He was one of the greatest mathematicians in history who, through his work, synthesized the spirit and processes of Greek geometry and the tools of Arabic mathematics for the first time in Europe.

A few decades later, the garden was moved to its present position a few dozen metres from Piazza dei Miracoli, covering an area of around three hectares with 6,000 cultivated plants and seeds exchanged with other 400 structures in the world.

Ghini was succeeded by the philosopher and scientist Andrea Cesalpino, who created the first scientific method for the classification of plants and can be considered the forerunner of the discovery of the cardiovascular system.

It started out as a subsidiary of the École Normale in Paris and closed immediately to be reopened in 1846 with the inauguration of its present seat at Palazzo della Carovana in Piazza dei Cavalieri.

It was during this period that the university was at the centre of the reform called for by Provveditore Gaetano Giorgini, which saw the faculties increase in number to six (Theology, Law, Arts, Medicine, Mathematics and Natural Sciences) and for the first time in the world, the Chair of Agriculture and sheep-farming was created and entrusted to Cosimo Ridolfi.

The consolidation and expansion of the university, above all in the years straddling the 1800s and the 1900s, had a direct impact on the urban fabric development of the city even though the number of students increased only moderately (891 in 1912).

Notwithstanding the aim to make Pisa a great “centre of university fascist culture” antifascist unrest was still alive, both in the academic community and among students.

The application of racial laws, the first of which were signed by King Vittorio Emanuele III in 1938 at San Rossore, near Pisa, affected foreign and Italian students and university teachers severely, as was the case throughout Italy.

[citation needed] The physical and moral destruction caused by the Second World War was soon overcome and the University of Pisa, whose matriculated students passed from 768 in 1945 to 1,292 in 1950, was able to lead the field in many areas of knowledge, adapting to the new demands of social, civil and economic life.

In 1967, the merger of the pre-existing colleges led to the creation of the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and the Scuola Normale Superiore, forming a system of further education which is of the highest prestige at international level.

From the end of the 1970s, the University's Natural History Museum moved to the enchanting 14th century Charterhouse of Calci, a building of priceless historic and architectural worth.

[citation needed] Among the many graduates of the University of Pisa are Nobel laureates Giosuè Carducci, Enrico Fermi, and Carlo Rubbia, Fields Medal recipients Enrico Bombieri and Alessio Figalli, Presidents of the Republic Giovanni Gronchi and Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, film directors Mario Monicelli, Paolo Taviani, and Vittorio Taviani, writers Tiziano Terzani and Antonio Tabucchi, and tenor Andrea Bocelli.

In politics and government, notable people who have attended the University of Pisa include Italian political leaders such as Giacomo Acerbo, Giuliano Amato, Sandro Bondi, Maria Chiara Carrozza, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Massimo D'Alema, Giovanni Gronchi, Guido Buffarini Guidi, Enrico Letta, Antonio Maccanico, Fabio Mussi, Alessandro Natta, Marcello Pera, Enrico Rossi, Carlo Sforza, Sidney Sonnino, and Paolo Emilio Taviani, Foreign political leaders such as Deputy Prime Minister of Albania Spiro Koleka, Ambassador Marcello Spatafora, Prime Ministers of Greece Ioannis Kolettis and Diomidis Kyriakos, Haitian President René Préval, Nicaraguan President Adan Cardenas, and Prime Minister of Somalia Ali Mohammed Ghedi.

In sciences, notable alumni include Astrophysicists Paolo Farinella, Franco Pacini, Viviana Acquaviva, Biophysicist Clara Franzini-Armstrong, Botanist Giovanni Arcangeli, Geneticist Guido Pontecorvo, and Mathematicians Aldo Andreotti, Enrico Betti, Vincenzo Brunacci, Cesare Burali-Forti, Bonaventura Cavalieri, Guglielmo Libri Carucci dalla Sommaja, Giovanni Ceva, Luigi Fantappiè, Alessio Figalli, Guido Fubini, Christopher Hacon, Giuseppe Lauricella, Salvatore Pincherle, Ferdinando Pio Rosellini, Giovanni Salvemini, Carlo Somigliana, Vito Volterra, Guido Zappa, Neuroscientist Emilio Bizzi, Physicians Vincenzo Chiarugi, Paolo Macchiarini, Francesco Redi, and François Carlo Antommarchi, Physicists Adolfo Bartoli, Temistocle Calzecchi-Onesti, Ennio Candotti, Nello Carrara, Enrico Fermi, Galileo Galilei, Luca Gammaitoni, Antonio Pacinotti, Eligio Perucca, Luigi Puccianti, Franco Rasetti, Vasco Ronchi, and Carlo Rubbia.

