If today the University of Camerino is one of the most interesting and innovative Italian institutions, it is, without doubt, the merit of the strength and momentum attributed to it by its rich history.

For almost 700 years, Camerino and its university have been expressing a single essence, capable of evolving and facing the challenges of time, always remaining faithful to itself, to its values, to its long tradition.

Therefore, UNICAM has its roots in the past, but continues to grow and improve looking forward.

University tradition 

Unfortunately, there is no precise documentary information about the start of higher education in Camerino since, in 1259, the city, and obviously most of the precious then existing archives, were destroyed by Manfredi’s weapons.

Great scholar and jurist Cino da Pistoia, who visited the Marche Region in the period 1319-1321, and Camerino in the spring of 1321, in one of his writings recalls this region as an extraordinary case of law schools that flourished even in the villages. 
Camerino had not escaped the scholastic fervour, in contention for regional primacy o only with the town of Fermo. The Camerino School, active at least since 1200s, with courses in civil law, canon law, medicine, and literary subjects, was the first in the region to be elevated to the rank of Studium Generale. On September 20, 1336, the apostolic nuncio Bertrando di Deaulx granted the municipality of Camerino the faculty to appoint captains of the arts, councillors, and notaries of the curia and of the city council. On 29 January 1377, Pope Gregory XI, accepting the request of Gentile III da Varano, Lord of Camerino, sent to the Municipality and to the People of Camerino a bull, by which he authorised, by apostolic authority, the conferral, after appropriate examination, of bachelor and doctoral degrees.

The Statutes of Camerino of 1424 and 1560 proposed a series of articulated rules for the School: Absolute primacy of the College of Doctors over any other guild, exceptions in the laws aimed at repressing the luxury for the graduates, prohibition of paying teachers bonuses in addition to the “salarium”, prohibition for them to abandon teaching before the expiration of the contract, their right to make use of the summary order to request overdue salary accruals, subsidiary responsibility of the Municipality representative that stipulated the engagement in the event of non-payment by the entity.

But the “new era” of the University of Camerino bean with the “Liberalium Disciplinarum" bull of 15 July 1727, by means of which Pope Benedict XII re-founded the Universitas Studii Generalis, with the Schools of Theology, Law, Medicine, and Mathematics. A few years later, more precisely on 13 April 1753, Emperor Francis Stephen I of Habsburg-Lorraine extended the validity of the degrees obtained in Camerino to the entire territory of the Holy Roman Empire, and conferred the title of Count Palatine on the Rector.

Subsequently, after the storm of Napoleonic domination, during which the university was in danger of disappearing, Pope Pius VII agreed to its provisional restoration with a rescript of 30 September 1816. The definitive consecration of the University was however decreed on 28 August 1824, by the “Quod Divina sapientia” bull, issued by Pope Leo XII. In 1827 the bull was fully implemented, and the physiognomy of the University was completely defined. The University of Camerino consisted of a School of Theology, a Law School,  and a School of Mathematics, Philosophy, and Medicine and Surgery; The latter expressly included the teaching of Chemistry and a specific course in Pharmacy. In 1861, upon its annexation to the Kingdom of Italy, the University was proclaimed “free”, and remained so until 1958, when it became a State University. 

With a solid scientific-cultural tradition, the University of Camerino now has five University Schools: Architecture and Design, Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine, Pharmaceutical and Health Products, Law, Science and Technology. As a university of European ambitions, Camerino has always been committed to developing a differentiated and cutting-edge educational offer; the highly innovative Master’s programmes, the delocalisation of institutional teaching activities through the adoption of the most modern remote and online technologies, and the average first employment waiting time, which for the majority of UNICAM graduates is less than a year, testify to this fact.

It is probably from its ancient heart that innovative ideas and solutions continually arise, which make UNICAM an ancient yet constant novelty.