THE ORIGIN of the UNIVERSITY of BOLOGNA by GU1SEPPE FRANCHINI, M.D
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THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA By GU1SEPPE FRANCHINI, M.D. MODENA, ITALY fall of the Roman Em- cluded woods, and kept their culture I pire, which had reached a alive. It is, however, well known that I very high degree of civiliza- Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, --tion, determined the complex though he himself could not read or phenomenon of civil decadence that write, protected Cassiodorus, Enno- found favorable development in Chris- dius and Boethius who cultivated tianity’s teachings of renunciation. the study of Roman literature, while The Dark Ages followed, during he himself took pride in erecting which hordes of hungry and blood- magnificent edifices. thirsty barbarians took advantage At Bologna, the “School,” so-called and invaded Italy, being attracted for lack of a better term, was estab- by its temperate climate and the lished at the initiative of a few cul- opulence of the fields. Goths, Huns, tured men; it was entirely private, Vandals and Longbards, descended without any control of the princes from the northern steppes, and made who, given to warfare, despised any of Italy a battlefield of passions and and every form of activity foreign plunders; they were real barbarians, to military affairs. Literature was not in the strict Latin meaning of the not considered an occupation fit for word, but because of their lack of a man of the world and consequently, every form of civilization. This flagel- it could be pursued only by the lum Dei (scourge of God) was in open clergy. Since everything centered in contrast to the Latin domination theology, scholars shut themselves up over Hellas and the Hellenic occu- in the inviolable recesses of religious pation of the Pharaonic Empire, where communities where peace and security the conquerors were won by the turned their minds to meditation. civilization of the subdued people. In Abelard’s and Friar Benedict’s schools their case, literature and the arts at Troyes originated in this way. The llourished, and found, through the new Cenacle of Montecassino in the fifth rulers, not only greatness but further century, the first example in Italy impulse toward progress. perhaps, of organized study with magis- While the Ptolomeys, succeeding terial direction, closely simulated Alexander the Great, were creating the Justinian school of law. Saint a cultural center in Alexandria of Benedict’s cenobites did not disdain Egypt, the northern barbarians were to teach the medical art, being pos- scouring the peninsula with constant sibly the forerunners of the famous conflagrations and plunders. What- teachers of the Salernitan School. In ever part of the immense Greek- the year 802, Charles the Great, in Roman intellectual patrimony we now the first Imperial Edict, made of possess, we owe to those who still Salerno already a well-renowned burning with the sacred fire of the school of medical disciplines, the best imperial civilization, met secretly in known center of education. This edict churches and monasteries or in se- was the only one of its kind until four centuries later. Dante reminds . the professor was not originally us that Parisian schools were confined the officer of any public institution: he to vicus straminis (Straw Street) where was simply a private-adventure Lecturer teachers and pupils sat on straw in —like the Sophist of ancient Greece or curious places in which in parte the Rhetor of ancient Rome—whom a superiore magistri legebant, in inferiore number of independent gentlemen of all meretrices officia turpitudinis exerce- ages between seventeen and forty had bant . and inter se et cum biminibus hired to instruct them. litigabant (on the second floor teachers lectured and on the first prostitutes The School of Bologna, thus formed, practiced their obnoxious business developed and flourished as a private . and wrangled with men and institution, not however lodged in among themselves). ill-famed houses, as in Paris. In the fifteenth century we find artists study- The Stu di o of Bol og na ing in different places from lawyers; Bologna did not enjoy any greater the use of straw, far from being privileges. Here, as elsewhere, teach- banned, must have been usual, since ing began as a private initiative and as fate as 1405 it served the students Odophredus cites quidam dominus as an argument in favor of antici- Pepo (a certain Sir Pepo) who cepit pating Christmas vacations which auctoritate sua legere in legibus (began were demanded proiciendo paleas vel with his authority to read in the faciendo aliquem actum per quem laws), and was soon followed by impediatur doctorem legere (by throw- Yrnerius with the same teaching. In ing straws or by doing some other the year 1000, as H. Rashdall re- act to prevent the doctor from lectur- minds us: ing). To this same year (1405) belongs the first edict of the College of and prosperous circumstances. The Medicine and of Arts that prohibited elect