From Saturday 11 October 2025 to Sunday 29 March 2026, Palazzo Blu will host the exhibition “Università nel '900. Pisa e le sue istituzioni” (Universities in the 20th century. Pisa and its institutions), a journey through images depicting the history of Pisa's academic institutions over the last hundred years and how deeply their development has influenced the life and identity of the city.
The photographs that make up the exhibition, curated by Prof. Andrea Mariuzzo of the Department of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, come from various documentary collections. These are mainly from the archives of Guido Allegrini and Luciano Frassi, supplemented by some materials made available by Pisa's university institutions. These are accompanied by documents from Muzio Salvestroni's vast collection of material relating to Pisa, its universities and student life, including a collection of “numeri unici”, newspapers distributed periodically to mark the freshers' party at the start of the academic year.
Student life in the city is the dominant theme of the second part of the exhibition, which is divided into four main thematic areas. The first focuses on the locations of universities and research centres, illustrating their architectural development and gradual spread throughout the urban fabric, in parallel with the emergence of mass higher education in Italy, particularly in Pisa. The second offers a glimpse into the institutional life of the universities, focusing on official events such as the inaugurations of the academic year and presenting a gallery of distinguished visitors to the city's university institutions. The third section aims to offer a necessarily incomplete overview of the development of studies, bringing together a gallery of some particularly illustrious teachers and students from Pisa's universities and the results of some of the most innovative research projects. The last, most substantial section, as mentioned, follows student life, from the more or less formal events of traditional student life to the regimentation of fascist university groups and the political unrest that followed between the 1960s and 1990s, ending with a representation of leisure time and the presence of students in the city.
In the auditorium of Palazzo Blu, starting on Sunday, 12 October 2025, the exhibition will be accompanied between October and December by a series of in-depth meetings coordinated by Prof. Daniele Menozzi.
Opening hours:
Tuesday-Friday: 10 am - 7 pm
Saturday, Sunday and public holidays: 10 am - 8 pm
(last admission one hour before closing time)
https://palazzoblu.it/mostra/universita-nel-900-pisa-e-le-sue-istituzioni/
