Piacenza Cremona Campus in the heart of Italy's breadbasket
The Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore is the most important Catholic university in Europe and was founded in 1921 by Father Agostino Gemelli. The Faculty of Agriculture, food and environmental sciences was funded in the post WW II in the heart of Italy’s breadbasket. Since then, the campus has grown steadily, thanks in part to the university's working relationships with public organizations, the business world, and local credit institutions. Such relationships were instrumental in starting up the Faculty of Economics in 1990 and the Faculty of Law in 1995. Today the Faculty of Agriculture is based in Piacenza and Cremona campuses.
The Piacenza Campus encompass the buildings used for education and research (lecture halls and lab facilities), together with the university chapel, a conference center, the Sant'Isidoro College, the Gasparini Residence, dining facilities, libraries, study halls, multimedia halls, landscaped areas, and a sports center covering more than 8,000 square meters.
Cremona and Piacenza (Placentia, in its original, Roman name) were founded together as twin towns on 218 B.C. with the aim of controlling the Po river in the core of barbarian territories. This happened exactly when Hannibal was crossing the Alps with his army and… the elephants.
Università Cattolica has recently moved the Cremona Campus that is now housed in the new location in the former Monastery of Santa Monica, in Via Bissolati, where our Workshop will take place. The monastery of San Salvatore is the first to be certainly settled in the 11th century. Due to the intervention of the Duchess Bianca Maria Visconti and Pope Paul II, the monastery was reformed and named Monastery of Santa Monica. At the end of the 15th century the church and the convent were rebuilt and the works continued into the early 17th century. Following the Napoleonic suppressions in 1810, the monastery was destined to barracks and especially used as a store of fodder. Between 1880 and 1891, a large external building was constructed, known as 'Magazzino carri', which was used as a storage for wagons. Throughout the 20th century the building has been used as barracks with the name of Caserma Goito.
Since the academic year 2020/21 Monastery of Santa Monica is the new location of the Cremona Campus.
Cremona is located 80 km from Milan, in the southeastern part of Lombardy. Cremona boasts an ancient violin-making tradition that was included in the Unesco Heritage list in 2012. World-renowned violin maker Antonio Stradivari was born here and some of his masterpieces can be found at the Violin Museum, one of Cremona’s key attractions. Cremona’s monumental Cathedral can easily be considered one of the most stunning religious buildings in northern Italy with its stunning facade with rows of arcades and sculptures.
Foodies will be spoilt for choice in Cremona, with some pretty unique dishes. The king of local tables is the gran bollito, a dish made with different types of boiled meats and served with mostarda cremonese, a special spicy-sweet condiment that contains a mix of large chunks of fruits preserved in a mustard syrup. Other traditional products include Salame Cremona IGP (a particular type of salami seasoned with crushed garlic and spices) and tasty cheeses. They can go together with the production of Piacenza where the largest amount of D.O.P of cured meat (coppa, salame and pancetta) in Italy are produced as well as the two well-known D.O.C. wines, Gutturnio and Ortrugo, deeply linked to its story and terroir.