The university’s motto Il futuro è passato qui – the future has passed here – quite appropriate for an institution that can trace its origins back to the Roman Empire, that survived the sack of Rome by the Papacy and two world wars. Its founding principle, as with the universities of today, was the the expansion of knowledge, though in Sapienza’s case, the focus was to be more ecclesiastical, and the other fields of study — literature, law, philosophy — only stemmed from that.

On this day, April 20, in 1323 the Sapienza University of Rome was founded in by Pope Boniface VIII, who wanted an institution more under his religious control than the other two universities at the city-states of Bologna and Padua.

Today the Sapienza University is the largest in Rome, with more than 140,000 students and world-class research programs in engineering, biomedical science, humanities and other fields. Its main library, Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina, built in the late 17th century by Pope Alexadenr VII holds around 1.5 million volumes, including ancient works not found anywhere else.