[10] Due to its size, funding, and numerous laboratories and libraries, Sapienza is a global major education and research centre, first ranked in Southern Europe.

Sapienza was founded on 20 April 1303 by decree from Pope Boniface VIII as a Studium for ecclesiastical studies under more control than the free-standing universities of Bologna and Padua.

In 1431 Pope Eugene IV completely reorganized the studium and decreed that the university should expand to include the four schools of Law, Medicine, Philosophy, in addition to the existing Theology.

[13] After the capture of Rome by the forces of the Kingdom of Italy in 1870, La Sapienza rapidly expanded as the chosen main university of the capital of the newly unified state.

[14] In 1431 Pope Eugene IV completely reorganized the studium with the bull In supremae, in which he granted masters and students alike the broadest possible privileges and decreed that the university should include the four schools of Law, Medicine, Philosophy and Theology.

He introduced a new tax on wine to raise funds for the university; the money was used to buy a palace which later housed the Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza church.

In 1703, with his private funds, Pope Clement XI purchased some land on the Janiculum, where he created a botanical garden, which soon became the most celebrated in Europe through the labours of the Trionfetti brothers.

[25] Some students and professors protested in reaction to a 1990 speech that Pope Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) gave in which he, in their opinion, endorsed the actions of the church against Galileo in 1633.

[26] To cope with the ever-increasing number of applicants, the Rector also approved a new plan to expand the Città Universitaria, reallocate offices and enlarge faculties, as well as create new campuses for hosting local and foreign students.

Numerous Nobel Prize winners have been professors or have graduated from Sapienza: Guglielmo Marconi, Enrico Fermi, Daniel Bovet, Emilio Segrè, Giulio Natta, Carlo Rubbia, Franco Modigliani.