If today the University of Camerino represents one of the most interesting and innovative Italian realities, the merit goes undoubtedly to the strength and the impetus given by its rich history. Camerino and its university have been expressing for almost 700 years a single essence able to evolve and face the challenges of time, always remaining faithful to itself, to its values, to its long tradition. Therefore, UNICAM sinks its roots in the past but it grows and improves while looking to the future.
The university tradition
Unfortunately, there are no precise documentary records of the birth of higher studies in Camerino, since in 1259 the city, and obviously most of the precious existing archives, was destroyed by Manfredi's weapons.
The great scholar and jurist Cino da Pistoia, in the Marca in the years 1319-21, and in Camerino in the spring of 1321, in a writing recalled the region as an extraordinary case of legal schools flourished even in the villages.
Camerino had not escaped the scholastic fervor, in contention only with Fermo for the regional primacy. The study camerte, active at least since the '200 with courses in civil law, canon law, medicine and literary subjects, was the first in the region to be elevated to the General Studio. On September 20, 1336, the apostolic nuncio Bertrando di Deaulx granted the town of Camerino the right to appoint captains of the arts, councilors, notaries of the curia and of the reforms. On January 29, 1377, Gregory XI, accepting the request of Gentile III from Varano, Lord of Camerino, sent a bull to the Commune and the People, authorizing them to graduate with baptismal degrees and doctors with the apostolic authority. The Statutes of Camerino of 1424 and 1560 proposed for the School a series of articulated norms: absolute pre-eminence of the College of doctors over any other corporation, derogations in the laws aimed at repressing the luxury for the graduates, prohibition to correspond to the bonus teachers in addition to the "salarium", prohibition for them to abandon the teaching before the expiry of the contract, faculty 'for the same to make use of the summary process to ask for overdue salary installments, subsidiary responsibility of the representative of the municipality that has stipulated the engagement in case of non-payment by the body. But the "new era" of the University of Camerino began with the bull "Liberalium disciplinarum" of July 15, 1727 through which Benedict XII refounded the Universitas Studii Generalis with the faculties of theology, jurisprudence, medicine and mathematics. A few years later, more precisely on April 13, 1753, Emperor Francis Stephen I of Habsburg Lorraine extended the validity of the camorra degrees to the entire territory of the Holy Roman Empire and conferred on the rector the title of count palatine. Subsequently, after the storm of the Napoleonic domination during which the university 'risk' to disappear, Pius VII agreed to the temporary restoration with rescript of September 30, 1816. The definitive consecration of the University was however decreed on August 28, 1824 from the bubble "Quod Divina sapientia" issued by Leo XII.
In 1827 the bubble was completely executed and the physiognomy of the University was completely defined. The University of Camerino included a Theological faculty, a Jurisprudence and a Mathematical Philosophy and Medicine and Surgery; in the latter there was expressly the teaching of Chemistry and a specific course of Pharmacy. In 1861, at the time of annexation to the Kingdom of Italy, the university was proclaimed "free" and remained so until 1958, when it became a state university.
With a strong scientific and cultural tradition, the University of Camerino now has 5 Schools: Architecture and Design, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Health Products, Law, Biosciences and Veterinary Medicine, Sciences and Technologies.
University of European ambitions, Camerino has always been committed to developing a differentiated and advanced teaching offer; this is confirmed by the highly innovative masters, the delocalization of institutional educational activities through the adoption of the most modern telematic technologies and the expected average for the first employment that for most UNICAM graduates is less than six months.
Probably it is from its ancient heart that continuous ideas and innovative solutions that make UNICAM an ancient but constant novelty spring up.