University of Calabria

The University of Calabria (Italian: Università della Calabria, UNICAL) is a state-run university in Italy. Located in Arcavacata, a hamlet of Rende and a suburb of Cosenza, the university was founded in 1972. Among its founders there were Beniamino Andreatta, Giorgio Gagliani, Pietro Bucci and Paolo Sylos Labini. It currently has about 35,000 students, 800 teaching and research staff and about 700 administrative staff.

Since 2024, the University has held the first position among the "Big-sized Italian Universities" in the Censis ranking.

The founders of the university were Beniamino Andreatta, Giorgio Gagliani, Pietro Bucci and Paolo Sylos Labini. On 15 January 2009, the main lecture hall was named after Beniamino Andreatta, while the “bridge”, i.e. the main entrance to the cubes, was named after Pietro Bucci.

The University of Calabria, established by Law No. 442 of 12 March 1968, had two historical precedents: King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, by royal decree issued in 1814 on the initiative of the Province of Cosenza, authorised the Cosenza High School to open a Faculty of Medicine and, to this end, allocated a grant of three thousand ducats. The first unified government removed this privilege from the Liceo in 1861 (while the schools of Notary and Pharmacy in Catanzaro survived until 1923).

The second attempt was made by the anti-fascist radiologist Oscar Fragale, a veteran, founder of the Centre for Action for the Development of Southern Italy, and owner of the Corriere del Sud newspaper, thanks to whom the University of Cosenza (later Calabro-Lucana) was inaugurated in February 1945 under the auspices of Nicola Serra. It offered courses in medicine, surgery and law. Fragale himself personally made his clinical and radiology laboratories available for the chair of Occupational Pathology, which he would have held. However, the development of this university was abandoned within a very short time.

The University is organized in the following departments:

The campus covers an area of approximately 200 hectares in the hills of Arcavacata di Rende, a few kilometres from the centre of Cosenza. Initially, the university consisted of a single complex, the multi-purpose building in Arcavacata, designed by Massimo Pica Ciamarra, which later became the headquarters of the Department of Pharmacy, Health Sciences and Nutrition. As of 2025, new classrooms are under construction (intended for TD medical degree courses).[1] The design of the University of Calabria campus is by Vittorio Gregotti and is part of a phase of his research aimed at combining architecture and landscape planning. The university complex is shaped like a long pier, approximately two kilometres long, which crosses the Crati river valley. The pier, called the “Pietro Bucci” bridge, is made of reinforced concrete and includes a vehicle lane and a pedestrian walkway. The buildings of the various university departments are cubic in shape and up to thirty metres high; they are connected to the horizontal structure of the pier, varying in height according to the changes in the hills of Arcavacata. The various paths interconnected to the bridge lead to the campus buildings. At the base of the university, there is also a residential centre designed by Enzo Zacchiroli, as well as some buildings designed by Vittorio Gregotti himself, while the subsequent residences are the work of Danish architect Tarquini Martensson.

The monumental complex of San Domenico in the historic centre of Cosenza will host the three-year degree course in Nursing from the 2023-2024 academic year and, from the 2025-2026 academic year, the three-year degree course in Psychological Sciences and Techniques and the degree course in Physiotherapy, with the creation of a healthcare professions centre.