UNIVERSITÀ DI MODENA

HISTORICAL HINTS

2. XIV-XVI Century. Medicine and Philosophy.

Having re-established order in the Town Council after sending away the Estensi in 1306, the people in Modena began to want their University again. On 29 April 1306, the Society of Arts asked the Town Council to reopen it with three disciplines - ius civile, ars notaria and medicine. In 1328 we find an addition to the first book of the City of Modena Statutes (1327) under the title «De Studio habendo» in which there was the obligation on the part of the governing citizens to elect three Professors annually so that the people of Modena could dedicate themselves «ad adiscendum decreta, leges et medicinam atque notariam». This was surely put into practice because we have the minutes of the nomination of three lecturers made in May 1329. This date also marks the beginning of the teaching of Medicine in Modena in the hands of co-citizen Pietro della Rocca. The return of the Estensi in 1336 marked the beginning of decadence for University teaching in our city. The University was not formally closed by an official decree but some professors were sent away. Nevertheless, culture still had valid roots in our city and so it did not remain completely stifled. There was no lack of law scholars, doctors or any other worthy teacher, nor was the university teaching suspended as we have recorded news of numerous courses of public lectures, held and financed by the Town Council according to the statutory order. The lists of lecturers in Law, Notary Arts, Grammar and Humanities, of Philosophy and Logic (medicine) have been reconstructed showing a continuity of superior teaching from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. Among the lecturers, we must remember Pietro Balugola and Tommaso Falloppia, called by the Public Council respectively in 1454 and 1480, the Lecturers of Grammar and Eloquence Bartolomeo Casuto, Simon of Pavia and others, the masters of Grammatica, called by the Town Council Gasparo Tribaco and Bernardino Sassoguidano and those paid by private citizens - Marco Antonino of Crotone for the teaching of Greek and Francesco Porto, from Crete, who, from 1536 to 1546, taught in the Notai Room in the Town Council building. From 1544 the great Carlo Sigonio from Modena held the position until 1551 in which year he went to Venice. In 1583 Camillo Coccapani taught Grammar but, because there were no lecturers for other disciplines, the young people were obliged to go to other Universities to study for the scientific professions.