1222 was the year in which, for the first time, the Studio Patavino was named precisely in a notarial act of the city.
It was on this date, in fact, that a group of students and professors migrated from the University of Bologna in search of greater academic freedom. We are sure, however, that schools of law and medicine with students from various countries have existed in Padua for some centuries. In any case, the date that is still recognized as the founding of one of the oldest universities in the world is 1222 and the city of Padua is ready to celebrate these eight hundred years of Universitas Studii Paduani.
The celebrations began on Thursday the 30th of September and Friday the 1st of October with a meeting between the rectors of some of Europe’s oldest universities, a reading-concert on freedom and the inauguration of the new rector Daniela Mapelli.
With her inauguration Daniela Mapelli is officially the first rector in the history of the University of Padua, the same university where in 1678 Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, receiving her degree in philosophy, became the first woman to graduate in modern history.
The program of celebrations will accompany the city until March 2023, with a rich calendar of events, exhibitions, performances, meetings, editorial publications and openings of new museums.
An opportunity to promote knowledge, the real one, which, as the motto of the university reminds us, should always be free.