The University of Catania ( it, Università degli Studi di Catania) is a university located in
Catania
Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by ...
,
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
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. Founded in 1434, it is the oldest university in Sicily, the 13th oldest in Italy, and the 29th oldest university in the world. With a population of over 60,000 students, it is the main university in Sicily.
Departments
Following the Italian higher education reform introduced by the law 240/10 and adopted by the University of Catania in its new statute, faculties have been deactivated and departments have been reorganized. The University of Catania now has 17 departments, the Faculty of Medicine, and two special didactic units established in the decentralized offices of Ragusa (Modern Languages) and Syracuse (Architecture). that, additionally to the traditional assignments of scientific research, are in charge of the organization and management of educational activities. A special didactic unit is also the school of excellence "Scuola Superiore di Catania", a higher education centre of the University of Catania conceived in 1998 to select the best young minds and offer them a course of studies including analysis, research and experimentation.
History
The university was founded by King
Alfonso I of Sicily on 19 October 1434. A charter was granted after two royal councillors (
Adamo Asmundo and Battista Platamone) convinced the king to accept the founding of a ''Studium Generale'' in Catania, with the papal recognition arriving ten years later from
Pope Eugene IV
Pope Eugene IV ( la, Eugenius IV; it, Eugenio IV; 1383 – 23 February 1447), born Gabriele Condulmer, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 3 March 1431 to his death in February 1447. Condulmer was a Venetian, and ...
(18 April 1444). Alfonso V with this gesture wanted to compensate the city (in which there had been recently established the royal court) for moving the Sicilian capital from Catania to Palermo. The activity of the Atheneum actually started a year later, in 1445, with six professors and ten students. The first four faculties were Medicine, Philosophy, Canon and Civil Law and Theology. Lessons were initially held in a building in Piazza del Duomo, next to the
Cathedral of Sant'Agata, and eventually moved to the
Palazzo dell'Università
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome whic ...
in the late 1690s. This building remains the office of the rector of the university to this day. The first degree was awarded to Antonio Mantello, from Syracuse, in 1449. During the course of the 16th century, approximately 20-25 degrees were awarded each year. The university (which from the 16th century was referred to as ''Siculorum Gymnasium'') was named ''Studium Generale'' because it was the only entity that could release degrees equal to those released in the old ''Studia'' of
Salamanca
Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritag ...
,
Valladolid
Valladolid () is a Municipalities of Spain, municipality in Spain and the primary seat of government and de facto capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castile and León. It is also the capital of the province o ...
,
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) 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 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
and this contributed to spread envy in the other Sicilian cities that in culture and traditions didn't feel inferior to Catania. In 1934, the university celebrated its 500th anniversary with King
Vittorio Emanuele III
Victor Emmanuel III (Vittorio Emanuele Ferdinando Maria Gennaro di Savoia; 11 November 1869 – 28 December 1947) was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. He also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia (1936–1941) and ...
of Italy, and, in 1984 the 550th one.
In the early centuries of its existence, the university was administered by the
Senate of Catania,
[''i.e.'' the city council.] overseen by the
Viceroy of Sicily This is a list of viceroys of Sicily:
Aragonese direct rule 1409–1516
* John of Aragon, Duke of Peñafiel, later king John II of Aragon, 1458–1479, acted 1409–1416.
* Domingo Ram y Lanaja, Bishop of Lleida 1416–1419
* Antonio de Cardona ...
, whit the
bishop of Catania as Great Chanchellor. With a reform operated by the Viceroy in 1679 the authority of the Bishop prevailed: he had the control over the lecturers, the freshmen and students' curriculum. This led to various conflicts between the civil and religious authorities. From 1818 to the office of Great Chancellor was assigned to the president of the Great Civil Court, instead of the bishop.
List of scholars
Humanities
*
Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida, Italian politician and journalist, was elected the first Socialist mayor of Catania in 1902.
*
Mario Rapisardi
Mario Rapisardi (25 February 1844, in Catania – 4 January 1912, in Catania) was an Italian poet, supporter of Risorgimento and member of the Scapigliatura (definition but refused).
