Giovanni Cotta High School and Monument to G.B. Cavalcaselle

The forty years between the disastrous flood of the Adige (1882) and the beginning of the Great War (1915) saw Legnago transform from an urbanistic point of view. An important town expansion dates back to this period which, overcoming the tour of the ancient San Michelangelo walls now demolished, still unfolds along a majestic tree-lined course: the Viale dei Tigli. Among the numerous private villas in this residential area, which often suffer from the local declinations of the Art Nouveau, stands out a public building from the beginning of the twentieth century, originally intended for the Technical Schools and now home to the "Giovanni Cotta" high school.

The elegant building was built in the period 1907-09. The project is attributable to Ernesto Sandrini, engineer of the Municipality of Legnago; he was able to soften the monumentality of the forms with the airiness of the large windows. Originally it was built as the headquarters of the Technical Schools named after G.B. Cavalcaselle and during the First World War hosted a military hospital and the local section of the Red Cross.

The façade and interior spaces are designed to combine the official nature and respect for the more advanced school building standards: large, tall and bright classrooms, less evident after the renovation, were intended for the classes. But the architectural attention to detail was not forgotten in the context of an eclectic style typical of the time. On the outside the façade, moved by the fastigium and the large windows, and the short double ramp access staircase, on the inside the columns with composite capitals, the pilasters that mark the walls, the finely decorated ceilings and the large staircase. which leads to the upper floor lend majesty to the building. On the upper floor there is the airy library, whose patrimony was reconstituted after the Second World War after the devastation of the bombings.

In the courtyard facing the building there is the monument to Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle (Legnago, 22 January 1819 - Rome, 31 October 1897), founder of modern art history and an international figure. The commemorative bust that remembers it, wanted by the "Committee for the monument in Legnago to GBCavalcaselle", is the work of the artist from Policronio Carletti from Rodigo. From the first idea of ​​1907 and after numerous changes before reaching its present form, the bust was inaugurated on Sunday 8 October 1911.