This inscription is located above the entrance door to the Sala dei Quaranta (Hall of Forty) in Palazzo Bo, the main seat of the University of Padua (Via VIII Febbraio 2).

The text of the inscription was composed by Concetto Marchesi, professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Padua (Anti 1968: 41; Anti 1983: 34; Mantovani 1979: no. 164).

The letters are painted black on the wall in Roman capitals.

The inscription is placed in the Sala dei Quaranta, which houses the portraits of forty distinguished foreign students who attended the University of Padua between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. Among the depicted figures, one can recognize famous scientists, physicians, jurists, and humanists such as the English physician William Harvey (1578–1657), the French state chancellor Michel de l’Hospital (1504?–1573), and the German philosopher and theologian Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464). These portraits were made by Gian Giacomo dal Forno in 1942 and the inscription very probably dates back to the same year.

The inscription celebrates the civilizing and educational mission of the University of Padua, which is presented as capable of spreading culture to many parts of the world through the foreign students it educated. Especially notable is the use of the adjective Latinos, used to describe the students whom the University educated and ‘returned’ to their homelands. It may refer to training in Latin language and literature, but it can also encompass a broader interpretation of ‘Latin’ that includes Italian and Romance-Mediterranean culture and its areas of influence in other parts of the world, not least in Latin America (latinità).

Bibliography

Anti, Carlo. 1968. Università di Padova. Descrizione delle Sale Accademiche al Bo, del Liviano e di altre sedi. 5th ed. Padova: Tipografia Antoniana, 41.

———.1983. Università di Padova. Il Palazzo del Bo, il Liviano. Guida Breve. 6th ed. Trieste: Lint, 34.

Mantovani, Gilda. 1979. ‘Epigrafi e Iscrizioni’. In Il Palazzo del Bo. Arte e storia, 175–211. Trieste: Lint, 206, no. 164.

Lorenzo Di Simone