UNIVERSITY OF PADUA dates, according to some anonymous chronicles (Muratori, "Rer. Ital. Script." VIII, 371, 421, 459, 736), from 1222, when a part of the Studium of Bologna, including professors and students, withdrew to Padua. The opinion that
Frederick II transferred the Studium of Bologna to Padua in 1241 is groundless. But even before this emigration there were professors of law at Padua, as Gerardus Poma- dellus (c. 1165), afterwards Bishop of Padua; further- more, his predecessor, Bishop Carzo, was called sacrorum canonum doctor. The con- tract proposed by the com- mune of Vercelli to the Rec- tors of the students of Padua in 1228 shows that besides both laws and dialectics, med- icine and grammar were taught there. The students were divided into four national- ities: French, Italian, Ger- man, and Provençal. This contract stipulated that all or part of the university (14 professors and sufficient stu- dents to occupy 500 houses) should be transferred to Ver- celli for at least eight years. The university, however, was not suspended on that account, as is evident from the Life of St. Antonio. But the tyranny of Ezzelino (1237-56) caused its decadence. From 1260 it revived under the commune which established the rights of the professors and students, and the salaries (300 lire for legists and 200 for canonists); the examinations were held before the bishop, who also granted the teachers' licences. In 1274 Padua had the decrees of the Coun- cil of Lyons, equal with the Universities of Paris and Bologna. In 1282, on account of certain communal laws against the clergy and the university, Nicholas IV threat- ened to deprive Padua of its Studium, but the commune re- lented, and the Stu- dium acquired great renown, rivalling Bo- logna, especially in jurisprudence. From the beginning of the fourteenth century the school of medicine was also famous. The professors in this fac- ulty introduced Aver- roism in philosophy. The theological faculty was instituted by Urban Vin 1363. In the same year the Collegium Tornacense was founded, the first of its kind in Padua. There were other institutes from 1390, as the college of St. Marco for six medical students, the college of Cardinal Pileo (1420) for twenty (afterwards twelve) students.
The professors of this first period included the juris- consults, Alberto Galeotto, Guido Suzzara, Jacopo d'Arena, Riccardo Malombra, Albrado Ponte, Ro- lando Piazzola, Jacopo Belvisio, Bartol Saliceti, and the celebrated Baldo; the canonists, Ruffino and Jacopo da Piacenza, Lapoda Castiglionchio, and the canonist and theologian, Francesco Zabarella, after- wards cardinal; in medicine, Bruno da Longoburgo, Pietro d'Albano, Dino del Garbo, Jacopo and Gio- vanni Dondi (also excellent mechanicians), Marcilio, Giovanni and Guglielmo Santa Sofia, Jacopo da Forlè, and Biagio Pelacani. Phil- osophy was often taught, as elsewhere, by professors of medicine, mostly averroists, like Petrus Aponensis and Mundinus. The most dis- tinguished philosophers who were not physicians were Pier Paolo Vergerio (1349- 1414), afterwards Bishop of Capo d'Istria, a learned hu- manist and student of antiq- uity; the Franciscan, An- tonio Trombetta, a famous Scotist. From the fifteenth century there were in theology and metaphysics two courses, one Thomistic, with profes- sors preferably Dominican, and the other Scotist, with professors chiefly from the Friars Minor. Famous in the beginning of the sixteenth century were the controver- sies between the averroist philosopher, Achillini, and the Alexandrist, Pietro Pom- ponazzi (q. v.). The doc- trines of the latter (who had gone to Bologna), especially on the soul were opposed, among others, by Agostino Nifo, another professor of philosophy at Padua. The humanist Girolamo Fra- castoro taught philosophy there.
Among the professors of letters were: Rolandino, historian of Padua (thirteenth century), and Giovanni da Ravenna, friend of Petrarch; the hu- manists Gosparino Barzizi, Francisco Filelfo, Vittorino da Feltre, a distinguished pedagogical writer and educator, Lauro Quirino; the Greeks Demetrio Chalcocon- dylas, Alessandro Zenos, Nicolas Leo- nicos, Marino Be- cichem, Romolo Am- asaeus, and Nicolo Caliachius; Giovanni Fascolus, Francesco Robortellos, the his- torian Sigonius, the great. French Latinist Marc. Ant. Muretus, Justus Lipsius, and the great Latin lexi- cographers of the eighteenth century, Jacopus Faciolatus, and Egidio Forcellini. Astronomy, or astrology, was taught already in the fourteenth century. The most noted professors were, in the fifteenth century, Georg Pearbach, and his disciple Johann Müller, called Regiomontanus; in the sixteenth century, Giovanni Battista Capuano and Galileo Galilei, who also taught mechanics and other physical sciences. Chief among the theologians was the French Dominican Hyacinthe Serry (1698), who introduced there the new method of basing theology more on Scriptural and patristic arguments than on