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Università di Pisa | |
 Seal of the University of Pisa | |
| Motto | In supremæ dignitatis |
|---|---|
Motto in English | In supreme dignity |
| Type | Public |
| Established | 1343; 682 years ago (1343)[1] |
| Rector | Riccardo Zucchi[2] |
Administrative staff | 3051 |
| Students | 49,618 |
| 3,500 | |
| Location | , Italy |
| Campus | Urban/University town |
| Sports teams | US Pisa |
| Affiliations | ICoN,EUA,URA,PEGASUS |
| Website | unipi.it |
 | |
TheUniversity of Pisa (Italian:Università di Pisa,UniPi) is apublicresearch university inPisa, Italy. Founded in 1343, it is one of the oldest universities in Europe.[3] Together withScuola Normale Superiore di Pisa andSant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, it is part of the Pisa University System.[4]
The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1343, although various scholars place its origins in the 11th century. It is certain, however, that from the middle of the 12th century Pisa had a “Universitas” in the original sense of the word, that is, a group of students who gathered around masters. It was during this period thatLeonardo Fibonacci was born and worked. He was one of the greatest mathematicians in history who, through his work, synthesized the spirit and processes of Greek geometry and the tools of Arabic mathematics for the first time in Europe.
The papal seal “In Supremae dignitatis”, issued byPope Clement VI on 3 September 1343, granted the Studium in Pisa the title of Studium Generale with various exclusive privileges, making it universally recognised. In medieval times, the Studium Generale was a higher institute of education founded or confirmed by a universal authority, namely the papacy or the empire. Pisa was among the first European cities to vaunt a papal attestation, followed byPrague in 1347 andHeidelberg in 1386. At the outset in Pisa, lessons in Theology, Civil Law, Canon Law and Medicine were established.
The first years of the new Studium were particularly difficult, although there is documentary evidence that shows persistent academic activity with a slow recovery starting in 1355.[5]
The end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century saw Pisa and its Studium heading towards a slow death. The war, which had allowed the Florentines to conquer the city, was so socially and economically damaging that it made preserving even the most essential academic activity impossible.[6][7]
During the first few days of November 1473, the Studium in Pisa began to develop systematically at the request ofLorenzo dei Medici. In 1486, the construction of a building specifically for lessons was commissioned: the building, the future Palazzo della Sapienza, still the centre of the present-day University, was placed in the 13th century Piazza del Grano, which could be reached through the gateway dell’Abbondanza. The image of the Cherub was placed above this gateway. In the Christian tradition, the Cherub represents an angelic being with a clearer vision of God, who in turn represents absolute knowledge. Since then, theCherub has become the iconographic symbol of the University of Pisa and, in more recent times, the Order of the Cherub is awarded to members of the university teaching staff who have contributed to enhancing its prestige.
In 1497, the Pisan institute suffered a new period of decline and was moved to Florence for nine years. The rise to the throne of DukeCosimo I dei Medici marked the beginning of a new era. The formal reopening of the university on 1 November 1543 was, in fact, considered to be a second founding. With the 1545 Statute, Cosimo managed to raise the quality of the teaching, making the University of Pisa one of the most important in Europe for both teaching and research. The Duke established the Chair of Simples (Semplici in Botany) and appointedLuca Ghini: between 1543 and 1544 the Garden of Simples was founded. This was the firstbotanical garden in the world annexed to a university Studium. A few decades later, the garden was moved to its present position a few dozen metres fromPiazza dei Miracoli, covering an area of around three hectares with 6,000 cultivated plants and seeds exchanged with other 400 structures in the world. Ghini was succeeded by the philosopher and scientist AndreaCesalpino, who created the first scientific method for the classification of plants and can be considered the forerunner of the discovery of the cardiovascular system.
Cosimo I was still ruling whenGalileo Galilei was born on 15 February 1564 in Pisa. Galileo Galilei is universally thought of as the founder of modern science and the modern experimental method. He was initially a student and then a teacher of Mathematics at the University of Pisa before moving to Padova. It was in the city in Tuscany that he began the studies and experiments which were the basis of his revolutionary theories.
The decline of theGrand Duchy of Tuscany (Medici), in the middle of the 18th century, saw the downfall of the Studium in Pisa, which only picked up again with the Lorraine dynasty. It was thanks to these enlightened innovators and reformers that numerous works and the establishment of the new Chairs of Experimental Physics and Chemistry were created.