Life
As a boy, he was taught "grammar, rhetoric and the Latin ...
, Italian poet and translator, taught at the university in the 1870s. "Love truth more than glory, more than peace, more than life. Make it your sword and your shield."
*
Luigi Capuana
Luigi Capuana (May 28, 1839 – November 29, 1915) was an Italian author and journalist and one of the most important members of the ''verist'' movement (see also ''verismo'' (literature)). He was a contemporary of Giovanni Verga, both having ...
, writer, journalist, literary critic and theorist. He taught literature in the early years of the 20th century.
*
Giovanni Verga
Giovanni Carmelo Verga di Fontanabianca (; 2 September 1840 – 27 January 1922) was an Italian realist ('' verista'') writer, best known for his depictions of life in his native Sicily, especially the short story and later play ''Cavalleria ...
, Italian realist writer, author of the ''
Cavalleria Rusticana
''Cavalleria rusticana'' (; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 short story of the same name and subsequent play b ...
'' and ''
I Malavoglia
''I Malavoglia'' () is the best known novel by Giovanni Verga. It was first printed in 1881.
Background
The readers' good reception of the short story ''Nedda'', published in 1874, encouraged the project of a "sea sketch" entitled ''Padron 'N ...
''.
*
Santo Mazzarino, leading 20th-century historian of ancient Rome and Greece.
*
Vitaliano Brancati
Vitaliano Brancati (; 24 July 1907 – 25 September 1954) was an Italian novelist, dramatist, poet and screenwriter.
Biography
Born in Pachino, Syracuse, Brancati studied in Catania, where he graduated in letters and where he spent the most pa ...
, Italian novelist and screenwriter, winner of the 1950
Bagutta Prize
The Bagutta Prize is an Italian literary prize that is awarded annually to Italian writers. The prize originated among patrons of Milan's ''Bagutta Ristorante''. The writer Riccardo Bacchelli discovered the restaurant and soon he regularly gathere ...
.
*
Elémire Zolla
Elémire Zolla (9 July 1926 – 29 May 2002) was an Italian essayist, philosopher and historian of religion. He was a connoisseur of esoteric doctrines and a scholar of Eastern and Western mysticism.
Biography
Zolla was born in Turin to a cos ...
, Italian essayist, philosopher and historian of religion, taught linguistics in the late 1960s.
Sciences
*
Mario Pieri
Mario Pieri (22 June 1860 – 1 March 1913) was an Italian mathematician who is known for his work on foundations of geometry.
Biography
Pieri was born in Lucca, Italy, the son of Pellegrino Pieri and Ermina Luporini. Pellegrino was a lawyer. Pie ...
, mathematician, taught descriptive, projective and higher geometry from 1900 to 1908 and supervised 6 doctoral students with dissertations in algebraic geometry. See ''The Legacy of Mario Pieri in Geometry and Arithmetic'', Birkhäuser (
E.A. Marchisotto & J.T. Smith (2007).
*
Giuseppe Mercalli
Giuseppe Mercalli (21 May 1850 – 19 March 1914) was an Italian volcanologist and Catholic priest. He is known best for the Mercalli intensity scale for measuring earthquake intensity.
Biography
Born in Milan, Mercalli was ordained a Roman C ...
, inventor of the Mercalli Scale of earthquake intensity, was professor of geology in the late 1880s.
*
Annibale Ricco Annibale is the Italian masculine given name and surname equivalent to Hannibal.
In English, it may refer to :
Given name
* Annibale Albani (1682–1751), Italian cardinal
* Annibale I Bentivoglio, (died 1445), ruler of Bologna from 1443
* Ann ...
, named Chair of Astrophysics in 1890, was the first director of the Catania Observatory. He was also Chancellor of the university from 1898 to 1900. The crater Ricco on the Moon as well as the asteroid
18462 Ricco are named for him.
*
Guido Fubini
Guido Fubini (19 January 1879 – 6 June 1943) was an Italian mathematician, known for Fubini's theorem and the Fubini–Study metric.
Life
Born in Venice, he was steered towards mathematics at an early age by his teachers and his father, wh ...
