Description
The Convitto Nazionale Mario Pagano is Campobasso's historic school, an imposing building right in the city center, where children and teenagers still study today. It is worth a look for its long history and for its garden, rich in rare trees.
The garden, planted at the end of the 19th century, is a small botanical treasure. Towering over everything is the giant sequoia, which has adapted well to the city's climate and grown to an impressive height.
Next to it is the ginkgo biloba, a tree native to China, with fan-shaped leaves that are green in spring and golden yellow in the fall. The cedar of Lebanon stretches its branches out beyond the railings.
The building has three floors in the central block and two in the wings, with a wide portal and slightly arched windows. Inside are an elementary school, a middle school and a science high school, as well as the boarders' rooms and a chapel with two 18th-century Florentine works.
The school was founded by a decree of March 12, 1816 as the Collegio Sannitico. Its first home was the old monastery of the Antonians, poorly suited to house a school, and lessons began on November 16, 1817.
Its running passed to the Barnabite fathers, who had a new building put up for the school and the boarding house, but as soon as it was finished they asked to leave the institute. The college stayed closed until 1857, when, under Canon Berardo Palombieri, it became a high school.
On March 4, 1865 a decree signed in Milan by King Victor Emmanuel II gave it its present name, in honor of Mario Pagano, jurist and patriot.
Among its teachers was a famous name: the philosopher Giovanni Gentile, who held a chair in the junior high school. Years later, as minister, he would sign the 1923 reform of the Italian school system.
Television picked it too: the convitto hosted the ninth season of the reality show Il Collegio.
The garden, planted at the end of the 19th century, is a small botanical treasure. Towering over everything is the giant sequoia, which has adapted well to the city's climate and grown to an impressive height.
Next to it is the ginkgo biloba, a tree native to China, with fan-shaped leaves that are green in spring and golden yellow in the fall. The cedar of Lebanon stretches its branches out beyond the railings.
The building has three floors in the central block and two in the wings, with a wide portal and slightly arched windows. Inside are an elementary school, a middle school and a science high school, as well as the boarders' rooms and a chapel with two 18th-century Florentine works.
The school was founded by a decree of March 12, 1816 as the Collegio Sannitico. Its first home was the old monastery of the Antonians, poorly suited to house a school, and lessons began on November 16, 1817.
Its running passed to the Barnabite fathers, who had a new building put up for the school and the boarding house, but as soon as it was finished they asked to leave the institute. The college stayed closed until 1857, when, under Canon Berardo Palombieri, it became a high school.
On March 4, 1865 a decree signed in Milan by King Victor Emmanuel II gave it its present name, in honor of Mario Pagano, jurist and patriot.
Among its teachers was a famous name: the philosopher Giovanni Gentile, who held a chair in the junior high school. Years later, as minister, he would sign the 1923 reform of the Italian school system.
Television picked it too: the convitto hosted the ninth season of the reality show Il Collegio.