The founder

            The Almo Collegio Capranica is one of the most important ecclesiastical institutions in the city of Rome and boasts a long and illustrious history. On 5 January 1457 Cardinal Domenico Capranica (1400-1458) founded the college that was to bear the name of his family, expressly with the aim of providing young Romans of more modest means the possibility to receive a comprehensive programme of sacerdotal formation. Its foundation participates in what was then a growing effort to discover new initiatives at ameliorating ecclesiastical formation of the clergy. Ever responsive to the exigencies of the milieu, the founder sought to proffer a cleric better prepared under all aspects cultural and spiritual formation, which remains to this day the unique particularity of the Capranica.
 

Domenico Capranica

        It was also their famous son Domenico who brought improved fortunes to the family originally known by the name Capranica Prenestina (tied in fealty to the Colonna family till 1563). Born at the turn of the century, Domenico was a conspicuous personage in Rome during the first half of the Fifteenth Century. He received his formation at the Universities of Padua and Bologna, and began a formidable political and ecclesiastical career under Pope Martin V (Colonna): a cleric of the Apostolic Chamber in 1423, appointed Bishop of Fermo the following year, then Governor of Romagna in 1426, and finally elevated to the cardinalate in 1430 (with the title Santa Maria in Via Lata). Following the death of Pope Martin, however, his status as cardinal was contested and it was only while Domenico was participating in the Council of Costanza (at which Domenico participated from 1438 to 1443) that his title was finally recognised. During the pontificate of Eugene IV he was transferred first to Ferrara and then to Florence. In 1443 he was promoted to Vicar General of the Duchy of Ancona. In 1449 Cardinal Capranica received from Pope Nicholas V the nomination as Pentitentiary Major, which entailed duties at the impending Jubilee - and which would require his stable presence in Rome. It was thus around that date that he had works begun on a new residence for himself near the Pantheon, on Piazza Santa Maria in Aquiro. In the ultimate period in his long life of important diplomatic duties (from 1453) he served in particular the King of Naples, Alphonsus V of Aragon. Domenico Capranica was a great humanist, maintaining in his palace a most precious library of codices (today housed at the Vatican), but was above all a cultivator of theological and philosophical studies, and authored several short works on moral, ecclesiastical and political themes.

Two years before his death Cardinal Domenico Capranica founded the College for the Poor Scholars of the Sapienza Firmana (as reads his original statement of motivation as Bishop of Fermo). For this reason the square in front of the College was for a while known as the Piazza of the Cardinal of Fermo. He intended the College for young men of humble backgrounds who sought to undertake an ecclesiastical career, by studying primarily theology and canon law, Roman by birth (but with an exception for students from Fermo). Its institution thus anticipated by a century the institution of “the seminary” by the Council of Trent in 1563.

Cardinal Domenico Capranica was anxious to make every provision to ensure that his foundation achieved its aims: he equipped the college with furniture and provided properties from which they were to receive revenue. Two houses were bequeathed for this purpose: one, known as The Towers, near the church of St Augustine, the other in Piazza di Pietra, in the parish of St Stephen; and two palaces (Boccamazzi and Monumento) outside the walls (near to Porta Maggiore) - today, it is the suburb of Tor Sapienza. He organised the Constitutions of the college, and his rules gave guidance for every aspect of life in the college (daily holy Mass, celibacy, obedience to the pope, and the constant study of theology – especially St Thomas). Their lack of excessive rigour is notable for the times: the students were to govern the college themselves, electing from among their number, to remain in office for a period of one year, a rector, advisors, librarians (which nominations were to be confirmed by the patrons of the college). The administration of the college was entrusted by the founder to the authority of the heads of the city’s zones, and in a special way to the guardians of the Archconfraternity of the Most Holy Redeemer ad Sancta Sanctorum. This was assumed bureaucratically by the 24 December 1456, though 5 January 1457 – date of consignment of possession of the goods of the college - is taken as the formal date of foundation. Cardinal Domenico Capranica died - just a step away from the highest acknowledgement of his extraordinary career - on 14 August 1458, a few days after the death of Pope Callistus III, whom he was widely expected to succeed. He was buried in a beautiful chapel (given him in 1449) in the Dominican’s church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, much beloved of him: in a monument sculpted by Bregno and commissioned by his brother Cardinal Angelo Capranica, who was also his heir and testamentory executor.