University of Bologna campus tour: the oldest university in Europe

Founded, by tradition, in 1088, the University of Bologna is considered the oldest university in the Western world, and the word "university" goes back to the guilds of students who organised themselves here in the Middle Ages. Its Latin name, Alma Mater Studiorum, means nourishing mother of studies. There is no campus in the modern sense: the university is woven into a red-brick medieval city of arcades and towers. This guide follows a walk from its historic seat to the present-day university quarter.

How the university fits into the city

Bologna's old centre is a rough hexagon inside a ring of avenues, small enough to cross on foot in half an hour. Two places matter most for a visitor:

The Archiginnasio, next to the main square, which was the university's home from the 16th century to the start of the 19th.
The university quarter around Via Zamboni, in the north-east of the centre, where the headquarters, the historic library, many departments and most of the student life are found today.

Science, engineering and medicine have further sites around the edge of the centre and beyond, and the university also runs campuses in four cities of the Romagna region: Cesena, Forlì, Ravenna and Rimini. Check where a particular degree is based.

The Archiginnasio

For its first centuries the university had no building of its own; teachers lectured in rented rooms and convents. In 1563 the lecture halls were brought together in the Archiginnasio, a long palace with a two-storey arcaded courtyard a few steps from Piazza Maggiore.

What makes it extraordinary is the decoration. The walls, vaults and staircases are covered with thousands of painted coats of arms and memorials left by students and professors. The building has housed the city library since the 19th century, and the courtyard and the upper loggia can usually be visited.

The Anatomical Theatre

Upstairs is the room most visitors come for: the Anatomical Theatre, built in the 1630s for the teaching of medicine. It is panelled entirely in carved wood, with tiers of benches around a white marble dissecting table, statues of famous physicians in niches along the walls, and a lecturer's chair under a canopy held up by two carved figures of skinless men. The room was badly damaged by bombing in 1944 and painstakingly rebuilt using the original pieces.

Check opening times and ticketing on the Archiginnasio's own pages.

Palazzo Poggi and the University Library

When the Archiginnasio was given up in 1803, the university moved to Palazzo Poggi on Via Zamboni, a 16th-century palace that already housed the city's Institute of Sciences. It is still the seat of the rector. Its frescoed rooms contain a museum of the old scientific collections, including anatomical wax models, ship models and maps, and an 18th-century astronomical tower rises from the roof. Next door is the historic University Library, whose great hall is lined with walnut bookcases.

The people the university counts among its students and teachers include Dante and Petrarch, Copernicus, the physicist Laura Bassi, who in the 18th century became one of the first women to hold a university chair, Luigi Galvani and, more recently, the writer Umberto Eco.

Via Zamboni and Piazza Verdi

Via Zamboni runs from the Two Towers out to one of the old city gates, and nearly every building along it belongs to the university. The street is lined with arcades covered in posters, and the bars, copy shops and bookshops under them serve students all day. Halfway along is Piazza Verdi, in front of the city's opera house, which is the students' outdoor meeting place and, in the evening, a lively and sometimes noisy one.

The university's Botanical Garden, founded in the 16th century and one of the oldest in Europe, is a few minutes north of here.

Porticoes, towers and student superstitions

Bologna's porticoes, the covered walkways that line its streets for many kilometres, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. They began in the Middle Ages partly as a way to add rooms above the street for the growing number of students.

The Two Towers, Asinelli and the shorter, sharply leaning Garisenda, mark the centre of the city. Student tradition says that anyone who climbs the Asinelli tower before graduating will never get a degree, and a similar superstition warns against crossing Piazza Maggiore diagonally. The towers have been the subject of long-running stabilisation work, so check locally whether the climb is open.

Graduations are celebrated in the streets: new graduates wear a laurel wreath and are met by friends and family outside the building, often in or near Piazza Maggiore.

What student life is like

Bologna is nicknamed la dotta, la grassa, la rossa: the learned, the fat and the red, for its university, its food and its brick. Students make up a large share of the population of the centre. Most live in shared flats rather than halls, and rooms are known to be in short supply at the start of the academic year. Evenings revolve around an aperitivo and the inexpensive osterie of the university quarter.

Bachelor's programmes are mostly taught in Italian, with a growing number of degrees taught in English.

Visiting as a prospective student

The historic sites are open to the public as museums or libraries, each with its own visiting arrangements. The university has run orientation events for prospective students and publishes information for international applicants. Dates and formats change, so use the University of Bologna's official pages and the museum network's own site to plan.

Getting there and around

By train: Bologna Centrale is one of Italy's main rail hubs. High-speed trains reach Florence in well under an hour and Milan, Venice and Rome in roughly one to two and a half hours.
By air: Bologna's airport is connected to the central station by a short monorail ride.
In town: the centre is flat and best seen on foot. The university quarter is about fifteen minutes' walk from the station.

Where families usually stay

Around Piazza Maggiore: central for both the Archiginnasio and Via Zamboni.
Near the station: practical for day trips by train.
The university quarter: convenient but lively at night.

Practical tips

Start at the Archiginnasio in the morning, then walk past the Two Towers and along Via Zamboni.
Bologna works well with other cities by train; see where to stay in Florence and Venice in one day.
Many museums in Italy close one day a week; check before you go.

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Cover photo: Francesca Monti, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons