Academic Medicine in Pavia

HISTORY NOTES Giuseppe Specchia University of Pavia, Italy Academic medicine in Pavia whose rebellion against Rome deposed Romolo Augus- tolo and decreed the end of the Western Roman Empire. Odoacre was succeeded by Theodoric the Great King of the Goths, who in turn was recognized by the Eastern Empire as King of Italy. In 572 Pavia was conquered by the Lombards and became the effective capital and one of the most important cities of the kingdom with the name of Papia. The adhesion of Lombard sovereignty to Christianity gave rise to intense development of ecclesiastical construction, with the creation both of churches (frequently the seat of royal burials) and of monasteries whose wealth enabled immense development in agriculture and commerce. The substantial economic growth of Pavia, the eminence gained by Pavia on account of its royal seat, the achieved independence of its episcopal see from that of Milano, fuelled the rivalry between the two Lombard cities, both destined to explode in bloody disputes. Figure 1. Portrait of the author, source: author’s archival When Charles King of the Franks, succeeded in materials Pepin “the short”, repudiated Ermengarda daughter of the Longobard King Desiderio, the Franco–Lombard relations began and rapidly deteriorated. In addition, The history of Pavia the highly Francophile and anti–Lombard Pope Adri- an, for the refusal of Desiderio to return the invaded Pavia is a city of 73 000 inhabitants, located in territories to the Papal state, asked the French for help Lombardy, 34 kilometres south of Milano, on the left on account of Desiderio's refusal to return the invaded bank of the Ticino river; originating from lake Maggiore, territories to Papal State. In 773 King Charles (later the Ticino then flows into the river Po a few kilometres known as Charlemagne, an adjective assigned to him downstream from Pavia. The city was an important stop after his death by his biographer) invaded Italy and on the Via Francigena which, originated in northwestern besieged Pavia, where Desiderio had taken refuge. Europe, took pilgrims firstly to Rome and subsequently In June 774 Desiderio surrendered. Charles promptly to southern Italy where they then embarked to reach proclaimed himself as king of the Franks, King of the the Holy Land. Lombards and as well as a Roman patrician. In 799 the The Ticino was probably the choice of the first set- Pope Leo III placed the imperial crown on his head and tlements by Ligurian and Celtic tribes from transpadan oversaw an Empire that went from the Pyrenees to the Gaul. It became a Roman municipality in 89 BC and Danube and from the North Sea to Lazio, an act that was endowed with the name of “Ticinum”. The sewage for the first time sanctioned the secular authority of the system and the street organization on two perpendicular Pope and which would prove to be so relevant in the axes (the Cardo and the Decumanus) are features pres- subsequent centuries. ent in the map of today’s Pavia.– In the fourth century, Throughout the Carolingian period, Pavia remained Pavia was sacked twice, by Attila in 452 and in 476, by the capital of Italy and maintained its importance, thus a Roman general of barbaric origins, namely Odoacre, distinguish itself from the other prominent Italian cit- www.journals.viamedica.pl/medical_research_journal 1 Corresponding author: Giuseppe Specchia, University of Pavia, Italy, e-mail: [email protected] Medical Research Journal 2020; Volume 5; 10.5603/MRJ.a2020.0014; Copyright © 2020 Via Medica; ISSN 2451–2591 MEDICAL RESEARCH JOURNAL 2020. vol. 5 ies. As an important hub of commercial traffic, Pavia The Austrian period generated substantial revival recognized the ease with which the Ticino and the Po for Pavia, thanks mainly to the enlightened government facilitated trader’s access to Adriatic sea. Recognition of the emperor Joseph II and his wife Maria Teresa. of Pavia’s cultural status in 825 led Lotario to found Great attention was paid to the teaching and research the Schola Papiense, the first embryo of the future Uni- structures of the University where illustrious teachers, versity. from and known throughout Europe, were enrolled. The new millennium saw the birth of free municipal- The yellow color that characterises the still extant ities, that were eager to achieve political and adminis- university buildings of that time is still called “Maria trative autonomy. However, excessive eagerness led Theresa yellow”. to new conflicts. among the municipalities themselves After the brief Napoleonic adventure, Pavia returned and against whom, the Empire or the Papacy, hindered to the Austrians in 1814. In 1819 the Naviglio Pavese was their independence. completed, a waterway between Milano and Pavia which In 1056 the ancient rivalry between Pavia and Milano further favoured inland navigation, so much so that the turned into war, with mixed fortunes, until the arrival of first steamers were seen and in 1854 the shipping line Federico I, known as Barbarossa. Frederick Barbarossa was established from Pavia to Venice and Trieste. came to Italy for the first