Collegio Pio-Latinoamericano

The Collegio Pio-Latino-Americano Pontificio (Pontifical Pio Latino Americano College) is one of the Roman Colleges of the Roman Catholic Church, for students from Central and South America.

The Rev. Ignacio Victor Eyzaguirre, who was Chilean, went to Rome, in 1857, and proposed to the Pope the erection of a college for students, from Latin American countries, i.e. where the Spanish and Portuguese languages are spoken. Pope Pius IX, who had been Apostolic Delegate in Chile, granted letters of approbation, and urged the bishops to send students and to help the foundation by procuring funds for the maintenance of the seminary.

Father Eyzaguirre went back to South America, collected some money, and returned to Rome with a few students. He rented a small house for these students and some others who arrived later. They were fifteen in all. Pius IX ordered the Fathers of the Society of Jesus to direct the new college, and they opened the college on 21 November, 1858. In December, 1859, Pius IX helped to purchase a larger house, belonging to the Dominican Order, near their Church of the Minerva. He also bought with his own money a villa and a vineyard for the use of the college, and made Monsignor Eyzaguirre protonotary-apostolic. Towards the beginning of 1860 he sent this prelate back to South America as ablegate of the Holy See, to urge the bishops again to co-operate on a larger scale in procuring the necessary means for the support of the college. At the same time he himself contributed a large sum of money to the new house.

During the year 1864 Pius IX sent to the college books from his own private library, ordered a new chapel to be erected at his own expense, and furnished it with vestments and on the 21 November, the sixth anniversary of its foundation, visited the college in person. He is considered the principal, if not the first, founder of the South American College.

The number of students continually increasing, the superiors had to look for another dwelling. Through the assistance of Cardinal Sacconi, protector of the college, part of the old novitiate of the Jesuits, on the Quirinal—which since the year 1848 had been used for a French military hospital—was secured, the house near the Minerva sold, and the new residence occupied on 18 April, 1867, the feast of the Patronage of St. Joseph, to whom the college had been dedicated.

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