Palazzo della Canonica

This building lies on the east side of Piazza dei Cavalieri. Many scholars attribute the original design to Giorgio Vasari.  The construction of the Palazzo della Canonica began in 1566 with a project that aimed at uniting pre-existing structures into a single element. The work lasted off and on for nearly forty years and was often interrupted by the diversion of the available economic resources to the construction of the Santo Stefano church, which also looks onto the square.
Palazzo della Canonica was destined for the clergy of the the Knights of the Order of Saint Stephen, and until the suppression of the Order, it was the lodging of the prior of the Chiesa dei Cavalieri (the Knights' Church) and the Knights Chaplains; in the closing decades of the twentieth century the building hosted high prelates and subsequently the Public Works Office of Pisa, whose initiative led, in the early 1980s, to the restoration  of the part of the building between via Ulisse Dini and the main entrance.
The Palazzo, given over to the Normale by the Tuscany Region in 2012, currently hosts some recently structured rooms of the Library; on completion of further planned works, the spaces will be used entirely for libraries and laboratories.