The Venerable English College in Rome.

The Eternal City has always been a crossway for people from all corners of the world, initially from all corners of the Roman Empire and beyond, later as the cult of Peter and Paul developed and as the Church grew throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, pilgrims first, tourists later began to flock to our sacred city, a process that grew during the Renaissance, later in the 18th and 19th centuries with the Grand Tour, and which continues to this day.

In the later Middle Ages, Rome wasn’t at the height of its glory, but there still was considerable activity. Those pilgrims visiting the great shrines of the city needed places where to rest, one such place was indeed the Venerable English College in Rome. Today, it remains the oldest British institution outside of the United Kingdom. It was initially founded in 1363 as a hospital (which in Medieval times functioned as modern hotels) for English and Welsh pilgrims visiting Rome. An earlier English hospital was established on the St. Peter’s bank of the Tiber a few centuries earlier under royal patronage. It later came under the patronage of papacy when Sixtus IV restored it in the Renaissance, Santo Spirito in Sassia. 

During the time of the Avignonese Captivity in the 14th century, the hospice saw a period of decline from which it did not properly recover until the later 16th century. The Renaissance saw a period of respite, the college became known as the “King’s Hospice” during the reign of Henry VII, later, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey had his palazzo built not too far from here, near the Pantheon. This peaceful period was abruptly shaken by the Protestant Reformation and the Sack of Rome. In 1576, Cardinal William Allen reestablished it into a college. Later in 1579, Gregory XIII ratified this officially, this is why the Boncompagni coat of arms appears on the college shield. Students were prepared as missionaries, 44 of them were martyred between 1581 and 1679, this is how the college adopted the title “venerable”.

The college system adopted by Rome in the Middle Ages for ecclesial formation formed the basis for the first universities, it first began with the monasteries and other ecclesial institutions, it spread to Bologna, Paris, Padua and was later adopted by Oxford on the basis of the French system. The idea was that of having a system of distinct colleges centered around a common teaching institution. The system survives in Rome, Bologna, Padua, Paris, Oxford and Cambridge. Indeed, these academic institutions which later became prestigious universities, began their life as clergy-training establishments.

This model was formalized in Rome at the time of the Council of Trent (1545-1563), a period of self-examination for the Church, during which many new reforms were promoted, including the establishment of national seminaries, with a strong emphasis on those nations plagued by the Protestant Reformation. During the centuries, many important visitors walked through its rooms, from Thomas Cromwell to John Milton, the Stuart pretenders were frequent attenders during their Roman captivity, even Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles III in recent times.

Today, while the Venerable English College preserves some of its Medieval structure, it mainly exists as a cluster of 16th century buildings surviving on the previous foundations, formalized into the shape of a Roman palazzo in 1654. The first chapel was built in 1376, some elements, such as as a Gothic pointed-arch window survives in the delightful college garden. The original chapel was refitted during the reestablishment of the college in the 1570s. 

A fine altarpiece from this period by Durante Alberti survives in the main chapel, it is a dramatic depiction of the Holy Trinity with English martyrs Thomas Becket and Edmund King of East Anglia. Christ’s blood descends on a map of the British Isles. It is a moving example of Roman Mannerism, it still is Renaissance art and it follows in that tradition of beauty but it adds the frenzy, the drama and pathos of an age of great emotional and spiritual struggle. 

Perhaps, the most significant element in the college are the decorations by the great Baroque master, Jesuit Andrea Pozzo, renowned for the stunning frescoes at Sant’Ignazio and indeed the renowned “fake dome” there. The domestic chapel is painted with a fine depiction of the Assumption of Mary while the refectory has a triumphant fresco of Saint George.

In the sometimes-frustrating Victorian tradition of the 19th century, the original church was pulled down and replaced with a fine neo-Romanesque chapel designed by Virginio Vespignani, completed and consecrated in 1888. The church is the spiritual heart of the seminary; the altar contains the relics of the English martyrs. The college has struggled through the centuries, it lived through the Reformation, the suppression of the Jesuits in the 18th century, the Napoleonic Wars, during which the college was sacked, and two world wars. Today, it is an important Catholic cultural site for English visitors. Its motto is: Ignem veni mittere in terram.

As of February 2026, it is now possible to visit the Medieval crypt, initially a space where college members could be buried without altering the state of the chapel. In the crypt it is possible to see a portion of the original via Triumphalis which would connect the Forum to the Vatican Hill in antiquity. It later became the chapel of the Confraternity of Saint Thomas of Canterbury. The most fascinating addition in the crypt is a fine Crucifixion by Antoniazzo Romano, the only major Rome-born Renaissance master. A rare example of a truly Roman Renaissance, Christ is flanked by the Virgin and Saint John the Evangelist, while the man who commissioned the altarpiece, is in the process of adoring the crucified Lord, probably a member of the Orsini family, established in the Campo de’ Fiori area of Rome, he is holding a piece of paper that reads: Peccatis Domine Miserere mei et omnium peccatorum. 

The altarpiece was originally intended for the Salone del Crocifisso in the Via dei Cappellari, and it was an important devotional painting for the Romans. Those sentenced to death by the Tribunal in the Curia Savella would pray before it right before execution, among them would have been Beatrice Cenci. The Venerable English College remains an important link between the shared history of the Eternal City and the British isles.

(With thanks to the Venerable English College for the photographs).