School reforms and university transformations and their function in Italy from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries

The twofold objective of this paper is to communicate the findings and the
methodology employed by a group of Italian researchers who have spent more
than six years constructing an atlas of education in the ancient Italian states from
the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, and to compare the quantitative
observations reported in an earlier publication on this research project with a
qualitative analysis of one particular aspect: changes in secondary and university
education and their systemic relationship introduced after the French Revolution
in the Kingdom. In Part 1 we discuss the methodology and its achievements in
mapping the distribution of schooling, drawing on two areas in northern Italy; Part
2 reviews the transformations in post-primary education, as evidenced in this
research; Part 3 considers the fundamental changes in organisation and roles of the
universities over this period, with particular attention to the interplay of tradition
and innovation. In conclusion this paper reviews the contribution of this major
research project to understandings and interpretations