The University of Pisa (Italian Università degli Studi di Pisa) is one of the major renowned Italian universities. It is located in Pisa, Tuscany. It was formally founded on the September 3, 1343 by an edict of Pope Clement VI, although there had been lectures on law in Pisa since the 11th century. The University has the oldest Botanical garden (Orto botanico di Pisa) founded in 1543.

The University of Pisa offers a wide and worthwile range of courses, but it is especially known for its Computer Science faculty department, which manage extremely good courses at the BSc, MSc and PhD level. Nevertheless, the Computer Science course at University of Pisa was the first one in the area to be activated in the whole Italy, during the 1960s. The university now has about 48,000 students.

Organization of the University

Nowadays the University of Pisa consists of 11 faculties and 56 departments. These faculties offers a notable amount of courses in their related field of studies:

• Agriculture
• Arts
• Economics
• Engineering
• Foreign Languages & Literatures
• Law
• Mathematical, Physical & Natural Sciences
• Medicine & Surgery
• Pharmaceutics
• Political Sciences
• Veterinary Science

PhD studies are instead usually offered and arranged by the departments themselves. The lectures are always given in Italian, except for a number of courses at the faculty of Foreign Languages & Literatures. The 48,000 students who study at the UniPi have at their disposal also a Linguistical Centre, where they can attend to many courses of foreign languages, a Sports Centre (Cus Pisa), who also arrange for many Sports Intramural Leagues and allows to make the sports practice in almost all the disciplines available in Italy, and a pair of University Refectories (Mense universitarie). The University of Pisa is not organized in the form of one unique campus, but its building are scattered in the whole Pisa area, especially in the downtown.

External links

• University of Pisa official website

See also

• List of Italian universities