It started to gain its modern shape following the model of the University of Bologna, although significant development did not occur until the reforms made by Victor Amadeus II, who also created the Collegio delle Province for students not natives of Turin.

After the post-war period, the increase in the number of students and the improvement of campus structure were imposed, although they lost some of their importance until a new wave of investments was carried out at the end of that century.

At the beginning of the 15th century, instability in the Lombard region caused by the political and military crisis, coupled with the untimely death of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, induced the teaching staff of the Universities of Pavia and Piacenza to propose to Ludovico di Savoia-Acaia the creation of a new Studium generale.

Choice of the location fell on Turin for a number of reasons: first, it was at the crossroads between the Alps, Liguria and Lombardy; it was also an episcopal seat and in addition, the Savoy Prince was willing to establish a university on his own land, like those in other parts of Italy.

The early decades were marked by discontinuity, due to epidemics and crises that plagued the region between the 1420s and the 1430s following the annexation of the Piedmont territories to the Duchy of Savoy and by difficult relations between the university and the local public administration.

In 1436, when the institution returned to Turin, Ludovico di Savoia, who succeeded Amedeo VIII, introduced a new order of studies whereby the government gained greater control over the university.

Victor Amadeus II was convinced that an efficient university controlled directly by the state was the only way to form a faithful and well-trained ruling class that could support him in the process of modernizing the Nation.

While the War of Spanish Succession was still being fought, the Duke had entrusted his officials to gather information concerning the structure of the major Italian and foreign universities, and charged the Sicilian jurist Francesco D'Aguirre with the task of drawing up a reorganization project.

Charles Emmanuel III continued the policy of innovation and consolidation begun by Victor Amadeus II and created a University Museum in 1739.

However, in the last decades of the 18th century, the course of events at the university, closely connected to international developments, led to great urban unrest and the loss of state prestige.

The revolt of university students in 1791 joined by artisans who stormed the "Collegio delle Province" in 1792 causing numerous victims, was a clear instance of this conflict.

In this period too participation in the appointment of the rector was restricted: the president of the magistrature submitted the names of five candidates to the king, chosen among the teaching staff of surgery, medicine, sciences, Law, Literature and Theology but without the involvement of the professors.

Charles Albert's opening up to moderate liberalism and his international outlook had positive effects on the university, too: like the development of institutions and the foundation of others, in addition to the appointment of illustrious scholars such as the French Augustin Cauchy to teach sublime physics and the Dalmatian Pier Alessandro Paravia to the chair of Italian rhetoric.

The new order of 1850 redesigned the Medicine and Surgery course to give scope for clinical experience and practice in hospitals and laid the foundations for the School of Pharmacology, which later became a faculty.

Cultural life involving intellectuals and exiles, journalists and politicians was very lively inside and outside the university until the capital was moved to Florence: its decline commenced when members of the teaching staff were called to government duties or to State management.

In the 1930s, Giuseppe Levi trained Salvador Luria, Renato Dulbecco and Rita Levi-Montalcini, each of whom went on to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology (after emigrating to the United States).

[3] Many of the protagonists of Italian political and social life in the 20th century, such as Antonio Gramsci and Piero Gobetti, Palmiro Togliatti and Massimo Bontempelli, graduated from Turin University.

The objective of the subsequent 1999 University reform was to make the Italian tertiary education system comply with the model defined by the European agreements of the Sorbonne and of Bologna.

This Agency is dedicated to establishing all possible forms of collaboration between France and Italy in the area of university teaching, scientific research, and culture in general.

[7] The University of Turin is engaged not only in redesigning its teaching structure but also in a ten-year construction project to reorganize its premises; work is already underway on refurbishing and rationalizing existing buildings, and on newly acquired property.

Worth mentioning too are the sites of the ex-Italgas works (now Palazzina Luigi Einaudi, already assigned to the Faculties of Law and Political Science for teaching purposes), and the ex-Manifattura Tabacchi; construction of the new Scuola di Biotecnologie; realization at the Centro Pier della Francesca of new laboratories, classrooms and student common rooms for the Computer Science Department, and finally, construction of a new building for teaching purposes at the Ospedale San Luigi, Orbassano.