Thirty years ago, a major reform changed the university system in Italy.Since then, the Italian academic world has been subject to a roller-coaster of legislative changes and reform bills that have failed to prevent its progressive decline – a decline that has been exacerbated by limited public investment and, recently, by severe spending cuts. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of how the Italian university system has evolved in response to the legislative and political changes of the last thirty years. In our opinion, it is now reverting back to a situation analogous to that of the pre-1980s, thus reflecting a pattern of historical change that was first described by the Italian philosopher Gianbattista Vico as a ricorso.
According to Vico’s view of history (Vico, 1744), the progression of corsi ericorsi does not necessarily improve situations – after all, not everything that is new is better. Indeed, the changes in the university system that aredescribed and discussed here may have played a role in the progressive decline – both politically and economically – of Italy’s influence on the
international stage over the past decade or so. It is perhaps telling that an ever increasing number of Italian academics and intellectuals have found it necessary to move abroad. The authors look back on the Italian system that educated them and wonder how the country will be able to break out of the vicious cycle of Vichian decline. We hope that our analysis will represent a small step in that direction.