Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
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Scuola Normale of Pisa |
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| Established | 1810 |
| Type | State-supported |
| Director | Prof. Salvatore Settis |
| Staff | ca. 120 |
| Undergraduates | ca. 150 |
| Postgraduates | ca. 120 |
| Doctoral students | ca. 190 |
| Location | Pisa, Italy |
| Website | www.sns.it/ |
The Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, also known in Italian as Scuola Normale (English: Normal School), is a higher learning institution in Italy. It was founded in 1810, by Napoleonic decree, as a branch of the École Normale Supérieure of Paris. Since its foundation it has operated a highly selective student admission procedure, and its main goal was, during that period, essentially to form the best college and high school teachers. Recognized as a "national university" in 1862, one year after Italian unification, and named during that period as "Normal School of the Kingdom of Italy", it then obtained its administrative autonomy in 1936, surviving the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini. Since that period, the Normal School has become an entity separate from the University of Pisa, with complete administrative, didactic and regulative freedom. The Scuola, together with the University of Pisa and with Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, belongs to the Pisa University System.
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[edit] Fields of study
The Normal School's fields of study are historically two: philosophic and scientific. Currently the college offers the classes as follows:
Philosophy- and literature-related
- Ancient History and Classical Philology
- Italian Literature and Linguistics
- Arts History and Archaeology
- History and Paleography
- Philosophy
Science-related
- Biological Sciences
- Chemistry
- Physics
- Computer Science
- Mathematics
- Physics (PhD)
- Condensed Matter Physics (PhD)
- Molecular Biophysics (PhD)
- Mathematics (PhD Course)
- Mathematics for Finance and Business Technologies (PhD)
- Neurobiology (PhD)
- Molecular Biology (PhD)
- Chemistry (PhD)
[edit] Admission
In order to become a student member of the Normal School, or normalista, it is necessary for the candidate to pass an extremely selective admission exam (there are only sixty admissions out of over 500 applicants on average every year), with questions which space into the entire chosen field of study: for example, for a would-be Computer Science student, it's not sufficient to be an IT guru, but it's necessary to have a definitely higher-than-average, valuable knowledge about mathematics and physics too. The normalisti receive free housing, free lunches and dinners, and a monthly salary.
[edit] Teaching activities
The Scuola does not host a full programme of undergraduate and graduate (master) studies; instead, the students follow the ordinary courses at the public University of Pisa, and complement them with additional classes and seminars taught by the professors of the Scuola. The normalisti are required to score high marks in their exams at the public university (average marks of at least 27/30 and no mark below 24/30) in order to maintain their grant. Instead, the Ph.D. programme is separate and completely independent of the one hosted by the University of Pisa. The Ph.D. course is called corso di perfezionamento, and the students are called perfezionandi.
[edit] Campus
The Scuola Normale is located in its first historical building, called Palazzo della Carovana, in Piazza dei Cavalieri, in the medieval downtown of Pisa. Nowadays, the students are hosted in four dorms located inside the inner city.
[edit] Famous alumni
- Enrico Fermi, physicist & Nobel prize winner
- Carlo Rubbia, physicist & Nobel prize winner
- Giosuè Carducci, poet & Nobel prize winner
- Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, economist & politician, lifetime senator, former Prime Minister of Italy, former President of the Italian Republic, former Governor of the Banca d'Italia
- Massimo D'Alema, (withdrew), politician, Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, former Italian prime minister
- Ennio de Giorgi, mathematician
- Giovanni Gronchi, politician, former President of the Republic of Italy
- Giovanni Gentile, philosopher & politician
- Fabio Mussi, (withdrew), politician, Italian Minister of the University
- Vito Volterra, mathematician
- Guido Fubini, mathematician
- Luigi Bianchi, mathematician
The Scuola Normale Superiore has the highest Nobel prize laureates/students ratio of all universities and advanced learning institutions of the world[citation needed].