The annexation of Tuscany to the Napoleonic Empire at the beginning of the 19th century brought about the transformation of the Studium into an imperial Academy: the university became a subsidiary of theUniversity of Paris, even though it managed to retain a certain degree of autonomy. At that time, five faculties (Theology, Law, Medicine, Science and Arts), exams, different academic qualifications (bachelor, master and doctoral degrees) and degree theses came into being. TheScuola Normale Superiore was established between 1810 and 1813. It started out as a subsidiary of the École Normale in Paris and closed immediately to be reopened in 1846 with the inauguration of its present seat atPalazzo della Carovana inPiazza dei Cavalieri.
The period of theRestoration led to a reconsideration of the organisation within the Studium, but not to the complete revocation of the Napoleonic experience. In 1826, lessons onEgyptology were introduced at the University of Pisa. This was a first in Europe and the world in general, leading to the renowned French-Tuscan expedition to Egypt between 1828 and 1829. In 1839, Pisa hosted the first congress of Italian scientists, which saw the participation of over 400 scholars and 300 experts in the various branches of knowledge from different states of the peninsula. It was during this period that the university was at the centre of the reform called for by Provveditore Gaetano Giorgini, which saw the faculties increase in number to six (Theology, Law, Arts, Medicine, Mathematics and Natural Sciences) and for the first time in the world, the Chair of Agriculture and sheep-farming was created and entrusted to Cosimo Ridolfi.
In the university and in the city, liberal and patriotic ideals were coming to the fore and these reached their peak when teachers and students formed a university battalion and joined thebattle of Curtatone and Montanara in 1848. This was one of the most significant battles in the ItalianRisorgimento. A memorial plaque in Palazzo della Sapienza commemorates the volunteers who “died fighting for the rebirth of Italy”, while the Italian flag used by the university battalion was honoured with the gold military medal by the Italian Republic in 1948.
With the creation of theKingdom of Italy, the University of Pisa, which now counted around 560 matriculated students, re-emerged with all the faculties then present in the regulations and was acknowledged through the university reform of 1862, as one of the six principal national universities together withTurin,Pavia,Bologna,Naples andPalermo. The consolidation and expansion of the university, above all in the years straddling the1800s and the1900s, had a direct impact on the urban fabric development of the city even though the number of students increased only moderately (891 in 1912). The university gradually welcomed female students and in 1877,Ernestina Paper graduated in Medicine. She was the first woman to graduate from an Italian university and was followed byCornelia Fabri in Mathematics and Erminia Pittaluga in Arts.
Thereform called for by the ministerGiovanni Gentile in 1923, further confirmed the university's prominent position at national level when it was placed among the ten universities totally funded by the state. Notwithstanding the aim to make Pisa a great “centre of university fascist culture” antifascist unrest was still alive, both in the academic community and among students. The application ofracial laws, the first of which were signed by KingVittorio Emanuele III in 1938 at San Rossore, near Pisa, affected foreign and Italian students and university teachers severely, as was the case throughout Italy. It was not until 2018, in Pisa, 80 years after the signature, that there was an official and public admission of responsibility on behalf of the Italian universities (on the University of Pisa's own initiative).[citation needed]
The physical and moral destruction caused by the Second World War was soon overcome and the University of Pisa, whose matriculated students passed from 768 in 1945 to 1,292 in 1950, was able to lead the field in many areas of knowledge, adapting to the new demands of social, civil and economic life. The faculties of Economics and Business Studies (1948), and later Foreign Languages and Literature (1969) and Political Science (1970) joined the faculties present before the conflict – Engineering and Pharmacy – and accompanied the arrival of the university for the masses (between 1961 and 1972 student numbers in Pisa went from around 9,000 to 27,000). At the start of the sixties, the University of Pisa established the first Italian Chair of Film History and Criticism. In 1969, the degree course in Computer Science (Informatics) was set up. It was the first in Italy and followed the creation of the Pisan Electronic Calculator (CEP), designed in the mid-1950s and sponsored byNobel Prize winner and graduate of the University of Pisa,Enrico Fermi, which was the basis for other firsts in Italy in its field. In 1986, for example, the first Italian link to theInternet originated in Pisa.
In 1967, the merger of the pre-existing colleges led to the creation of theSant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and the Scuola Normale Superiore, forming a system of further education which is of the highest prestige at international level.
Also in 1967, during a period of protests, the “Tesi della Sapienza”, one of the milestones of the 1968 student movement in Italy, were compiled in Pisa. This phase of the unrest was particularly animated in the city with some dramatic moments.
