The University of Parma arose as early as the 11th century from the evolution of the Scuola Vescovile Parmense, in which the liberal arts of the trivium and quadrivium were taught.Students gathered in corporate bodies and formed the universitas; professors were organized into collegia; universitates and collegia formed the Studium.In the communal period it flourished alternately, and during the age of the Seignories, it was sometimes closed and was often in competition with other seats such as Bologna, Padua, and Pavia. With the advent of the Farnese family, the Studio took on greater stability and prestige; the humanities, of the Faculties of Letters, Philosophy and Theology, were mainly taught by the Jesuits in the palace of San Rocco (the present university palace formerly housing the Faculty of Law and now the Department); in the scientific faculties (Law, Medicine, Science), which were housed in the palace of San Francesco located in the vicinity of the present Borgo degli Studi, mostly lay professors operated. In 1601 Ranuccio I Farnese endowed the University with renewed constitutions and special privileges.Languishing after the extinction of the House of Farnese and during the years of Austrian rule (1736-48), it received new impetus with the Constitutions for New Studies (1768), drafted by the Theatine Fr. Maria Paciaudi, the closest collaborator of Minister Du Tillot in the Duchy's program of cultural and scholastic renewal: the Faculty of Law was reformed and the Botanical Garden was created; the scientific faculties were provided with an anatomical theater and physics and chemistry cabinets. In 1802, during the French presence in Parma, the University was transformed into an Academy and only in 1816 did it regain its autonomy and its old name.Following the revolutionary uprisings of 1831, the Faculty of Law was transferred to Piacenza and returned to the first capital of the Duchy only in 1854. Shortly before the Unification of Italy, during Luigi Carlo Farini's dictatorship over the Emilian provinces, the University of Parma (like that of Modena) was declared second-class and deprived of the Faculty of Philosophy. In 1867 the Faculty of Theology was also suppressed, while the Faculty of Science was reduced to a single two-year degree. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, and the first half of the twentieth century, the following faculties operated in Parma: Law, Medicine and Surgery, Physical, Mathematical and Botanical Sciences, Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy.For a long time active as the Faculty of Law, first divided into Institutes indi into Departments, the Faculty of Law, since July 25, 2012, in compliance with university reform, has been transformed into the Department of Law.Following the reorganization of the University, since January 2017, the Department of Law has been transformed into the Department of Law, Political and International Studies.In 2022, the Department of Law, Political and International Studies was selected by the MUR among the Departments of Excellence, for the five-year period 2023-2027, with the "Food for Future" project. The project aims to establish a legal center of excellence of more than just national scope on the most complex and problematic profiles of innovation and sustainability in the agribusiness sector.
