If only Carli knew what lies beneath his school desk...
The complete renovation of the Collegio dei Nobili, a school where young people have been taught since the end of the 17th century, also included archaeological research. It was carried out by the company Augusta Ltd. under the supervision of the ZVKDS.
Collegio dei Nobili shines again! The renovation of one of Copra's most iconic cultural monuments, a classroom where young people have been educated since the end of the 17th century, is now complete. Today, the centuries-old tradition of education is continued by two Italian-medium schools - the Pier Paolo Vergerio il Vecchio Primary School and the Gian Rinaldo Carli Gymnasium. After a complete renovation of the school palace, a generation of budding schoolchildren returned to the school on the first of September. They are the ones who will shape our future, standing on the shoulders of the giants who have graced the school desks before them and then made their mark on our past. One of them, perhaps the most famous, was the very one who adorns the name of the gymnasium. Gian Rinaldo Carli, a Coptic born in 1720, completed a degree in philosophy at the Collegio at the age of fourteen, then studied law, classical languages and history at the University of Padua, and developed into an erudite who mastered almost everything. He was also interested in epigraphy and archaeology, and particularly in the legacy of the Roman Empire. If only he had known that in the ruins beneath his school desk there lived the forgotten remains of a late antique stone pillar...
The Collegio dei Nobili underwent a major renovation in 2023, encompassing all three of the building's historic tracts, the front courtyard and the inner atrium, as well as a modern gymnasium. As the whole of the old town of Koper is a known archaeological site and as the construction works required disturbance of the soil layers, archaeological investigations had to be carried out as part of the construction. This was carried out by the company Avgusta d.o.o. under the supervision of ZVKDS and under the guidance of archaeologists Luka Rozman and Gregor Gruden. The surveys were adapted to the scale and dynamics of the construction excavations. They ran in parallel with the construction works and involved various research procedures. The archaeologists first excavated test trenches to determine the depth of the archaeological deposits and their composition and level of preservation. This was followed by archaeological excavation of all those areas where archaeological remains needed to be investigated and removed in a controlled manner before they were damaged by deep construction excavations. In the remaining areas, where shallow excavation was sufficient for the builders and the archaeological deposits could remain intact, the archaeological team merely supervised the construction. Just in case something was found just below the surface.
The soil layers at urban archaeological sites are usually a mess, and Collegio did not disappoint. Ruins from centuries and millennia past are piled one on top of the other in the ground, all interspersed with sewers, cable ducts and other infrastructural achievements of the modern age. This interconnectedness of deposits forms a rebus. The research team was tasked with unravelling this puzzle. To investigate, document and clarify the origin of the stratigraphic record with detective attention. Layer by layer, from the youngest to the oldest anthropogenic deposit, down to the depth of the natural geological bedrock. And no, most of the time it was not done with spoons. If you have to dig 146 cubic metres of material by hand in a couple of weeks, a spoon mostly only comes in handy during lunch. So the archaeological team used pickaxes to come to the conclusion that the remains could be classified into four chronological phases.
The first, oldest phase includes the traces left behind by the inhabitants of the Late Antique settlement on the island of Koper. Archaeologists discovered them at a depth of about two metres below the present-day ground. They excavated fragmentary remains of buildings (remains of stone walls, compacted clay walkways and hearths, traces of wooden benches) and rubble layers created after the abandonment of the buildings. The deposits included numerous small finds: kitchen and table pottery, ointments, transport vessels (amphorae), roof tiles (tegulae) and other brick building materials, ceramic weights for fishing nets, iron nails and animal bones representing butchery and kitchen waste. The finds, which reflect the daily life of the islanders and testify to their trade contacts with various lands across the Mediterranean, can be dated, on the basis of typological analyses, to between the 4th and 7th centuries.
Amphora with the remains of a newborn baby from a late antique tomb beneath the Collegium dei Nobili. Photo by Ines Klokočovnik, Augusta d.o.o.
View of the late antique tomb under the Collegium dei Nobili. The amphora containing the remains of a newborn baby is wrapped in foil and ready to be lifted and transferred to the laboratory for post-mortem analysis. Photo by Luka Rozman, Augusta d.o.o.
