Giuseppe Franco Bassani (1995-1999)

A physicist, Bassani had since 1980 been full professor of Solid State Physics at the Scuola Normale.
He continued with the acquisition of urban spaces and buildings that had begun with Bernardini, and came to an agreement with the Foundation of the Puteano College for the seventeenth-century college in Piazza dei Cavalieri to be made available for the use of the Scuola Normale.
During this period, various "schools of excellence" were established in Italy in an attempt to replicate the teaching model of the Scuola Normale, but none of these were granted the name Scuola Normale Superiore.