Il sapere disseminato. Statuti e docenti da Pavia allo Studium di Basilea, 1459-1467

Abstract

The only extant copy of the 1395 Constitutions of the Faculty of Law of the University of Pavia has come down to us through a fifteenth-century manuscript kept in Basel. This article tackles facts and reasons leading to the commissioning of this manuscript in the context of the refoundation and early development of the University of Basel (1460). Basel adopted constitutions and organization models peculiar to Pavia and other universities in order to imitate “ritum et stilum vniversitatum Ytalie”. Champions of a successful recruiting policy, jurists from Pavia employed by the University of Basel transferred books and knowledge, their experience contributing to the lively debates revolving around the rising Faculty of Law. The active transfer of institutional models, books and lecturers from Pavia and Turin, is a tile of the cultural and “geopolitical” mosaic of the post-conciliar period that still needs to be explored from multiple angles.