In the last one hundred and fifty years, the University has been the political and intellectual protagonist on several occasions. From prewar interventionism, to the twenty years of Fascism with a role of absolute importance, to the beginning of the Resistance, the University of Padua was at the forefront in Italy and Europe, becoming the operations centre of the anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist political and military conspiracy in Veneto. This role would assure the University, the only one in Europe, the Gold Medal of Military Valour for the War of Liberation. The important role of the University will also be re-asserted in the dark years of the right- and left-wing subversion and terrorism, which will find cultural and political habitats of exceptional importance in Padua. At the same time, during the second post-war period, the University continues an intense phase of expansion of its “extended campus”, contributing to strongly designing an original urban and behavioural profile, while developing specific sectors of research in the scientific, medical and humanistic field.

Project managers: CASREC – Centre of the University for the History of the resistance and of the contemporary age / Carlo Fumian

The book was presented during an event, on May 6 2022 at Palazzo Bo.

Alla prova della contemporaneità is one of the winners of the 36th edition of the Brunacci Award for the Venetian history.