Latin poet and rhetorician, born at Burdigala .-Biography:Decimius Magnus Ausonius was born in Bordeaux in ca. 310. His father was a noted physician of Greek ancestry and his mother was descended on both sides from long-established aristocratic Gallo-Roman families...

 celebrating Milan as the "New Rome" of the 4th century, a statue of Augustine by sculptor Pietro Lasagna, and a statue of Ausonius.

Sources

• O.P. Melano, Milano di terracotta e mattoni, Mazzotta, 2002
• A. Lanza and M. Somarè, Milano e suoi palazzi - Porta Vercellina, Comasina e Nuova, Libreria Milanese, pp. 91–93