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The Scuola Normale of the Kingdom of Italy (the Regno d’Italia)

The new government of the unified Italy chooses to preserve but not to enlarge the Normale model: there will be only one Scuola Normale del Regno d’Italia, and its site will be in Pisa.

 

 

With the new unified state, the legislative and administrative structure of the Kingdom of Savoy was extended to the whole of Italy. The Italian school system was therefore regulated for over sixty years by the Casati law of 1859. Based on a centralized model, the law gave private bodies the possibility to provide education, at the same time establishing the“diritto dello Stato all’insegnamento universitario”(the right of the State regarding university education)  as well as its right to 'supervise' all the levels of the school system.
In Tuscany the provisional government (1859-60) tried to protect the most illustrious local traditions, among them the Normale. After a long debate, in the Senate and in the press, on the opportuneness of maintaining this unique and anomalous institution, in 1862 the Normale was officially named "Scuola Normale del Regno d'Italia".  

Various draft laws were submitted to the Camera to establish the Pisan model by extending it to other universities or to reorganize and expand the Scuola Normale of Pisa.  But the new unified State, engaged in more urgent financial measures and public works, approved, with the decree of 17th August 1862, only some modifications to the Scuola’s regulations, so that it could continue to function as a Scuola Normale italiana.  
The new Normale was introduced into the national legal system by the Matteucci Regulations of 1862, which, in line with the secular orientation of Italian politics, eliminated any religious and confessional aspects from the institution. The years of study became four by ministerial decree in 1863, and a new organizational structure was established: at the educational level, the Board of Directors was divided into two "sections" (the forerunners of the present-day “classi” or faculties), Letters and Philosophy and Physics-Mathematics, formed by the relative teaching staff, under the control of the "Director of Studies"; at the political level, the role of the "President" of the Board of Directors was defined as the authority responsible for the moral, educational and economic governance of the Scuola. Then there was the increasingly important role of the “Provveditore-Economo”, who managed the services as well as the human and financial resources, and had disciplinary jurisdiction over the students.
The Matteucci regulations were followed by those issued by Education Minister Coppino in 1877, establishing the opening of the boarding school also to the section of Sciences and simplifying the complex structure of the previous "Regulations of studies and examinations".