In 1845, Francesco IV, Duke of Modena, entrusted the architect Pietro Marchelli with the design of a Foro Boario (cattle market) to be used as a storage facility for annona reserves and as the site of the livestock market. Construction began the same year and was completed in 1853, resulting in the large neoclassical building that today faces Viale Allegri. In 1854, soldiers stationed in the Palazzo della Cittadella were temporarily moved to the Foro Boario, which was permanently converted into a barracks in 1877, when the enclosing wall around the courtyard was built.
Ten years later, the Foro Boario was renamed and officially became a barracks, dedicated to Carlo Zucchi, a Napoleonic general who participated in campaigns in Montenegro and Hungary, as well as the Battle of Berezina. The Zucchi Barracks housed soldiers until 1975; in the following years, the Municipality repurposed the space for use by the Civic Museums, the “Achille Peri” Music Institute, and the social center “Catomes Tot” (Municipality of Reggio Emilia, Press Office, October 17, 2007).
Since November 2005, it has housed the Pro-rectorate of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, as well as the former Faculties of Communication and Economics and Education Sciences, now the Department of Communication and Economics and the Department of Education and Human Sciences. It also hosts the University Library and Media Library.
On February 9, 2013, the university building in Reggio was dedicated to the constitutional scholar and jurist Giuseppe Dossetti.