The Scuola Normale Superiore (SNS; commonly known in Italy as la Normale) is a public university in Pisa and Florence, Tuscany, Italy, currently attended by about 600 undergraduate and postgraduate (PhD) students. Together with the University of Pisa and Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, it is part of the Pisa University System.
It was founded in 1810 with a decree by Napoleon as a branch of the École normale supérieure in Paris, with the aim of training the teachers of the Empire to educate its citizens. In 2013 the Florentine site was added to the historical site in Pisa, following the inclusion of the Institute of Human Sciences in Florence (SUM). Since 2018 the Scuola Normale Superiore has been federated with the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, with the Institute for Advanced Studies of Pavia, and the Scuola Superiore Meridionale of Naples the only other three university institutions with special status that, in the Italian panorama, offer, in accordance with standards of excellence, both undergraduate and postgraduate educational activities.
Eminent personalities from the world of science, literature and politics have studied at the Normale, among them Giosuè Carducci, Carlo Rubbia, Enrico Fermi, Aldo Capitini, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Scevola Mariotti (who were in the same class), Giovanni Gronchi, Giovanni Gentile, and Alessio Figalli, in more recent times.
History
The Scuola Normale Superiore was founded in 1810 by Napoleonic decree, as a twin institution of the École normale supérieure in Paris, itself dating back to the French Revolution jurisdiction.
The term () was coined by Joseph Lakanal who, in submitting a report to the National Convention of 1794 on behalf of the Committee of Public Instruction, explained it as follows: " , " "Normal : from the Latin norma , rule. These schools must indeed be the kind and rule of all others."
The Napoleonic period The Napoleonic decree of 18 October 1810, concerning "public education establishments" in Tuscany – a province of the French empire since 1807 – established an "Academic student residence" in Pisa for university students. Twenty-five places were made available for students of the Faculties of Arts and Sciences, to create a branch of the Parisian École normale supérieure in countries where the use of the Italian language was authorized.
The Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa was thus established at the behest of Napoleon. The term "Normale" refers to its primary teaching mission, that is to train high school teachers to educate citizens according to coherent teaching and methodological "norms".
On 22 February 1811, the first call was issued, but the Pisa-based Normale began its activity only in 1813, when the first students of Arts and Sciences attended the Scuola. The first site of the Scuola was the convent of San Silvestro in Pisa: it was a student residence halfway between a military order and a convent, in which the life of the students was characterized by strict disciplinary regulations similar to those of the French Scuola of reference regarding admissions, occupations, punishments, rewards and even student clothing. Following the model of the École normale supérieure, the Scuola was entrusted to a "Director", assisted by the "Sub-director" and by the "Economo", in charge of administration, supervision of studies and the safeguarding of order.
The Normale was reserved at that time to the best high school students, aged between 17 and 24, who during their two years of studies also obtained degrees at the faculties of Arts and Sciences of the Imperial University. The students had particular commitments and were obliged to take additional courses: they were supervised by four "ripetitori", chosen by the Director among the students of the Normale, who "repeated" the university lessons daily and coordinated the "conferences", which were a sort of seminar. With this qualifying training, after graduation the students committed themselves to teaching in secondary schools for at least ten years.
The Napoleonic Scuola Normale had a short life: the only academic year was 1813/14, during which the physicist Ranieri Gerbi was director. On 6 April 1814, Napoleon signed the act of abdication: the return of Grand Duke Ferdinand III to the throne of Tuscany coincided with the closure of the Scuola despite the various attempts to save it in the name of its function.
The grand-ducal period The period of closure of the Scuola after the Napoleonic phase was actually quite short. The Grand Duke's decree of 22 December 1817 re-established the ancient Ordine dei Cavalieri di Santo Stefano (the Order of the Knights of St. Stephen) in Pisa: in 1843 the Council of the Order proposed to establish a "boarding school for young nobles" in the Palazzo della Carovana together with a Scuola Normale. It has to be said that even in the previous period novice Knights were often students of the University of Pisa and therefore the Palazzo was already, in effect, a "noble college".
To study the feasibility of the new project, Grand Duke Leopold II of Lorraine nominated a commission, which re-established the original function of the Scuola Normale Superiore, that of preparing secondary school teachers. On 28 November 1846, a grand-ducal Motuproprio established the Scuola Normale Toscana, also called Imperial Regia Scuola Normale (because it was connected to the Austrian system). On 15 November 1847, the new headquarters in Palazzo della Carovana were inaugurated.
