The University of Palermo ( it, Università degli Studi di Palermo) is a university located in
Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, and founded in 1806. It is organized in 12 Faculties.
History
The University of Palermo was officially founded in 1806, although its earliest roots date back to 1498 when
medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
and
law were taught there. A little later in
history
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
, from the second half of the 16th century from their seat at the Collegio Massimo al Cassero, the
Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
Fathers granted degrees in
Theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...
and
Philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
- subjects in which they had been masters for over 200 years.
In 1767 they were expelled from the kingdom by King
Ferdinand I, until 37 years later, when they returned to take their seat - which in the meantime had been turned into the Regia Accademia.
At this time, the same King Ferdinand decided to grant a good seat to the Accademia, moving its location to the Convent of the Teatini Fathers next to the Church of St. Giuseppe.
After the unification of Italy in 1860, the University of Palermo was modernized under the impetus of the chemist
Stanislao Cannizzaro and the
minister and specialist in
Arab studies Michele Amari
Michele Amari (7 July 1806 – 16 July 1889) was a Sicilian patriot, historian and orientalist.
Biography
Born at Palermo son of Ferdinando and Giulia Venturelli, he devoted a great part of his life to the history of Sicily. Amari was also a ...
, more or less assuming its present appearance. Since 1984 the main building of the University, housing the Rector's office, is
Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri
Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri is a Gothic-style palace located on via Piazza Marina, facing the Giardino Garibaldi in the ancient quarter of Kalsa of Palermo, region of Sicily, Italy.
History
The building, intended to be the family palace or castle ...
, one of the most important historical buildings in Palermo, built in 1307 and formerly the residence of the Chiaramonte. Not far from Palazzo Steri, on land formerly belonging to the
Chiaramonte
The Chiaramonte are a noble family of Sicily. They became the most powerful and wealthy family in Sicily. In the 13th century the marriage of Manfredi Chiaramonte to Isabella Mosca, united the two Sicilian counties of Modica and Ragusa. Arou ...
, the
Botanical Gardens of
Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its ...
constitute a further admirable pearl of the University.
Today, the University has grown to be an institution of about 2000 lecturers and 50,000 students in which research in all main fields of study is carried out. In the past few years the university has actively taken part in international cooperation programmes.
Organization
These are the 12 faculties in which the university is divided into:
* Faculty of
Agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...
* Faculty of
Architecture
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...
* Faculty of
Arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
and
Humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at t ...
* Faculty of
Economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...
* Faculty of
Education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...
* Faculty of
Engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
* Faculty of
Law
* Faculty of
Mathematical
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
,
Physical
Physical may refer to:
* Physical examination, a regular overall check-up with a doctor
* ''Physical'' (Olivia Newton-John album), 1981
** "Physical" (Olivia Newton-John song)
* ''Physical'' (Gabe Gurnsey album)
* "Physical" (Alcazar song) (2004)
* ...
and
Natural Sciences
Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeat ...
* Faculty of
Medicine
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...
* Faculty of
Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...
* Faculty of
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medication, medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it ...
* Faculty of
Political Sciences
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and l ...
Notable people
Alumni
*
Giuseppe Alessi
*
Giuseppe Ayala
*
Ernesto Basile
Ernesto Basile (31 January 1857 – 26 August 1932, in Palermo) was an Italian architect and an exponent of modernisme and Liberty style, the Italian variant of Art Nouveau. His style was known for its eclectic fusion of ancient, medieval and m ...
*
Giovanni Battista Filippo Basile
*
Giulia Bongiorno
Giulia Bongiorno (born 22 March 1966) is an Italian lawyer and politician who served as the Italian Minister of Public Administration from 1 June 2018 to 5 September 2019. A prominent criminal defense attorney, she has served in both houses of th ...
*
Paolo Borsellino
*
Gesualdo Bufalino
*
Diego Cammarata
*
Bruno Caruso
*
Rocco Chinnici
*
Francesco Crispi
Francesco Crispi (4 October 1818 – 11 August 1901) was an italy, Italian patriot and statesman. He was among the main protagonists of the Risorgimento, a close friend and supporter of Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, and one of the arc ...
*
Salvatore Cuffaro
*
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone (; 18 May 1939 – 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian ...
*
Mario Fasino
Mario Fasino (26 July 1920 – 17 January 2017) was an Italian politician, journalist, and one of the co-founders of Christian Democratic Party (DC) in Sicily. He served as the President of the region of Sicily from 20 September 1969 until 22 De ...
*
Paolo Giaccone
*
Giovanni Gioia
Giovanni Gioia (16 January 1925 – 27 November 1981) was an Italian politician.
Biography
Giovanni Gioia was grandson of the industrialist Filippo Pecoraino and had kinship relationships with Tagliavia shipowners.
Gioia was one of the most infl ...
