Italy Ferrara

University of Ferrara

The University of Ferrara (Università degli Studi di Ferrara) was founded in 1391 by a bull of Pope Boniface IX at the request of Marquis Alberto V d'Este, making it one of the oldest universities in Italy. Nicolaus Copernicus took his doctorate… The University of Ferrara (Università degli Studi di Ferrara) was founded in 1391 by a bull of Pope Boniface IX at the request of Marquis Alberto V d'Este, making it one of the oldest universities in Italy. Nicolaus Copernicus took his doctorate in canon law here in 1503, and Paracelsus studied medicine at Ferrara in the same period. The university is woven into the Renaissance city centre that UNESCO lists as a World Heritage Site. Ferrara is a medium-sized public university of around 27,000 students, organised into twelve departments covering medicine, pharmacy and biotechnology, engineering, architecture, law, economics, the humanities and the environmental sciences. It has a strong record in earth sciences and seismology, biomedical and pharmaceutical research, and architecture and heritage conservation, and consistently scores well in national surveys of teaching quality and graduate employment for institutions of its size.