A pathbreaking history of early modern education argues that Europe's oldest university, often seen as a bastion of traditionalism, was in fact a vibrant site of intellectual innovation and cultural exchange.

The University of Bologna was among the premier universities in medieval Europe and an international magnet for students of law. However, a long-standing historiographical tradition holds that Bologna-and Italian university education more broadly-foundered in the early modern period. On this view, Bologna's curriculum ossified and its prestige crumbled, due at least in part to political and religious pressure from Rome. Meanwhile, new ways of thinking flourished instead in humanist academies, scientific societies, and northern European universities.

David Lines offers a powerful counternarrative. While Bologna did decline as a center for the study of law, he argues, the arts and medicine at the university rose to new heights from 1400 to 1750. Archival records show that the curriculum underwent constant revision to incorporate contemporary research and theories, developed by the likes of Rene Descartes and Isaac Newton. From the humanities to philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine, teaching became more systematic and less tied to canonical texts and authors. Theology, meanwhile, achieved increasing prominence across the university. Although this religious turn reflected the priorities and values of the Catholic Reformation, it did not halt the creation of new scientific chairs or the discussion of new theories and discoveries. To the contrary, science and theology formed a new alliance at Bologna.

The University of Bologna remained a lively hub of cultural exchange in the early modern period, animated by connections not only to local colleges, academies, and libraries, but also to scholars, institutions, and ideas throughout Europe.

About the Author
David A. Lines is Professor of Renaissance Philosophy and Intellectual History at the University of Warwick, where he is Director of the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance. He is the author of Aristotle's Ethics in the Italian Renaissance (ca. 1300-1650): The Universities and the Problem of Moral Education.

Reviews
With this contribution, Lines provides students and scholars with an excellent summary of the organization of university life in early modern Bologna, and he fosters the pursuit of new studies to shed light on the dynamics of teaching and learning that are yet to be unveiled. -- Silvia M. Marchori * History of Universities *
This is foundational scholarship at its best. Joining great scope with precise detail, Lines offers a sweeping account of an institution central to European education and thought over many centuries. Through his eyes, we see the dynamism, energy, and innovation that characterized life at one of Europe's greatest universities. -- Ann Moyer, author of The Intellectual World of Sixteenth-Century Florence: Humanists and Culture in the Age of Cosimo I
An impressively researched book on Bologna la dotta. David Lines puts to rest the image of the early modern Italian university as an institution in relentless decline. Instead, he demonstrates how the civic and religious government of Bologna, along with its dynamic community of learned professors, repeatedly reinvented the university to meet their needs. -- Paula Findlen, author of Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy
David Lines skillfully reframes the history of the University of Bologna, revealing a dynamic institution with numerous links to cultural life in Italy and beyond. This book is essential reading for historians of science and medicine, intellectual historians of humanism, and anyone interested in understanding the social contexts of education from the late Middle Ages to the modern age. -- Craig Martin, author of Subverting Aristotle: Religion, History, and Philosophy in Early Modern Science



Book Information
ISBN 9780674278424
Author David A. Lines
Format Hardback
Page Count 560
Imprint Harvard University Press
Publisher Harvard University Press