In other fields, notable alumni include Egyptologists Sergio Donadoni, Edda Bresciani, Gianluca Miniaci and Ippolito Rosellini, Fashion model Tania Bambaci, Film directors Mario Monicelli, Paolo Virzì and Simone Rapisarda Casanova, Historians Carlo Ginzburg, Camillo Porzio, and Mario Rosa, Librettist Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, Philologist Gian Biagio Conte, Philosophers Francesco Cattani da Diacceto, Aldo Gargani, Giovanni Gentile, Anna Camaiti Hostert, Eufrosin Poteca, and Jiyuan Yu, Physiologist Hugo Kronecker, Tenors Andrea Bocelli and Francesco Rasi, Agronomist Nazareno Strampelli, Anatomist Atto Tigri, Art historian and curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Civil engineer Henry Willey Reveley, Civil servant Bruno Ferrante, Computer scientists Elisa Bertino, Luca Cardelli, and Roberto Di Cosmo, Diplomat Carlo Andrea Pozzo di Borgo, Economists Luigi Bodio and Paolo Malanima, Engineer Giacinto Morera, Intellectual Adriano Sofri, International civil servant Francesco Cappè, Journalists Lando Ferretti and Tiziano Terzani, Jurists Giuseppe Averani, Piero Calamandrei, Francesco Carrara, Antonio Cassese, Giovanni Lami, Remus Opreanu, Italian Constitutional Court Judge Sabino Cassese, Linguists Stefano Arduini and Luigi Rizzi, Nobel Laureate in Literature Giosuè Carducci, Managers Pier Francesco Guarguaglini, Luca Desiata, Naturalist Gaetano Savi, Poets Vincenzo da Filicaja, Giovanni Battista Guarini, and Mauro Nervi, Psychiatrist Silvano Arieti, Racing car and engine designer Carlo Chiti, Surgeon Andrea Vaccá Berlinghieri, Writers Pietro Citati, Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi, Margaret King, Antonio Tabucchi, and Zoologist Enrico Hillyer Giglioli.

Prominent scholars who have taught at the University of Pisa include Anatomists Lorenzo Bellini and Marcello Malpighi, Chemist Robert Schiff, Computer scientist Egon Börger, Engineer Corradino D'Ascanio, Mathematicians Eugenio Beltrami, Enrico Bombieri, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, Sergio Campanato, Benedetto Castelli, Corrado De Concini, Ennio De Giorgi, Luigi Guido Grandi, Alessandro Marchetti, Claudio Procesi, Leonida Tonelli, Pathologist Angelo Maffucci, Physicians Pietro Grocco and Paolo Mascagni, Physicists Bernard H. Lavenda, Carlo Matteucci, Roy McWeeny, Giulio Racah, Gian-Carlo Wick, Zoologist Enrica Calabresi, Economist Giuseppe Toniolo, Egalitarian Philippe Buonarroti, Historians Jože Pirjevec and Pasquale Villari, Journalist Luciano Bianciardi, Jurists Francesco Accarigi, Carlo Costamagna, Bartolus de Saxoferrato, Baldus de Ubaldis, Linguist Mauro Cristofani, Philosophers Armando Carlini, Arnold Davidson, Dominic of Flanders, Lorenzo Magalotti, Ugo Spirito, Poets David Levi, Valerio Magrelli, Giovanni Pascoli, 16th-century scholar Girolamo Maggi, and Writer Bernard Comment.