Università di Padova

Along with such universities as Bologna, Paris, Oxford and Cambridge, that of Padua was one of the first to exemplify the idea of a Gymnasium Omnium Disciplinarum - an educational model that can now be seen throughout the world. Though the university's year of foundation is generally given as 1222, that in fact only marks the date from which there are records of a ?fixed and publicly recognised university established within the city? and so the actual foundation can be dated even early, to a period when a number of professors and students had left the University of Bologna as a result of ?offences to academic freedom and the failure to observe the privileges that had been guaranteed to teachers and pupils?. Such exchanges of personnel and students - together with the similarities in the Statutes of the two foundations - reveal that Padua placed a certain importance on this link with what was the oldest university in the world, against which it was however very soon setting itself up as a rival (and even centuries later that rivalry has lost none of its edge). Padua University was not founded as the result of a charter granted by pope of emperor, but as a ?response to the specific social and cultural conditions that created a need for it?; and its motto of Universa Universis Patavina Libertas was well-deserved not only under the original Commune of the thirteenth century but also during the fourteenth-century rule of the Carraresi and throughout the period of Venetian rule of the city (from the 15th to the 18th century), all these different authorities guaranteeing full respect for the university's freedoms. Work to adapt the existing structures would go on into the early years of the seventeenth century, and include the admirable Old Courtyard designed by Andrea Moroni, whilst a list of some of the important figures who studied here during this time (15th-16th century) might include: Nicholas Copernicus, Francesco della Rovere (the future pope Sixtus IV), Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Leon Battista Alberti, Paolo Toscanelli, Francesco Guicciardini, Pietro Bembo, Torquato Tasso, Paolo Sarpi, Bernardino Telesio, Tommaso Campanella, Roberto Bellarmino, William Harvey and Gerolamo Cardano. And as for the important contributions to knowledge made in this period, these include: Gian Battista Da Monte's role in the establishment of clinical medicine (he was the first man in Europe to teach medicine and diagnosis in the presence of patients); the foundation of the first university Botanical Garden (1545); the introduction of autopsies as a means of acquiring medical knowledge, with the construction of the first permanent anatomy theatre in 1594/5; the anatomical discoveries made by the likes of Andrea Vesalius, Gabriele Falloppio and G. Fabrici Acquapendente. In other areas of knowledge, Padua University can also boast the contribution made by such thinkers as Paolo Veneto, Gaetano da Thiene, Nicoletto Vernia, Piero Pomponazzi and Jacopo Zabarella to breaking now the rigid schema of Scholastic thought. And in the area of jurisprudence, the university was the source of innovative rulings that influenced heads of government throughout Europe. From the very beginning, Padua's reputation had attracted students from all over the continent, but this influx became particularly noteworthy in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, with people being attracted not only by the fame of the university's teachers but also by the spirit of tolerance that was guaranteed by the Venetian Republic. Many of these ex-alumni would then return to their own countries - perhaps even founding universities and colleges - and thus Padua became a sort of workshop, forging minds and personal bonds that would have a significant effect upon the life of Europe as a whole. One particularly proud moment in the history of the university came in 1678, when Elena Lucrezia Piscopia gained her degree in Philosophy - in effect, becoming the first woman graduate in the world. During the seventeenth and eighteenth century, as universities spread throughout Europe and ideas were exchanged backwards and forwards across the continent, the role of Padua University changed; however, it still maintained its unique position within the Venetian Republic, and the eminence of its professors meant it continued to hold a high place both within and without Italy. Amongst the figures associated...