When it was activated in November
1946
the College of Agriculture, with the
Degree in Agricultural Sciences, represented the
point of arrival of the evolution of the
technical-scientific teaching in the agricultural
field within the University of Padua; this evolution
started in
1762
with the foundation of the Chair of Agriculture
(Cathedra ad Agriculturam Experimentalem) and the
subsequent establishment of the Agricultural
Garden.
Because of some epizootics which decimated the
bovine property of the Venetian Republic in the
first half of the eighteenth century, the Senate of
the Republic, which was strongly concerned about the
food condition, established the first Chair of
Agriculture in Europe at the University of Padua.
The teacher chosen for that Chair was Pietro
Arduino (1728-1805) who had already been the
"guardian" of the Botanic Garden and who claimed
that "agriculture is itself a part of botany, a
science which include not only information about
plants, but also about lands, climate and
cultivation which search where to make plants living
and flourishing".
It was Arduino who suggested to establish the
Agricultural Garden, which began to work, even
though in a precarious way, in
1766
on seven fields, which had been rented in Santa
Croce. The scientific activity which developed in
the Agricultural Garden and as a result the
subsequent improvements in the Venetian agriculture
allowed Arduino to obtain important extensions of
the structures, reaching in
1792
the landed situation known as the "Fields of the
public School of agriculture" represented in the
detailed map of the city of Padua by Giovanni Valle.
At that time the Garden had 645 species of
cultivated plants and 240 species of spontaneous
plants.
With the death of Arduino, it ended the pioneering
period of the life of the Agricultural Garden and of
the Chair which anyway greatly affected the progress
of Venetian agriculture, so that Filippo Re, who was
the founder in
1806
of the Agricultural Garden of the University of
Bologna, recognized that "…the inhabitants of the
Venetian dry land in the last thirty-five years of
the past century more than any other Italian people
had improved a lot their agricultural skills…".
The following direction of the Garden (1829-54) was
given to the abbot Luigi Configliachi who
distinguished himself more for the improvements of
the estates and the increase in the
teaching-scientific aids than for the research
activity.
When in 1854 Configliachi was appointed Chancellor,
the Chair and the direction of the Garden were given
to Antonio Keller.
After the annexation of Veneto to Italy, in
1870
the Chair was cancelled because the legislation of
the Italian Kingdom did not provide the teaching of
agriculture within university subjects. Keller could
keep ad personam the title of "Professor of
Agriculture and Valuation of Farms" which had been
assigned to him and he could carry on his teaching
activity within the Training School for Engineers,
which was established in 1875. Even the Agricultural
Garden, which became one of the scientific Liberator
supporting the Chair of Rural Economics and
Estimate, converged in that School.
Despite Keller's efforts, the growth in importance
of the Practical School of Brusegana, which was
established in
1883,
in the field of agricultural experimentation and
divulgation and the greater interest of the Training
School for Engineers in the rising disciplines such
as electrotechnics and building with reinforced
concrete, greatly contributed to the decline of the
Agricultural Garden.
When Keller died in
1900,
a series of conveyances, which affected the estates
and part of the buildings of the Agricultural
Garden, started. To avoid the cancellation of that
important institution, the commune of Padua decided
the move of the structures in an area located at
Portello, assuming upon itself all the charges
related to the re-establishment of the Garden.
The works for the reconstruction of the Agricultural
Garden in the new seat were started by Leopoldo Di
Muro, who took the place of Keller in the Chair of
Rural Economics and Estimate. He gave to the
Agricultural Garden's activities the character of
agronomy's research and experimentation, not
directed any more to didactic divulgation. Besides,
Di Muro preferred to direct the teaching activity of
the Chair towards subjects related to the profession
of engineer, that is evaluation, because the
professional figure of the agronomy engineer was not
required a lot by the labour market and, on the
other hand in many Italian universities Agricultural
Faculties were being created, and started to work in
1935.
In
1931
the direction of the Agricultural Garden went to
Guido De Marzi, who had already directed the
strolling Chair of Este and of Padua (which is
called today Regional Department of Agriculture).
Three years after the installation of De Marzi, it
was brought about the reform of the Training School
for Engineers which confirm, among other things, the
definitive separation of the Agricultural Garden
from the Chair of Rural Economics and Estimate. The
birth of the Faculty of Engineering implied the
creation of the Institute of Evaluation, which had
its seat in the Agricultural Garden, and the passage
in the direction to Guido Ferro, who was also the
director of the Institute of Marine Construction.
By that time the vicissitudes of the Agricultural
Garden were going to their end. In the heat of the
material and civil reconstruction after the Second
World War, the Ministry of Education approved the
beginning of the courses of the College of
Agriculture in the academic year 1946/47,
courses which were promoted by Guido Ferro himself,
who in the meantime had been appointed Chancellor.
The structures of the College, which was being
established, found a seat in a new building in the
area of the abandoned Agricultural Garden, in 6
Gradenigo Street.
In that seat the College of Agriculture developed in
the course of the years, both in its structures and
in its teaching and research articulation. In fact,
in
1967
the Degree in Forestry Sciences was
established, which from the following year came
alongside the original Degree in Agricultural
Sciences. Since 1987 it started the process of
creation of departments in the College, which
brought to the establishment of the current four
Departments:
Dept. of Environmental Agronomy and crop
Production,
Dept. of Agricultural Biotechnology,
Dept. of Animal Science,
Dept. of Land Use and Agro-Forestry System,
created by the confluence of the seven pre-existent
University Institutes.
In
1994
the College of Agriculture found a new seat in
Legnaro at the Agripolis Campus; that move
has produced a significant change not only for the
availability of new and functional buildings and
structures, but for the definite push to renewal, to
interdisciplinary character, to the link with the
other institutions which works at Agripolis. It is,
in fact, a real university town, the only one in
Italy, and inside it there are, gathered in a single
scientific pole, not only the Departments of the
College of Agriculture and the library, but also the
College of Veterinary Medicine, the Veterinary
Hospital, the experimental farm "Lucio Toniolo",
which extends on 110 hectares, the Venetian
Zooprophylactic Experimental Institute, the Regional
Agency for Agriculture (Veneto Agricoltura).
In the university town there are also flats for
students, refreshments services and sports grounds.
Besides, there are research laboratories and
teaching structures such as: computer labs,
chemical-biological-biotechnological laboratories,
technological laboratories, research laboratories in
the departments, account and environmental estimate
department, mapping, photogrammetry and remote
sensing centre, laboratory for quality and
certification of food, and a wood collection.
Deans of the College
|
Prof. Giuseppe Gola |
dal 1946 al 1951 |
|
Prof. Osvaldo Passerini |
dal 1951 al 1961 |
|
Prof. Antonio Servadei |
dal 1961 al 1969 |
|
Prof. Lucio Susmel |
dal 1969 al 1971 |
|
Prof. Mario Bonsembiante |
dal 1971 al 1976 |
|
Prof. Mario Rioni Volpato |
dal 1976 al 1985
|
|
Prof. Mario Bonsembiante |
dal 1985 al 1988
|
|
Prof. Arturo Zamorani
|
dal 1988 al 1993
|
|
Prof. Umberto Ziliotto |
dal 1993 al 1999 |
|
Prof. Giovanni Bittante |
dal 1999 al 2005
|
|
Prof. Raffaele Cavalli
|
dal 2005 al 2009 |
|
Prof. Giancarlo Dalla
Fontana |
dal 2009 |
| |
|
University of Padua