From the end of the 1970s, theUniversity's Natural History Museum moved to the enchanting 14th centuryCharterhouse of Calci, a building of priceless historic and architectural worth. The museum houses numerous rooms dedicated to zoology, mineralogy and palaeontology as well as Italy's largest freshwater aquarium and Whale gallery with more than thirty whale skeletons exhibited in an ancient portico.[citation needed]
The Ruberti reform of 1989, which envisaged the statutory autonomy of universities, forced the university to approve a new Statute, whose overall structure was only called into question with the so-called “Gelmini reform” in 2010. This led to the adoption of the 2012 Statute and the organizational layout which excluded the 11 Faculties in favour of 20 Departments.
At present, the university is divided into 20 Departments, with around 150 first and second level degree courses, and single cycle degree courses, more than 20 doctoral courses, 50 schools of specialisation and more than 60 postgraduate courses. There are more than 1,500 members of teaching staff and a slightly higher number of administrative personnel, technicians, foreign language assistants and librarians. There are around 50,000 students enrolled, and in a city with a population of approximately 90,000 inhabitants, this makes Pisa a true city campus. The students come mainly fromTuscany andLiguria, with a significant intake from many other regions, above all from the south of Italy. A sizeable number of the students are also foreign.[8][9]
Among the many graduates of the University of Pisa areNobel laureatesGiosuè Carducci,Enrico Fermi, andCarlo Rubbia,Fields Medal recipientsEnrico Bombieri andAlessio Figalli, Presidents of the RepublicGiovanni Gronchi andCarlo Azeglio Ciampi, film directorsMario Monicelli,Paolo Taviani, andVittorio Taviani, writersTiziano Terzani andAntonio Tabucchi, andtenorAndrea Bocelli.[10]
The University of Pisa consists of 20 departments. These departments offer several courses in their related field of study:
PhD studies are 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 literature, some scientific programmes, such as the international MSc in aerospace engineering (EuMAS), Master in Business Informatics, the Master of Science in Space Engineering[11] and the Master in Computer Science and Networking,[12] jointly offered withScuola Superiore Sant'Anna. Students also have at their disposal a language centre, where they can attend courses in foreign languages, a sports centre (Cus Pisa) that arranges for manysports intramural leagues and allows sports practice in almost all the disciplines available in Italy, and six university refectories (Mense universitarie). The University of Pisa is not organized in the form of one unique campus, but rather its many buildings are scattered throughout the whole Pisa area, especially in the city centre.
| University rankings | |
|---|---|
| Global – Overall | |
| ARWU World[13] | 201–300 |
| QS World[14] | =343 |
| THE World[15] | 301–350 |
| National – Overall | |
| ARWU National[citation needed] | 1–3 |
 | This article's list of alumnimay not follow Wikipedia'sverifiability policy. Pleaseimprove this article by removing names that do not have independentreliable sources showing they merit inclusion in this articleand are alumni, or by incorporating the relevant publications into the body of the article through appropriatecitations.(October 2025) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
In politics and government, notable people who have attended the University of Pisa include Italian political leaders such asGiacomo Acerbo,Giuliano Amato,Sandro Bondi,Maria Chiara Carrozza,Carlo Azeglio Ciampi,Massimo D'Alema,Giovanni Gronchi,Guido Buffarini Guidi,Enrico Letta,Antonio Maccanico,Fabio Mussi,Alessandro Natta,Marcello Pera,Enrico Rossi,Carlo Sforza,Sidney Sonnino, andPaolo Emilio Taviani, Foreign political leaders such as Deputy Prime Minister of AlbaniaSpiro Koleka, AmbassadorMarcello Spatafora, Prime Ministers of GreeceIoannis Kolettis andDiomidis Kyriakos, Haitian PresidentRené Préval, Nicaraguan PresidentAdan Cardenas, and Prime Minister of SomaliaAli Mohammed Ghedi.
In theology, notable alumni include ArchbishopGiovanni Battista Rinuccini, CardinalsBenedetto Accolti the Younger,Pietro Accolti,Francesco Barberini,Cesare Borgia,Giovanni Antonio Guadagni,Francisco de Remolins,Francesco Martelli,Bandino Panciatici,Raffaele Riario,Giovanni Battista Tolomei, and PopesClement IX,Clement XII,Leo X,Paul III,Urban VIII, Chief RabbiElio Toaff, and MinisterAngus Morrison.