The excavators were delighted to discover the stone base of the pillar still standing in its original position on the compacted clay soil in the immediate vicinity of the stone walls. The team could only speculate whether it might be the pillar that supported the canopy of the former building. The architectural context of the find could not be reconstructed due to the limited scope of the survey and the poor preservation of the remains. The discovery of the grave of a newborn baby buried in an amphora was similarly disturbing and moving. The deceased was placed in a simple burial pit, which was shallowly dug into the compacted soil. Such burials of children in or near houses, often by domestic hearths or wood-burning stoves, were common in Late Antiquity. In Koper, three related amphora burials of children were discovered in 1986 during archaeological excavations in the garden of the former Capuchin monastery.
The second chronological phase includes the remains of buildings that belonged to the citizens of Koper in the late medieval and early modern period. Archaeologists have excavated stone walls of the buildings, traces of wooden benches, various levelling mounds and stone, clay and mortar pavements of the interior spaces and exterior surfaces. Ceramic artefacts - building materials, kitchen and table pottery - were the most common among the small finds. Animal bones (kitchen waste) were also abundant, but glass (bottles, jars and beakers) and metal artefacts (construction nails, novices, etc.) were rarer. The finds were dated by typological analyses to between the 14th and 17th centuries. The ruins excavated thus reveal houses that were bought in 1678 by Angelo Morosini, the Viceroy of Koper, with a view to building the Collegio dei Nobili on their site.
Written sources indicate that the construction of the school complex was completed in the early 18th century. And so we come to the third phase, which contains the remains of the construction and use of the Collegio during the first two centuries of its existence. Archaeological research has shown that the builders first levelled the area of the demolished older houses with a mound of earth, into which they then dug the foundations of the new building. The historian Salvator Žitko wrote as follows: "The Collegia dei Nobili, as it still looks today, was spacious and airy, with two courtyards, a garden and the church of S. Maria Nuova, which was demolished in the 19th century." (The role and importance of the Collegio dei Nobili in Koper, Acta Histriae III, 1994). The generations that used the building maintained and renovated it. Archaeologists have thus discovered, among other things, in the interior spaces, previous flooring (wooden floors, stone slab paving, mortar screeds), the remains of former partition walls, as well as a well and a cistern for collecting rainwater, which was dug into the ground. In the atrium, the level of the original walking surface was identified and a mulda was discovered which drained rainwater around the perimeter of the atrium. The mulch, which was masterfully made of carved stone blocks, was restored as part of the recent renovation and now once again adorns the atrium. Two brick tombs were unexpectedly discovered in the front courtyard of the Collegio. As the construction did not require any intervention, they have remained unexcavated, so it is not entirely clear whether they date from the time of the Collegio or are slightly older than it.
In the fourth and final chronological phase, archaeologists have included the remains of the construction works that took place at the Collegio in the modern period. The construction of the gymnasium and the complete renovation of the complex in the 1960s and 1970s left behind a wealth of buried infrastructure. The price of technological progress was also paid by the archaeological remains at that time. If we draw a line under the research, we can say that the archaeological data obtained are fragmentary. Partly because of the degraded archaeological record, but partly also because the research methodology in rescue archaeology is always subordinated to the construction operation and the financial capacity of the investor. Nevertheless, the archaeological yield is rich and will be a nice addition to the archaeological picture of Koper, which has been slowly but tirelessly being painted since at least Carli.
The Collegio dei Nobili is a special monument. It is a magnificent example of early Baroque Venetian architecture. Its architectural and art-historical value is complemented by the archaeological heritage hidden in the subsoil. But at the same time, it is not just a historical shell. It has a soul. It has educated people who have been teaching there for centuries. And young people, who have been absorbing knowledge in it for centuries. You are its true value. I hope you are pleased with the results of the archaeological research and that you enjoy your new premises.
Text by Jaka Bizjak ZVKDS, OE Piran
Cover photo - The base of the column, discovered in the late antique layers under the Collegium dei Nobili, Photo by Luka Rozman, Augusta d.o.o.".
