Scuola Normale Superiore
The Scuola Normale Superiore is a university institute of higher education, research and high-level training with a special status, whose prestige in the research and educational fields is recognized at an international level.
The Normale promotes culture, teaching and research in the disciplines of the Humanities, mathematics, and natural and social sciences, and the exploration of their interconnections.
Site of the Scuola Normale Superiore since 1846, Palazzo della Carovana is one of the most famous historical palaces of the city. Known in medieval times as Palazzo degli Anziani (the first construction goes back to 1286), it was restructured by Giorgio Vasari starting from 1562, at the behest of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo I de’ Medici. The building was the site of the college that schooled the Cavalieri dell’Ordine di Santo Stefano (the Knights of the Order of Saint Stephen), a military and monastic institution founded in 1561 by the Grand Duke to take up the seafaring heritage of the ancient Pisan Republic and to fight against the forays of the Turks in the Mediterranean.
Palazzo della Carovana today houses the administration offices, lecturers’ and researchers’ studies, most of the lecture halls , the Historical Archives, DreamsLab and part of the library. It was given over to the Normale for its free perpetual use in 1934,
University of Pisa - Palazzo della Sapienza
The Palazzo della Sapienza in Pisa, founded in the Renaissance period and profoundly renovated in the twentieth century, is the main seat of the Faculty of Law of the University of Pisa and the University Library of Pisa.
The building known as “La Sapienza” constitutes one of the largest buildings in Pisa; in fact, with its more than 1,850 m² of covered space, plus about 360 m² of internal courtyard, La Sapienza represents about 3 percent of the entire building stock of the University of Pisa, comparable in volume and covered space to few other buildings in the city.
The Palazzo della Sapienza was built at the behest of Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1486: the will of the Lord of Florence was to unite the various schools present in Pisa, so as to solve the problem of the fragmentation of teaching. The architectural work was completed by Cosimo I de’ Medici in 1543. Among the most famous guests of the Palazzo della Sapienza should be mentioned the poet Giacomo Leopardi, who attended some lectures here in 1827
CNR
The National Research Council is an Italian national research organization founded in 1023, composed by 88 scientific institutes distributed throughout the country, carrying out activities of priority interest for the advancement of science and the progress of the country.
The CNR Research Area in Pisa, with its 123,000 square meters of surface area (of which 45,000 built up) turns out to be the largest CNR research area in Italy. It it home to 13 institutes ranging from computer science, chemistry, biology, earth sciences, physics, etc.
In addition to the CNR institutes, the area hosts laboratories of the Scuola Superiore S. Anna, the Scuola Normale, the University of Pisa, and Ericsson. It is also home to the headquarters of the Gabriele Monasterio Tuscany Foundation, a clinic highly specialized in the treatment of cardio-pulmonary diseases.
The Area’s library, which contains more than 20,000 volumes, is a venue frequented by Pisa students who find, free of charge, computers connected to the Internet in a place particularly suitable for study.
The Research Area is frequented, in various capacities, by about 2,000 researchers, technicians, administrators, and visitors every day.