Italy Pavia

University of Pavia

The University of Pavia (Università degli Studi di Pavia) dates its foundation to 1361, when Emperor Charles IV granted it a charter, though schools of law and rhetoric existed in the city from 825. Alessandro Volta taught experimental physics here and invented… The University of Pavia (Università degli Studi di Pavia) dates its foundation to 1361, when Emperor Charles IV granted it a charter, though schools of law and rhetoric existed in the city from 825. Alessandro Volta taught experimental physics here and invented the electric battery at Pavia in 1799; Camillo Golgi, who discovered the staining method that opened up modern neuroscience, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1906 while professor in the city. Pavia is a public research university of around 24,000 students, organised into eighteen departments and distinguished by its system of historic residential colleges, several dating from the sixteenth century, which give the small city a strongly collegiate character. Its research is strongest in medicine and the neurosciences, pharmaceutical and biomedical science, physics and electronics, engineering, law and musicology, and the university works closely with the San Matteo and Mondino clinical research hospitals.