Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa founded by Napoleon
The Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (commonly known in Italy as "la Normale") is a public university in Pisa and Florence, Tuscany, Italy, currently attended by about 600 undergraduate and postgraduate (PhD) students.
It was founded in 1810 with a decree by Napoleon as a branch of the École normale supérieure in Paris, with the aim of training the teachers of the Empire to educate its citizens. In 2013 the Florentine site was added to the historical site in Pisa, following the inclusion of the Institute of Human Sciences in Florence (SUM). Since 2018 the Scuola Normale Superiore has been federated with the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa and with the Institute for Advanced Studies of Pavia, the only other two university institutions with special status that, in the Italian panorama, offer, in accordance with standards of excellence, both undergraduate and postgraduate educational activities.
Eminent personalities from the world of science, literature and politics have studied at the Normale, among them Giosuè Carducci, Carlo Rubbia, Enrico Fermi, Aldo Capitini, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Giovanni Gronchi, Giovanni Gentile, Massimo D'Alema as well as Alessio Figalli, in more recent times.