In 1927, the Italian community in Allegheny County was one of the first approached with the idea of designing a room to honor their heritage in the University of Pittsburgh’s Cathedral of Learning, which had just begun construction. Dr. Charles J. Barone of the School of Medicine was elected the first chair of the Men’s Committee. He was succeeded by William Ortale in 1930 and Salvatore Sunseri in 1938. Mrs. Samuel Molinaro chaired the Women’s Committee.

Due to the outbreak of the Second World War, artists were unable to travel from Italy to complete their work in the classroom, and so the committee presented the incomplete room to the university in a small ceremony on December 11, 1940. The university was also in need for instruction space to train military cadets, and so the room opened for use without a dedication ceremony or extensive programming. In 1946, the room committee was reactivated with John S. Aldisert as chair. In 1948, painter Giovanni Romagnoli arrived in Pittsburgh to oversee the completion of the room’s decoration, including his painting of Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia. The Italian Room was formally dedicated on May 14, 1949.

The idea to design the room as a fifteenth century Tuscan monastery originated with Margherita Chiari Langer. Ezio Cerpi, who oversaw ancient monuments and medieval art in Tuscany, completed the architectural drawings. Lorenzo Romanelli designed the furnishings in the room. Within the room are tributes to the Italian Renaissance and many of its notable participants, including Leonardo Da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, Dante Alighieri and Galileo Galilei.

Since 1952, the Italian Room Committee has offered a scholarship for students to study abroad in Italy.

From the Documenting Pitt Finding Aid for the Italian Room Archive