Galileo Galilei became professor of mathematics at the Pisan Studium in 1589.
Photograph: Chandan Kumar Duarah
The University of Pisa was officially established in 1343,[1] although a number of scholars claim its origin dates back to the 11th century.[weasel words]
The first reliable data on the presence of secular and monastic schools of law in Pisa is from the eleventh and the second half of the twelfth century, when Pisa had already achieved a remarkable economic development. Further, the next century form the first documents that prove the presence of doctors of medicine and surgery.
The earliest evidence of a Pisan “Studium” dates to 1338, when the renowned jurist Ranieri Arsendi transferred to Pisa from Bologna. He along with Bartolo da Sassoferrato, a lecturer in Civil Law, were paid by the Municipality to teach public lessons.
With the birth of the Kingdom of Italy, the University of Pisa became one of the new state’s most prestigious cultural institutions. Between the second half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries the following prestigious lecturers taught at Pisa: the lawyers Francesco Carrara and Francesco Buonamici, philologists Domenico Comparetti and Giovanni D’Ancona, historians Pasquale Villari, Gioacchino Volpe and Luigi Russo, philosopher Giovanni Gentile, economist Giuseppe Toniolo and mathematicians Ulisse Dini and Antonio Pacinotti. The first European institute of Historical Linguistics was founded in Pisa in 1890.
During the years of fascism the Pisa Athenaeum was an active centre for political debate and antifascist organisation.
After the second world war the University of Pisa returned to the avant-garde in many fields of knowledge. To the faculties of engineering and pharmacy, established pre-war, were added economics, foreign languages and literature and politics. In 1967 the ‘Scuola Superiore di Studi Universitari e Perfezionamento S. Anna’ was founded which, together with ‘La Scuola Normale’, formed a highly prestigious learning and teaching centre.
Today the University of Pisa boasts eleven faculties and fifty-seven departments, with high level research centres in the sectors of agriculture, astrophysics[citation needed], computer science, engineering, mathematics, medicine and veterinary medicine. Furthermore the University has close relations with the Pisan Institutes of the National Research Council, with many cultural institutions of national and international importance, and with industry, especially that of information technology, which went through a phase of rapid expansion in Pisa during the nineteen sixties and seventies.
The papal bull ‘In supremae dignitatis’, granted by Pope Clement VI on September 3, 1343, recognized the ‘Studium’ of Pisa as a ‘Studium Generale’; an institution of further education founded or confirmed by a universal authority, the Papacy or Empire. Pisa was one of the first European universities that could boast this papal attestation, which guaranteed the universal, legal value of its educational qualifications.
The first taught subjects were theology, civil law, canon law and medicine. In 1355 Francesco da Buti, the well-known commentator of Dante’s Divine Comedy, began teaching at the “Studium”.
PhD studies are instead usually offered and arranged by the departments. The lectures are mostly given in Italian, except for a number of courses at the faculty of foreign languages and literatures and some scientific programmes, such as the international MSc in aerospace engineering (EuMAS), the Master of Science in Space Engineering[6] and the Master in Computer Science and Networking,[7] jointly offered with Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. Students have at their disposal also a Language Centre, where they can attend to courses of foreign languages, a Sports Centre (Cus Pisa), who also arrange for many Sports Intramural Leagues and allows to make the sports practice in almost all the disciplines available in Italy, and three University Refectories (Mense universitarie).
The University of Pisa is not organized in the form of one unique campus, but its many buildings are scattered in the whole Pisa area, especially in the city centre.
Today the University of Pisa boasts eleven faculties and fifty-seven departments, with high level research centres in the sectors of agriculture, astrophysics[citation needed], computer science, engineering, mathematics, medicine and veterinary medicine. Furthermore the University has close relations with the Pisan Institutes of the National Research Council, with many cultural institutions of national and international importance, and with industry, especially that of information technology, which went through a phase of rapid expansion in Pisa during the nineteen sixties and seventies.
duarah13 