[4] Pessina designed the courtyards on a double portico, supported by paired Doric columns in pink Baveno granite, joined by balustrades on the upper floor and connected by polygonal arches.

In the eighteenth century, Empress Maria Theresa revitalized the university, renewing its teachings, calling in teachers of European fame, but also having the complex completely renovated.

The project was entrusted to Giuseppe Piermarini, who designed, between 1771 and 1773, the sober facade along Strada Nuova, enriched by two portals and modified the courtyards, replacing the coffered roofs with vaults and transforming the polygonal arches into round ones.

The impetus for the construction of the new hospital came from the preaching of the Dominican friar Dominic of Catalonia, who had moved from Bologna to Pavia around 1450, and in the new location he soon gained the esteem of the major urban classes.

[13] The roof with wooden beams, painted in the fifteenth century with figures of angels, in the rooms of the south arm that housed the Art History Library, overlooking the charming courtyard of the Magnolias, is also original.