Introduction

This volume investigates the status of universities in early modern Europe, with particular reference to Italian universities and their international relations. The themes explored in the first part of the work are the definition of the nature and status of the early modern university; its interaction with the hosting community and its collocation in its historical and social context; its role in international politics; the status of the institution and its bearing on the circulation of ideas and books. In particular, Anglo-Italian relations are highlighted, and the traditional connection between the Italian university and humanism is usefully challenged. While some of the contributions deal with more general issues that involved universities and their socio-cultural context (Denley, Davies, Rundle), in other instances the analysis of a case study (Giglioni) helps to highlight the statutes and rituals of Italian universities and their role in contemporary politics, offering useful explorations of the less investigated side of Italian universities. In the second part of the volume, the Padua studium becomes the centre of interest, and its unique status is usefully contrasted with contemporary models, particularly as the relation between Padua and the British cultural world is emphasized. To all intents and purposes Padua was a universitas scholarium, a legal corporation of scholars with its own statutes, which for a long time enjoyed a degree of autonomy even in complex and mutable circumstances; it traditionally welcomed foreign students, and the various nations were self-governing bodies with an independent status and representatives in the university’s executive council. Its unusual nature, and the contrast it made with other (Italian) universities, becomes the theme here, and the exploration of politically charged episodes of the history of Padua (Piovan, Martellozzo) offers the opportunity of comparing analogous practices in different universities, as well as the often overlooked non-educational side of the life of these institutions. It also throw a useful light on the entering of British intellectuals in the European arena, and on the ideological and political consequence this had. In the concluding essay (Woolfson), the various strands of the volume find their cohesion; as one of the poles of attraction for English scholars travelling south, Padua also becomes a model of cultural and political relations in the shaping of the modern world.