About Us

The University of L'Aquila is a public research university located in L'Aquila, Central Italy. It was founded in 1964 (its history begins in 1596) and is organized in nine departments. The university presents a scientific-technological character with many research groups. It is best known for its Engineering, Medicine, Psychology and Science schools.

On 11 October 1458 and again on 9 May 1464, the city of L'Aquila petitioned King Ferdinand of Aragon to open a Studium equivalent to those in Bologna, Siena and Perugia. Shortly before, the town had withdrawn support for the last of the Angevin and surrendered to the Spanish sovereign. The King granted this request, but there is no documentary evidence to suggest that the city authorities opened the Studium. On the other hand, records do show that both before and after the date of the petition, citizens of L'Aquila (Fra' Giovanni da Capestrano, for example, and Berardino di Ludovico, nephew to the chronicler Francesco d'Angeluccio di Bazzano, who took a degree in 1474) went to study civil and canon law at the Studium in Perugia. During the last years of the late 16th century, from 1596 on, the Jesuits were providing higher instruction at their college in L'Aquila. When, by a decree of 1767, the Jesuits were expelled from the Kingdom, the Aquilanum Collegium became the Collegio Reale. To the chairs of theology, philosophy and history, mathematics, literature and Greek were added, in 1785, those of sciences such as chemistry, anatomy and the theory and practice of medicine, and in 1792 surgery and midwifery. But when, by the decree of 30 May 1807, Joseph Napoleon reorganized all the Royal Colleges, he suppressed the one in L'Aquila and opened one at the Abbey of the Holy Spirit of Morrone, near Sulmona.