Università Politecnica Delle Marche Scholarships

The presence of a university in Ancona is a rather recent historical development and the result of cultural, social, economic, and historical forces. In the Middle Ages, Ancona already boasted a School of Law and in 1562 the town received authorization from Pope Pius V to found a "Studium Generale cuiuscumque Facultatis et Scientiae," offering instruction in Civil and Canon Law and Theology. The privilege of adding additional faculties was also bestowed by the pontiff, and the members of the faculty were invested with the power to grant the various academic degrees. Moreover, faculty and students alike enjoyed the privileges, prerogatives and immunities granted to a "Studium Generale", like the ones in Bologna or Padua. The new "Studium" flourished in a fervour of study for a century, followed by a progressive decline starting in the second half of the XVII century when students from the wealthier families in the town chose to attend the more famous "Studia" in Rome and Bologna. This decline culminated in the first closing of the "Studium" in 1739. In 1746, the town council passed a resolution, which was then approved by Pope Benedict XIV, to re-open the chair of Civil and Canon Law. However, the political upheaval from 1797-1799 led to the closing of the "Studium" for the second time. Ancona's aspirations to open the university seemed to lie dormant for over a century until the end of World War I. At first, this desire to re-found the university was uncertain and confused, but soon took shape due to a growing awareness of the need for higher education at a regional level. A variety of proposals were ventured throughout the 1920s, but none of them went beyond the planning stage. One such proposal was the creation of a Regional University Confederation with the Rectorate in Ancona, which was also to host both a three year programme in Clinical Medicine and a vaguely defined school of commerce. In the 1930s, the outline of a plan for a regional university system was drawn up. This plan was to include a university in Ancona and met with enlightened and resolute supporters in the president and members of the Marche Institute of Science, Literature and Art which was founded in the capital of the region in 1925. The patient groundwork to lay the foundations for a university, which was interrupted during World War II, was resumed in the post war period and between proposals, requests, oppositions, campanile stances, silences and ministerial denials, came in 1969 to the establishment of the Free University of Ancona, its statute, with the activation of the first biennium of the Faculty of Engineering and the biological triennium of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. By the Board of Directors of the Consortium constituted between Municipalities, Provincial Administration, Chamber of Commerce, and chaired and stimulated by Professor Trifogli. The Higher Board of Education subsequently expressed favorable opinion, authorizing the activation of the Faculty of Engineering for the Academic Year 1969-70 and of the School of Medicine for the following year. Thus was born in Ancona the Free University, definitively recognized as State University in very short time, and exactly on 18 January 1971.