*
Pietro Grasso
*
Enrico La Loggia
*
Giuseppe La Loggia
*
Pio La Torre
*
Salvatore Lauricella
*
Rosario Livatino
*
Filippo Mancuso
*
Calogero Mannino
Calogero Antonio Mannino (born August 20, 1939 in Asmara) is an Italian politician and lawyer. He has been a member of the Christian Democracy and the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats. He served in the cabinet of Prime Ministers Spadolini ...
*
Bernardo Mattarella
Bernardo Mattarella (15 September 1905 – 1 March 1971) was an Italian politician for the Christian Democrat party (''Democrazia Cristiana'', DC). He was a cabinet minister of Italy several times, becoming one of the most important politicians o ...
*
Francesca Morvillo
*
Gaetano Mosca
Gaetano Mosca (; 1 April 1858 – 8 November 1941) was an Italian political scientist, journalist and public servant. He is credited with developing the elite theory and the doctrine of the political class and is one of the three members cons ...
*
Francesco Musotto
Francesco Musotto (born 1 February 1947 in Palermo) was an Italian politician and Member of the European Parliament for the Islands (elected for the first time in 1999). He is the son of Giovanni Musotto, a notable professor in criminal law at ...
*
Leoluca Orlando
*
Vittorio Emanuele Orlando
*
Ettore Paratore
*
Emanuele Paternò
*
Mino Pecorelli
Carmine "Mino" Pecorelli (; 14 September 1928 – 20 March 1979) was an Italian journalist, shot dead in Rome a year after former prime minister Aldo Moro's 1978 kidnapping and subsequent killing. He was described as a "maverick journalist wit ...
*
Valentino Picone
Salvatore Ficarra (born 27 May 1971, in Palermo) and Valentino Picone (born 23 March 1971, in Palermo) are an Italian comedy duo who work on stage, films, television and books as Ficarra e Picone.
Life and career
They started in 1993 along ...
*
Elda Pucci
Elda Pucci (21 February 1928 – 14 October 2005) was an Italian politician and professor.
Biography
Elda Pucci was born in Trapani, Italy in 1928 and died in Palermo, Italy in 2005 at the age of 77. She is daughter of Stefano Pucci. She graduat ...
*
Franco Restivo
Franco Restivo (25 May 1911 – 17 April 1976) was an Italian politician.
Biography
Franco Restivo was son of Empedocle Restivo, a jurist and national deputy. He studied law at the University of Palermo and in 1943 he became a professor of const ...
*
Antonino Saetta
*
Amedeo di Savoia
*
Pietro Scaglione
*
Renato Schifani
Renato Maria Giuseppe Schifani (; born 11 May 1950
.) is an Italian politician who has served as the
*
Enzo Sellerio
*
Antonio Starabba di Rudinì
*
Carlo Vizzini
Carlo Vizzini (born 28 April 1947 in Palermo) is an Italian politician.
Political life
Vizzini was secretary of the Italian Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) from 1992 to 1993, during which time he founded (along with Bettino Craxi of the Itali ...
*
Antonino Zichichi
Notable professors
*
Sergio Mattarella,
President of Italy
The president of Italy, officially denoted as president of the Italian Republic ( it, Presidente della Repubblica Italiana) is the head of state of Italy. In that role, the president represents national unity, and guarantees that Italian poli ...
*
Emilio Segrè, awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...
in 1959
*
Stanislao Cannizzaro, famous for the
Cannizzaro reaction and for his influential role in the atomic-weight deliberations of the
Karlsruhe Congress in 1860.
*
Giuseppe Piazzi, his most famous discovery was the first dwarf planet,
Ceres.
*
Natalino Sapegno, He came to prominence as a leading scholar of fourteenth century Italian literature.
*
Gaetano Giorgio Gemmellaro
Gaetano Giorgio Gemmellaro (24 February 1832, in Catania – 16 March 1904, in Palermo) was an Italian geologist, paleontologist and politician.
Biography
Gemmellaro was the son of Carlo Gemmellaro, a teacher of geology at the University of Ca ...
*
Antonino Salinas
*
Gioacchino Scaduto
Notes and references
See also
*
List of early modern universities in Europe
The list of early modern universities in Europe comprises all universities that existed in the early modern age (1501–1800) in Europe. It also includes short-lived foundations and educational institutions whose university status is a matter o ...
*
List of Italian universities
*
Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its ...
*
Orto botanico di Palermo
The Orto Botanico di Palermo (''Palermo Botanical Garden'') is both a botanical garden and a research and educational institution of the Department of Botany of the University of Palermo. The garden lies within the city of Palermo, Italy a ...
*
Center for Sicilian Philological and Linguistic Studies
External links
*
University of Palermo Website*
*
{{authority control
Palermo
Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The city is noted for its ...
Education in Palermo
Buildings and structures in Palermo
1806 establishments in the Kingdom of Sicily
1806 establishments in Italy