Palazzo della Sapienza, Renaissance palace in central Rome, Italy

Palazzo della Sapienza is a rectangular palace in Rome's Sant'Eustachio district, built around a large internal courtyard. Its four wings—two longer north and south, two shorter east and west—enclose the courtyard, with Giacomo della Porta's porticoes and loggias on three sides and an exedra wall on the fourth. The main entrance on the west side has a triangular pediment and an architrave inscribed for Pope Sixtus V (1586).

In 1562 Guidetto Guidetti built classrooms in the right wing; in 1577 Gregory XIII appointed Giacomo della Porta to unite Rome's scattered schools, and he designed the rectangular palace around a courtyard. Borromini completed the north wing and closed the courtyard with Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza between 1632 and 1667. The university moved out in 1935, and the building now houses the State Archive of Rome.

The name comes from the Latin motto carved above the main entrance, "Initium sapientiae timor Domini", taken from the Book of Proverbs; officially the building was the Studium Urbis. The inner courtyard facade carries the heraldic emblems of the popes who funded the works: the Boncompagni dragon, the Peretti lion, the Borghese dragon and eagle, the Barberini bees and the Chigi mountains with star.

The palace is bounded by Piazza Sant'Eustachio, Corso del Rinascimento, Via degli Staderari, Via dei Sediari and Via del Teatro Valle. The main entrance is on the west side, under a triangular pediment; the courtyard and Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza, closing the east side, are reached from there. The complex now houses the State Archive of Rome.

The interior facade facing the courtyard carries the heraldic emblems of the popes who funded the works in circular niches: the dragon of Gregory XIII Boncompagni, the lion of Sixtus V Peretti, the dragon and eagle of Paul V Borghese, the bees of Urban VIII Barberini and the mountains and star of Alexander VII Chigi.