Abstract

Recent studies on academic violence in the Modern age have been proved particularly interesting to better understand the relationships between city and university and between political and student power. In this research it has been chosen to investigate some episodes of violence happened in Bologna in the 1560s which involved students, both Italian and foreigners. The material sources examined were the documents belonging to the Bolognese archive of the Criminal Court called «Tribunale del Torrone», institution that worked from about 1535 until the Napoleonic era. This study highlighted a link between the increase in scholars' disorders and the most relevant facts happened in that decade, such as the arrival in town of the vicelegato Pier Donato Cesi and the opening of the new «Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio». These conflicts were a tangible expression of the students' discontent, due to the restriction of their freedom established in the Counter-Reformation background.