University of Siena
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University of Siena |
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| Established | 1240 |
| Type | State-supported |
| Rector | Prof. Silvano Focardi |
| Students | 20,000 |
| Location | Siena, Italy |
| Sports teams | CUS Siena (http://www.unisi.it/servizi/cus/) |
| Affiliations | Coimbra Group |
| Website | www.unisi.it/ |
The University of Siena (Italian: Università degli Studi di Siena, UNISI) in Siena, Tuscany, Italy is one of the oldest universities of Italy. Founded in the 13th century, initially as a Studium, it thrives to this day, presently enrolling has around 20,000 enrolled students[1]. I is best known for its schools of Law and Medicine.
The University for Foreigners Siena was formerly affiliated with the University of Siena, but is now a separate state university.
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[edit] History
On the 26 December of 1240, the podestà of Siena, Ildebrandino Cacciaconti, signed a decree imposing a tax on those citizens who rented rooms to students in order to pay salaries for maestri (teachers) of the Studium Senese (Studium of Siena). This is one of the very first examples of a Studium being financed by the city-state.
Its components would soon consist of a School of Law, a School of Grammar and a School of Medicine. Notable among the graduates of the latter and numbered among its maestri would be Pietro Ispano, the illustrious philosopher and personal doctor to Emperor Frederick II, who was elected pope in 1276 under the name of John XXI.
In 1252, to support the Studium, Pope Innocent IV granted tax exemptions to the faculty and students. In the years that followed, measures were drawn up by the city authorities to allocate resources, protect and assist students who came to Siena.
The occasion to increase their prestige and attract a larger number of pupils and professors presented itself to the Studium in 1321, when one of the students of the University of Bologna was sentenced, by the magistrates of that city, to death for the supposed kidnapping of a young woman. A great protest was unleashed by the student body of the university against the local authority, partly at the instigation of the Law lecturer Guglielmo Tolomei, at which point Siena stepped in, and thanks to the generous funding provided by the municipality, the Studium Senese was prepared to accommodate the young men who resigned from the Studium Bolongese. The city of Siena realised that the University was a very important cultural and political hub that should be safeguarded.
After various pleas and efforts, including the acquisition of illustrious teachers, Siena was finally promoted to the status of Studium Generale, a status officially recognised by Charles IV, under whose protection it was granted privileges and immunity, sheltering both docents and students against attacks from the magistracy.
The Casa della Sapienza was built in the early 1400s as a center combining classrooms and housing for those enrolled in the Studium. It had been proposed by bishop Mormille in 1392, completed twenty years later, and its first occupants taking up residence in 1416[2].
While the university continued, Siena by the mid-14th century had declined as a challenger to the Tuscan hegemony by Florence. After the fall of the Republic of Siena in 1555, the city authorities ask their conquerors, the Medici, to preserve the academy. Under Francesco and later Grand Duke Ferdinando I, reforms were made with new statutes and new preogatives. The post of Rettore (Rector), elected by students and city magistrates, was also instituted.
Under the rule of Tuscany by the House of Lorraine, the university managed to acquire the vast library of the illustrious economist Sallustio Bandini. In 1808, when the Napoleonic forces occupied Tuscany, they eliminated the Studium Senese and the doors of the University were not opened again until after the restoration. The return of the Grand Duke coincided with the resumption of the University’s activities. During the Risorgimento, Sienese students organised groups which were openly patriotic. They publicly expressed their dissent and in April of 1848, three professors, one assistant and fifty-five students formed the Compagnia della Guardia Universitaria to participate in the battle of Curtatone and Montanara. The troop’s flag is still preserved in the Chancellor’s building. All of this passion for the new republic could not but trouble the Grand Duke and in the end he closed down the School of Medicine permitting only Law and Theology to continue.
The Sienese academy recovered from this unfortunate situation after 1859, thanks to initiatives by the city’s private enterprises and a series of legislative acknowledgements that boosted the reputation of the School of Pharmacy and that of Obstetrics (and consequently the School of Medicine itself) while the old hospital Santa Maria della Scala was transformed into General University Hospital. Some time later in 1880 , the Law Faculty established the Circolo Giuridico or Legal Circle, where issues pertaining to law studies were examined in depth through seminars and lectures.
In spite of the fervour, in 1892 the Minister of Public Education, Ferdinando Martini, launched a proposal aimed at suppressing the Sienese academy’s activities. Siena perceived this as a declaration of war and was backed immediately by a general tradesmen’s strike, the intervention of all of the town’s institutions and by a genuine uprising of the population – all of which induced to minister to withdraw the project. Having escaped this danger, the town went back to investing its resources in the university setting up new degrees and new faculties. Monte dei Paschi financed the construction of the biology department – a task which was then repeated one hundred years later – while the Italian academic world was in apprehension over repeated legal proposals, among which was the Minister of Public Education Guido Baccelli’s plan which sought to impose autonomous financing, thereby penalising the smaller academic institutions.
The 19th century witnessed the constant growth of the University of Siena, escalating from four hundred students between the wars to more than 20 thousand in the last few years.
During the start of the academic year, on November 7th, 1990 the Sienese academy celebrated its 750th anniversary.
[edit] Notable students, alumni and faculty
- Francesco Accarigi (c. 1557—1622), professor of civil law
[edit] Organization
These are the 9 faculties in which the university is divided into:
- Faculty of Economics Richard M. Goodwin
- Faculty of Engineering
- Faculty of Humanities and Philosophy
- Faculty of Humanities and Philosophy - Arezzo
- Faculty of Jurisprudence
- Faculty of Mathematical Sciences, Physical and Natural
- Faculty of Medicine and Surgery
- Faculty of Pharmacy
- Faculty of Political Science
In Siena there are no borders delineating the world of the city and that of the university. The Anglo-Saxon model of "university" as a "city within a city," in some way detached from the community in which it stands, does not portray the situation here.
Siena’s campus is the city. The academy lives as an integral part of the urban fabric in both space and time. Thus there is an uneasy equilibrium between city and university, where 20 thousand students lived among the 50 thousand Sienese. While the Sienese are proud of their native traditions, the more polyglot university prides itself on diversity, with which as the historian Gucciardini would put it, non havvi genio - there is no genius.
Recently, the University has returned historical buildings to the city, which are being made into apartments or used by the contradas. At the same time, it is thanks to the intervention of the University that many buildings which risked falling into ruin were saved, making institutions of study out of a part of the city patrimony that might have otherwise been lost. The Faculties of Engineering and Literature, for example, have found space for their departments in the large rooms of what was once the San Niccolò Psychiatric Hospital. The same holds true for the transformation of the former Convent of Santa Chiara into the first collegiate residence in Italy, reserved for those working towards a European postgraduate degree.
New university buildings have even been built in the city centre such as the one that houses the Faculty of Political Science and Law, whose architectural style blends with the secular surroundings creating a balance between preservation and innovation. The ten university dormitories are adapted to the urban fabric and are located within the historical centre (Fontebranda, Porrione, Sperandie, San Marco), on the outskirts (Acquacalda) and near the extended areas of the university (San Miniato).
[edit] See also
- Coimbra Group (a network of leading European universities)
- List of Italian universities
- Siena
[edit] External links
- University of Siena Website (Italian) (English)
- Siena OnLine - University (Italian) (English)
- Its entry at the Catholic Encyclopedia
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