, author of Fubini's theorem, was a professor of mathematics in the early years of the 20th century. The asteroid,
22495 Fubini, is named in his honor.
*
Remo Ruffini
Remo Ruffini (born May 17, 1942, La Brigue, Alpes-Maritimes, at that time, Briga Marittima, Italy). He is the Director of ICRANet, International Centre for Relativistic Astrophysics Network and the President of the International Centre for Rel ...
, former assistant professor at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
(1971–74), was professor of theoretical physics from 1976 to 1978. He was named Space Scientist of the Year in 1992.
*
Paolo Maffei
Paolo Maffei (2 January 1926 – 1 March 2009) was an Italian astrophysicist and science writer.
He was born in Arezzo and was director of the Catania Observatory and an astronomer at Arcetri, Bologna, Asiago and Hamburg. He studied ...
, director of the Catania Observatory from 1975 to 1980, was one of the pioneers of infrared astronomy. He discovered 2 galaxies,
Maffei 1
Maffei 1 is a massive elliptical galaxy in the constellation Cassiopeia. Once believed to be a member of the Local Group of galaxies, it is now known to belong to a separate group, the IC 342/Maffei Group. It was named after Paolo Maffei, who ...
and
Maffei 2
Maffei 2 is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 10 million light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. Maffei 2 and Maffei 1 were both discovered by Paolo Maffei in 1968 from their infrared emission. Maffei 2 lies in the Zone of Avoidan ...
in 1967. A main belt asteroid,
18426 Maffei
__NOTOC__
Year 184 ( CLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Eggius and Aelianus (or, less frequently, year 937 '' A ...
, is also named for him.
*
Giuseppe Colombo Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo (October 2, 1920 in Padua – February 20, 1984 in Padua) was an Italian scientist, mathematician and engineer at the University of Padua, Italy.
Mercury
Colombo studied the planet Mercury, and it was his calculations wh ...
, physicist and astronomer, NASA consultant and early proponent of tethered satellites. Asteroid
10387 Bepicolombo is named in his honor, as is the
Colombo Gap, a 150 km gap in the C ring of the planet Saturn.
*
Napoleone Ferrara
Napoleone Ferrara (born 26 July 1956, Catania), is an Italian-American molecular biologist who joined University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center in 2013 after a career in Northern California at the biotechnology giant Genentech, ...
, molecular biologist, winner of the 2010
Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award is one of four annual awards presented by the Lasker Foundation. The Lasker-DeBakey award is given to honor outstanding work for the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and cure of diseas ...
, is a 1981 graduate of the Faculty of Medicine.
Points of interest
*
Orto Botanico dell'Università di Catania, the university's
botanical garden
A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...
, founded in 1858.
*
Catania Astrophysical Observatory, the university's
observatory
An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. His ...
, founded in 1890.
See also
*
Scuola superiore di Catania
Scuola Superiore di Catania (SSC) is an education institute in Italy. It was founded in 1998 followed by the model of Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa.
Scuola Superiore di Catania
The aims of Scuola Superiore di Catania are:
* to develop the ...
(school of excellence of the University of Catania)
*
List of the oldest universities
*
List of Italian universities
This is the list of universities in Italy, sorted in ascending order by the name of the city where they are situated.
List of universities
Source: MIUR, ''Anagrafe Nazionale Studenti'' (Academic year 2012/2013)
Regional distribution
Sou ...
*
List of medieval universities
The list of medieval universities comprises universities (more precisely, '' studia generalia'') which existed in Europe during the Middle Ages.Rüegg 1992, pp. XIX–XX It also includes short-lived foundations and European educational ins ...
References
External links
Official websiteUniversity of Catania students' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Catania, University of
University of Catania
University of Catania
The University of Catania ( it, Università degli Studi di Catania) is a university located in Catania, Sicily. Founded in 1434, it is the oldest university in Sicily, the 13th oldest in Italy, and the 29th oldest university in the world. With a ...
1434 establishments in Europe
15th-century establishments in the Kingdom of Sicily
Educational institutions established in the 15th century
Buildings and structures in the Province of Catania
Education in Catania