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 e
ricorsi 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.