The new Scuola was "theoretical and practical", intended to "train teachers of secondary schools"; it was a boarding school that offered ten free places (with advantages reserved for the Knights of the Order), which could be accessed by call at the age of eighteen, as well as other paid places.
The boarding school was attended exclusively by students of philosophy and philology, while students of physical and mathematical sciences at the university were aggregated to the Scuola: the latter, however, were required to attend the pedagogy course and to practice teaching by doing teacher training in schools, in keeping with a strong professional connotation which was later to be abandoned. The course of studies lasted three years.
In the grand-ducal period the Scuola was affected by the political climate: following the enthusiasm of the Risorgimento, the fear of subversive movements and tumults led to reactionary and confessional attitudes much lamented by the students themselves, including Giosuè Carducci, who was a student there between 1853 and 1856.
The post-unification period With the new unified state, the legislative and administrative structure of the Savoy Kingdom was extended to the whole of Italy. The Italian school system was therefore regulated for over sixty years by the Casati law of 1859, originally issued for the Piedmontese and Lombard institutions: based on a centralized model, it gave private bodies the possibility to provide education, at the same time establishing the "diritto dello Stato all’insegnamento universitario"(the right of the State regarding university education) as well as the right to 'supervise' all the levels of the school system.
In Tuscany the provisional government (1859–60) tried to protect the most illustrious local traditions, such as the Normale. After a long debate, in the Senate and in the press, on the opportuneness of maintaining this unique and anomalous institution, in 1862 it was officially named "Scuola Normale del Regno d'Italia".
Various draft laws were submitted to the Camera to establish the Pisan modelOn the initiative, above all, of Francesco de Sanctis, then Minister of the Education (P. Carlucci, La Scuola Normale Superiore. Percorsi del merito 1810–2010, 31–32) by extending it to other universities or to reorganize and expand the Scuola Normale of Pisa. But the new unified State, engaged in financial measures and public works deemed to be more urgent, approved, with the decree of 17 August 1862, only some modifications to the Scuola's regulations, so that it could continue to function as a Scuola Normale italiana.
The "new" Normale was introduced into the national legal system by the Matteucci Regulations of 1862, which eliminated any religious and confessional aspects, in line with the secular orientation of Italian politics. The years of study became four by ministerial decree in 1863, and a new organizational structure was established.
At the educational level, the board of directors was divided into two "sections", Letters and Philosophy and Physics-Mathematics, formed by the relative teaching staff; the latter sections were the forerunners of the current Faculties, under the control of the "Director of Studies".
The publishing activity of the Scuola began with the foundation of the two journals (Annali della classe di scienze in 1871 and Annali della classe di lettere e filosofia in 1873). With the development of the postgraduate course, the Scuola was increasingly taking on the function, as well as of a university college, of a higher institute of scientific education and research. At the political level the role of the "President" of the board of directors was defined as the authority responsible for the moral, educational and economic governance of the Scuola. Finally, at an organizational level, there was the increasingly important role of the Provveditore-Economo, who managed the services as well as the human and financial resources, and had disciplinary jurisdiction over the students. The Matteucci regulations followed those issued by Education Minister Coppino in 1877, establishing the opening of the boarding school also to the section of Sciences and simplifying the complex structure of the previous "Regulations of studies and examinations".
The Gentile Reform In 1927, three years after the entry into force of the Gentile Reform, new regulations of the Scuola Normale were approved, which removed its qualification function while maintaining that of "preparing for teaching in secondary schools and for the examinations which award qualifications for such teaching" and of promoting postgraduate studies, accessible by all graduates at national level.
Nationalist propaganda also took hold within the Normale and the control of the Regime became increasingly more invasive, up until the first serious episode of repression, with the arrest in 1928 of three normalisti for anti-Fascist activity. To deal with the disturbances caused by the political events and the decline of the Scuola, which had increasingly fewer students, the philosopher Giovanni Gentile, a normalista, as well as a prominent figure of Italian Fascism, ideologue of the Regime and minister of education, was nominated as commissioner; he later became director of the Normale, in 1928.
Gentile carried out a structural revision of the institution so that it would acquire national importance; to this end he oversaw the expansion of the headquarters and a considerable increase in the number of students and internal activities. His authority, together with the consensus of the Regime, allowed him to find means and collaboration for his project. Meanwhile, the relationship between the State and the Church inaugurated by the Lateran Treaty facilitated negotiations with the archbishopric to obtain the availability of the Puteano College building which, together with that of the Timpano, would later be used to house the young normalisti while the expansion of the Palazzo della Carovana took place.