time in 1154, to tame the free After the Second War of Independence (1859) Pavia communes that rebelled against imperial authority. became definitively part of the Kingdom of Sardinia and Among these, the most belligerent was Milano that Bar- therefore of the future Kingdom of Italy, which subse- barossa, with Pavia at his side attacked and destroyed quently became a Republic at the end of the disastrous in 1162. Federico remained in Pavia for a long time and terrible Nazi–Fascism experience. and in 1155 he “domiciled” the Italic royal crown, the so-called “iron crown”, in the basilica of San Michele. In recognition of the city’s support for the empire, he The University of Pavia made many concessions in terms of political, adminis- trative and policy independence over Pavia’s then vast The first sketch of the University of Pavia dates surrounding territories. At that time the birth of Oltrepò back to the year 825 when Emperor Lotario founded Pavese is attributed. Schola Papiensis, with teaching of law suitable for the Governed by the Visconti in the fourteenth century training of judges and notaries. The real beginning of Milano gradually increased its importance and, after the University only took place in 1361, under Galeazzo II alternating fortunes in which the people of Pavia Visconti and the empire of Charles IV, with the activation often managed to defend themselves and to impose of the teachings of the law (canon and civil), medicine, heavy defeats on the Milano’s troops. Pavia defini- philosophy and the liberal arts: subsequently, the Pope tively surrendered to Galeazzo Visconti in 1359. The authorized the teaching of theology. Pavia is ,therefore, Visconti enriched Pavia from the architectural point of the second oldest Italian university after that of Bologna view with the construction of the great Castle with its (founded in 1088). immense park, and from the cultural perspective with In 1429, the first university college for lay and eccle- the foundation of the University of Pavia in 1361 and siastical students from various European countries was the formation of a very rich library known and admired founded by Cardinal Branda Castiglioni. throughout Europe. In the mid–1400s, with the death After an initial fractious period that was not easy, of the last Visconti, Pavia passed under the control of the reputation of the University developed considerably the Sforza, new lords of Milano. The early 1500s were between the 14th and 15th centuries, especially for the tragic for Pavia because the city was sacked twice and teachings of law and philosophy. in 1524 besieged by Francis I of France. The French The terrible war witnessed upheavals in sieges, king was later defeated in 1525 by the Spaniards of destruction and looting of the early sixteenth century, Emperor Charles V in the famous battle of Pavia. In events tragically reduced the Pavia population to a few the following years, Pavia endured clashes between thousand souls. Furthermore, the ongoing alternation of the French and the Spanish and suffered severe foreign domination greatly hindered the university’s ac- destruction, looting and human losses. As a result in tivity. The University experienced a strong revival during 1530, the city had only 5000 inhabitants (compared to eightteen century with the arrival of the Habsburgs and the 30,000 Pavia inhabitants who had lived there three in particular of enlightened sovereigns such as Joseph centuries earlier). II and Maria Teresa. They promoted immense develop- In the following years, Pavia underwent several fluc- ment of university structures (still existing today) and tuating foreign dominations until in 1706. Thereafter the strengthened teaching and research activities. Between city remained under Austrian control until 1796 when it the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Alessandro was occupied by Napoleon. Volta taught physics, Lorenzo Mascheroni mathematics 2 www.journals.viamedica.pl/medical_research_journal Giuseppe Specchia, The History of Pavia Figure 2. University of Pavia, source: author’s archival materials Figure 3. Pavia's Covered Bridge, source: author's archival materials and Antonio Scarpa and Lazzaro Spallanzani anatomy, Currently, the University of Pavia of Pavia is divided Ugo Foscolo and Vincenzo Monti humanities, Carlo For- into the following Departments (Biology and Biotech- lanini, the inventor of artificial pneumothorax, medicine. nology, Chemistry, Physics, Law, Civil Engineering and In the early 1900s, the anatomist Camillo Golgi was the Architecture, Industrial and Information Engineering, first Italian to receive the Nobel Prize. Mathematics, Internal Medicine and Medical Therapy, At the end of the Second World War, the University Molecular Medicine, Musicology and Cultural Heritage, of Pavia experienced an important structural lopment, Public Health, Experimental Medicine and Forensic thanks above all to the decisive, incisive work of the then Medicine, Clinical Surgical Diagnostic and Pediatric current Rector, the historian Plinio Fraccaro.

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