French Seminary of Saint Claire

The Pontifical French Seminary (Fr: Collège Français, It. Seminario Francese) is a Roman College dedicated to training French speaking Roman Catholic priests.

In 1853 the French bishops held the Council of La Rochelle, where they proposed a plan for a French Seminary in Rome to train priests strongly attached to the Holy See and able to counteract Gallican ideas. They successfully petitioned Pius IX to approve this idea. The seminary opened in 1853 with 12 students under the direction of Father Lamurien of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, an order which for a long time was still in charge of the college. Its first site was the old Irish college near the Trajan's Forum.

In 1856 Pius IX assigned to the seminary the Church of Santa Chiara with the adjoining Poor Clare convent, founded in 1560 by St. Charles Borromeo on the ruins of the baths of Agrippa.

After the new Italian government evicted the College of Saint Thomas from the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in 1873, the College was able to continue after the French seminary's Rector Tommaso Maria Zigliara offered refuge at the Pontifical French Seminary.

Santa Chiara was rebuilt on the plan of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires in Paris, in 1883 the monastery was entirely remodeled to suit its present purpose. Leo XIII declared it a pontifical seminary in 1902. As of the early 1900s there were between 100 and 120 seminarians.

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