The Badia Fiesolana is the EUI’s hub. Opened in 1976, it houses the office of the President, the office of the Secretary General, the Institute’s library, the Department of Political and Social Sciences, the Academic Service, the Real Estate and Facilities Service, part of the Budget and Financial Affairs Service, the Communications Service and the School of Transnational Governance (STG). Behind the row of member state flags stands a building of vibrant history which has played host to everyone from incurables to an army. Ph.D. researchers now walk where pagan cults once wandered, on a site which was also claimed by Christians for the first cathedral of Fiesole. The latter group claimed that Christian martyrs were thrown into the well; an account that the founder of the present buildings tested by dipping his glove into the well and recovered it dripping with blood.