page_title: Bologna
section_title: Education
hierarchical_section_title: Bologna / Education
caption_attribution_description: English: Archiginnasio internal court, Bologna, Italy
context_page_description: Bologna is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 390,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its metropolitan area is home to more than 1,000,000 people.
  Originally Etruscan, the city has been one of the most important urban centres for centuries, first under the Etruscans, then under the Celts as Bona, later under the Romans, then again in the Middle Ages, as a free municipality and signoria, when it was among the largest European cities by population. Famous for its towers, churches and lengthy porticoes, Bologna has a well-preserved historical centre, thanks to a careful restoration and conservation policy which began at the end of the 1970s. Home to the oldest university in the world, the University of Bologna, established in AD 1088, the city has a large student population that gives it a cosmopolitan character. In 2000 it was declared European capital of culture and in 2006, a UNESCO "City of Music" and became part of the Creative Cities Network.
context_section_description: The University of Bologna, conventionally said to have been founded in 1088 by glossators Irnerius and Pepo, is the oldest university in Europe. It was an important centre of European intellectual life during the Middle Ages, attracting scholars from Italy and throughout Europe. The Studium, as it was originally known, began as a loosely organized teaching system with each master collecting fees from students on an individual basis. The location of the early University was thus spread throughout the city, with various colleges being founded to support students of a specific nationality.
  In the Napoleonic era, the headquarters of the university were moved to their present location on Via Zamboni, in the north-eastern sector of the city centre. Today, the University's 11 schools, 33 departments, and 93 libraries are spread across the city and include four subsidiary campuses in nearby Cesena, Forlì, Ravenna, and Rimini. Noteworthy students present at the university in centuries past included Dante, Petrarch, Thomas Becket, Pope Nicholas V, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and Copernicus. Laura Bassi, appointed in 1732, became the first woman to officially teach at a university in Europe. In more recent history, Luigi Galvani, the discoverer of bioelectromagnetics, and Guglielmo Marconi, the pioneer of radio technology, also worked at the University. The University of Bologna remains one of the most respected and dynamic post-secondary educational institutions in Italy. To this day, Bologna is still very much a university town, with over 80,000 enrolled students in 2015. This community includes a great number of Erasmus, Socrates, and overseas students. The university's botanical garden, the Orto Botanico dell'Università di Bologna, was established in 1568; it is the fourth oldest in Europe.
  Johns Hopkins University maintains its Bologna Center in the city, which hosts one of the overseas campuses of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). SAIS Bologna was founded in 1955 as the first campus of a US post-graduate school to open in Europe. It was inspired by Marshall Plan efforts to build a cultural bridge between America and Europe. Today, the Bologna Center also hosts the Associazione italo-americana "Luciano Finelli", which supports cross-cultural awareness and exchange between Italy and the United States.
  Dickinson College, Indiana University, Brown University, and the University of California also have campuses or antennas in the city.
  
  In addition, Bologna hosts a music school, Conservatorio Giovanni Battista Martini, established in 1804, and an art school, Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, founded in 1802. Both institutions were born as part of the reforms introduced by Napoleon Bonaparte.
caption: The University of Bologna is the world's oldest institution of higher learning, founded in AD 1088.
exif: {}