Scienza e tecnica

The path of modern science — which began between the second half of the sixteenth century and the end of the seventeenth — was not a linear one, yet universities, and the University of Padua in particular, played a significant role in it. From the very beginning, science was intertwined with technology, starting in Renaissance workshops, where artistic skills were gradually joined by those that would later belong to architects, urban planners, and engineers.

The development of technology itself — today a crucial sector of Paduan excellence, though it entered Italian universities relatively late — shows how indispensable an adequate cultural and entrepreneurial maturation of the territory is to its growth. From its very origins, science has also defined the values that constitute its ethos; among them: independence from ethnicity, nationality, religion, and social class; the notion of knowledge as a “common good”; the use of reason; and the suspension of judgment until facts have been verified. These are precisely the values that totalitarian societies have always sought to restrain.

It is no coincidence that research was initially carried out in academies, where an “ideal Republic” took shape — one based on free discussion and the circulation of ideas, teamwork, respect for methodological rules, and the comparison of proposals and results grounded in experiments and demonstrations. This “ideal Republic” was very different from the context in which the new science first emerged. Only later — elsewhere in Europe before Italy — did universities come to the fore, and among the Italian ones the University of Padua was often at the forefront, beginning with the eighteen years illuminated by Galileo’s presence.

Galileo fully grasped the European ferment of the time, emphasizing the importance of introducing experimentation into the process of understanding natural phenomena, of valuing the role of technology in expanding scientific knowledge, and of affirming freedom of research and the primacy of reason. From the rule of the Venetian Republic to the twentieth century, the University of Padua was able to keep pace with developments in science and technology, often anticipating future directions.