Eight centuries of the University of Padua (1222–2022): a historical sketch

The University of Padua is the third oldest university in the world, being founded in 1222. The next year 2022, will mark eight centuries of existence for this extraordinary cultural insti-tution. The University of Padua hosted many eminent figures in all fields of science and humanities, such as Pietro Bembo (poet and linguists), Giacomo Casanova (humanist), Pietro Arduino (botanist), Nicolaus Copernicus (astronomer and phy-sician), Elena Cornaro Piscopia (philosopher and the first woman to have a doctorate in the western world), Galileo Galilei (mathematician and astronomer), Andrea Vesalius (father of modern anatomy), and Giovanni Battista Morgagni (father of pathology).