In sciences, notable alumni include AstrophysicistsPaolo Farinella,Franco Pacini,Viviana Acquaviva, BiophysicistClara Franzini-Armstrong, BotanistGiovanni Arcangeli, GeneticistGuido Pontecorvo, and MathematiciansAldo Andreotti,Enrico Betti,Vincenzo Brunacci,Cesare Burali-Forti,Bonaventura Cavalieri,Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja,Giovanni Ceva,Luigi Fantappiè,Alessio Figalli,Guido Fubini,Christopher Hacon,Giuseppe Lauricella,Salvatore Pincherle,Ferdinando Pio Rosellini,Giovanni Salvemini,Carlo Somigliana,Vito Volterra,Guido Zappa, NeurologistFrancois Boller, NeuroscientistEmilio Bizzi, PhysiciansVincenzo Chiarugi,Paolo Macchiarini,Francesco Redi, andFrançois Carlo Antommarchi, PhysicistsAdolfo Bartoli,Temistocle Calzecchi-Onesti,Ennio Candotti,Nello Carrara,Enrico Fermi,Galileo Galilei,Luca Gammaitoni,Antonio Pacinotti,Eligio Perucca,Luigi Puccianti,Franco Rasetti,Vasco Ronchi, andCarlo Rubbia.
In other fields, notable alumni include LawyerFrancesca Albanese, EgyptologistsSergio Donadoni,Edda Bresciani,Gianluca Miniaci andIppolito Rosellini, Fashion modelTania Bambaci, Film directorsMario Monicelli,Paolo Virzì andSimone Rapisarda Casanova, HistoriansCarlo Ginzburg,Camillo Porzio, andMario Rosa, LibrettistGiacinto Andrea Cicognini, PhilologistGian Biagio Conte, PhilosophersFrancesco Cattani da Diacceto,Aldo Gargani,Giovanni Gentile,Anna Camaiti Hostert,Eufrosin Poteca, andJiyuan Yu, PhysiologistHugo Kronecker, TenorsAndrea Bocelli andFrancesco Rasi, AgronomistNazareno Strampelli, AnatomistAtto Tigri, Art historian and curatorCarolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Civil engineerHenry Willey Reveley, Civil servantBruno Ferrante, Computer scientistsElisa Bertino,Luca Cardelli, andRoberto Di Cosmo, DiplomatCarlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, EconomistsLuigi Bodio andPaolo Malanima, EngineerGiacinto Morera, IntellectualAdriano Sofri, International civil servantFrancesco Cappè, JournalistsLando Ferretti andTiziano Terzani, JuristsGiuseppe Averani,Piero Calamandrei,Francesco Carrara,Antonio Cassese,Giovanni Lami,Remus Opreanu, Italian Constitutional Court JudgeSabino Cassese, LinguistsStefano Arduini andLuigi Rizzi, Nobel Laureate in LiteratureGiosuè Carducci, ManagersPier Francesco Guarguaglini,Luca Desiata, NaturalistGaetano Savi, PoetsVincenzo da Filicaja,Giovanni Battista Guarini, andMauro Nervi, PsychiatristSilvano Arieti, Racing car and engine designerCarlo Chiti, SurgeonAndrea Vaccá Berlinghieri, WritersPietro Citati,Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi,Margaret King,Antonio Tabucchi, and ZoologistEnrico Hillyer Giglioli.
Prominent scholars who have taught at the University of Pisa include AnatomistsLorenzo Bellini andMarcello Malpighi, ChemistRobert Schiff, Computer scientistEgon Börger, EngineerCorradino D'Ascanio, MathematiciansEugenio Beltrami,Enrico Bombieri,Giovanni Alfonso Borelli,Sergio Campanato,Benedetto Castelli,Corrado De Concini,Ennio De Giorgi,Luigi Guido Grandi,Alessandro Marchetti,Claudio Procesi,Leonida Tonelli, PathologistAngelo Maffucci, PhysiciansPietro Grocco andPaolo Mascagni, PhysicistsBernard H. Lavenda,Carlo Matteucci,Roy McWeeny,Giulio Racah,Gian-Carlo Wick, ZoologistEnrica Calabresi, EconomistGiuseppe Toniolo, EgalitarianPhilippe Buonarroti, HistoriansJože Pirjevec andPasquale Villari, JournalistLuciano Bianciardi, JuristsFrancesco Accarigi,Carlo Costamagna,Bartolus de Saxoferrato,Baldus de Ubaldis, LinguistMauro Cristofani, PhilosophersArmando Carlini,Arnold Davidson,Dominic of Flanders,Lorenzo Magalotti,Ugo Spirito, PoetsDavid Levi,Valerio Magrelli,Giovanni Pascoli, 16th-century scholarGirolamo Maggi, and WriterBernard Comment.
(in English and Italian)43°42′59.43″N10°23′54.45″E / 43.7165083°N 10.3984583°E /43.7165083; 10.3984583
