18. The Benedictine Convent

View of the residence of the Benedictine monks, situated inside the walls on what is Viale Stazione today. The vegetable gardens attached to the convent extended as far as the slopes of Montebello. On the other side, the convent and the church with the school annex faced onto Via Codeborgo.
The first boarding school, called the Trifoglio, was opened by the Jesuit fathers in the 17th century. They were replaced by Benedictine monks from Einsiedeln in 1675. The building that housed the convent and school had three stories each with a loggia.
In 1800 the church and convent were secularized and put to a very different use. On 1 August 1801 the new political life of the Canton was inaugurated in the Palazzo dei Benedettini and on 20 May 1803 the first session of the “Gran Consiglio” (the Parliament of Ticino) was held there.
The bell tower was built in 1761 and demolished in 1927. On the site where the convent once stood there is now a department store. Traces of the nave of the church are still visible in the present day Galleria dei Benedettini.

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