The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Elector of Saxony and his brother William II, Margrave of Meissen, and originally comprised the four scholastic faculties.

The Alma mater Lipsiensis opened in 1409, after it had been officially chartered by Pope Alexander V in his Bull of Acknowledgment on (9 September of that year).

[citation needed] At the end of the 19th century, important scholars such as Bernhard Windscheid (one of the fathers of the German Civil Code) and Wilhelm Ostwald (viewed as a founder of modern physical chemistry) taught at Leipzig.

[4] At its general assembly in 1873, the Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein [de] thanked the University of Leipzig and Prague for allowing women to attend as guest students.

During the decline and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and first decade of 20th century together with some other German universities Leipzig University turned into one of the centers of higher education for state administrations and elites of newly independent Balkan states (Romania, Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia) educating over 5,500 students from the region in 1859–1909 period.

[5] Until the beginning of the Second World War, Leipzig University attracted a number of renowned scholars and later Nobel Prize laureates, including Paul Ehrlich, Felix Bloch, Werner Heisenberg and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga.

Noteworthy Nazis, such as Max Clara (chair of anatomy) taught at the university and were appointed to positions with great authority.

The special task of repairing the damage caused by air attacks has now broadened out to the more general duty to save the continuity of our university and preserve its substance, at the very least its indestructible kernel, through the crisis that has now reached its fullest stage.

The university reopened after the war on 5 February 1946, but it was affected by the uniformity imposed on social institutions in the Soviet occupation zone.

The chairman of the Student Council, Wolfgang Natonek, and other members were arrested and imprisoned, but the university was also a nucleus of resistance.

In 1968, the partly damaged Augusteum, including Johanneum and Albertinum and the intact Paulinerkirche, were demolished to make way for a redevelopment of the university, carried out between 1973 and 1978.

On 24 March 2004 a jury chose a design by Dutch architect Erick van Egeraat, which was well received by almost all parties.

He recalls the outer form of the St. Paul's Church (today called Paulinum) and Augusteum, and abstracted the original building complex.

The library consists of the main building "Bibliotheca Albertina" and forty branches situated near their respective academic institutions.

Collections range from important medieval and modern manuscripts to incunabula, papyri, autographs, ostraka and coins.

The Apel Codex, a manuscript of 16th century music, is housed in the Leipzig University library,[12] as well as the Papyrus Ebers.

The Leipzig University Library also owns parts of the Codex Sinaiticus, a Bible manuscript from the 4th century, brought from Sinai in 1843 by Constantin von Tischendorf.

[13] Papyrus Ebers is the longest and oldest surviving medical manuscript from ancient Egypt, dated to around 1600 BC.

In 1995, the Leibniz-Institute for Jewish History and Culture named after Simon Dubnow was formed as a research institution related to the university.

The student body in Leipzig is diverse, not only due to the broad spectrum of subjects at the university but also because of the other higher education institutions in the city.

The Moritzbastei is the largest student club in Germany, it is part of the historic city fortifications of Leipzig and is famous for its atmosphere and large number of cultural events.

There are numerous courses offered in performing arts every semester and a dance festival is organised by students once a year.