youth of Europe convened in lecturing in other localities than those this city. It is estimated that no less expressly indicated and listed, in the vicinity of which no noisy business or profession could be carried on. Students paid the teacher a fee pro suo salario et collecta bancharum (for his salary for collecting funds) and were brought together in hospices or than 10,000 German students were colleges where, through statutory pro- enrolled there between the years 1289 visions going back to the year 1284, and 1796, at a time when such Uni- they enjoyed every sort of privilege versity institutions were not yet and protection. The hospitality offered known abroad, and teaching was students and their respective families imparted only to the wealthy who by the City governments was generous could allow themselves the luxury of a indeed, and it aimed at making pos- preceptor. sible for the University a more vigor- In the fifteenth century every ous growth ut tesaurum preciosissimum Italian city had very flourishing (as a very precious treasure). It was Superior Institutes, while in northern lawful for teachers to board students, Germany the first elementary schools but severe penalties threatened them, were timidly beginning to appear. when they violated the duties of For this reason the flower of German hospitality or lectured in another nobility and talent, among whom the school. highest prelates, the greatest princes Unlike the other European Uni- and literary men, drew from Italy versities, the students of Bologna and from Bologna the solid cultural were distinguished by their maturity foundations that kept alive the torch of their knowledge, deepest redress debate in the Public Square. A statute of the oppressed against the bloody of 1378 ordered quod nullus possit arrogance of the conquerors. legere de mane Medicinam nisi Bononi- Students grouped themselves in ensis verus (that no one but a associations, each having a leader thorough bred citizen of Bologna according to their country of origin, could teach Medicine in the morning), (Lmiversitates scholarium). Citramon- and this provision was obeyed till tani (living this side of the Alps) the 1459, when it was revoked. Other Italians were called and Ultramontani ordinances prescribed the ordinary (living beyond the Alps), the for- and the extraordinary lecture-books eigners, who were subdivided by and hours with the view of having nationalities, each having their re- the forenoon reserved for ordinary spective Consiliarii (Advisers). In subjects. For the extraordinary lec- turn, among these nationalities, a tures, given in the evening, only Rector was elected who had civil students could be employed who were jurisdiction in controversies, conferred duly chosen and salaried by the City with the City magistrates, elected which, with the statute of 1410, the Lecturers and provided for their assumed also the burden of the salary compensation and for school-books, for the Lecturers selected by the which were purchased or rented from Faculty College, provided that they the Stationarii (stationers). were of Bologna. The audience was often so numerous This is the first step toward State in Bologna as to justify the order control and official recognition of the given to the Lecturers in 1474, as School which, from a free and private they did in Siena, to assemble and institution was thus changed into a dependent official organization. The Felix Plater dug graves with his last to receive proper legislation were hands; at funerals coffins were robbed the school-buildings, an indispensable of their contents; bodies were stolen necessity for the teaching of medicine, from private residences; teachers were if not for letters and law. Practical tried for the disinterment of an exe- anatomy, at least, required special cuted criminal and consequent dis- places for the keeping and dissection section of the body cum rasuris et of the bodies. The task of providing cultellis et alii artificiis (with razors, for such a civil need was indeed not knives and other means). The an easy one: ignorance, sentimental- chronicles of the times are full of ism and religious fanaticism were such news, but it was not easy to jointly opposed to it. The earnest find the parts of bodies carried away students, in retaliation, organized veri- because they were hidden in private table punitive expeditions snatching, houses, where the courses in demon- carrying off, exhuming and mutilating strative anatomy were given. The bodies. Lecturers vied with each other in In the year 1727 in Bologna a comic forming their museums, the only place note was not wanting in this per- from which they could daily absorb plexing situation: Vesalius was repre- school knowledge. sented contending with dogs and Where the intervention of govern- vultures over the remains of executed ments was delayed the devotees of a criminals at Montfaucon; Valsava special science compensated for this was represented disinterring at night lack by founding an Academy in time horribly putrefied corpses; stu- almost every city.