Roman Seminary

The Pontifical Roman Seminary (Pontifical Major Roman Seminary) is the diocesan major seminary in Rome, Italy located at the Basilica of St. John Lateran.

The Council of Trent in its 23rd session decreed the establishment of diocesan seminaries. The Roman Seminary was established by Pope Pius IV in 1565. Although its administration was entrusted to the Society of Jesus, and the pupils studied at the Collegio Romano, founded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1551, these students were intended to serve as diocesan priests in Rome, rather than join the Jesuits. Over the course of time the Roman Seminary occupied a number of different locations. After the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, direction of the seminary was under the care of secular priests.

The residence was changed several times before 1608, when they settled in the Palazzo Borromeo in the Via del Seminario (now 'Collegio Bellarmino', a residence for Jesuit priests, students at the Gregorian University). Each year, at Pentecost, a student delivered a discourse on the Holy Ghost in the papal chapel.

In 1773, the seminary was installed in the Collegio Romano of the Jesuits. After the changes in 1798 the number of the students, generally about 100, came down to 9. Pope Pius VII restored the seminary which continued to occupy the Collegio Romano until 1824, when Pope Leo XII returned this building to the Jesuits and transferred the seminary to the Palazzo di Sant'Apollinare, formerly occupied by the Collegio Germanico; the seminary, however, retained its own schools comprising a classical course, and a faculty of philosophy and theology, to which in 1856 a course of canon law was added. The direction of the seminary and, as a rule, the chairs were reserved to the secular clergy. After the departure of the Jesuits in 1848 the seminary again removed to the Collegio Romano.

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