Il gran fatto che dovrà commemorarsi: l'Alma Mater Studiorum e l'Ottavo Centenario della sua fondazione. Medioevo, memoria e identità a Bologna dopo l'Unità d'Italia

«Il gran fatto che dovrà commemorarsi»: the Alma Mater Studiorum and the VIII centenary of its foundation. Middle Ages, memory and identity in Bologna after the Unification of Italy On June 12th, 1888, in Bologna, in the Archiginnasio courtyard (former seat of the Athenaeum), in the presence of King Umberto I, of the Queen Margherita and of the Crown Prince Vittorio Emanuele, Giosue Carducci celebrated the University of Bologna and the eight centenary of its foundation, thus officially codifying the role of the Studium in the long history of Bologna. On the other side, from the beginning of the 12th century, Bologna was recognized, in Italy and in Europe, as the elective home of the rediscovery of the jus Romanorum: in this sense, the resumption of the myth of the docta Bononia, Alma Mater Studiorum – which took place after the Unification – was in continuity with the fundamental character of self-consciousness of the City. But this celebration can also be considered as the main step of a collective process of ‘reinvention of tradition’, which can be connected to the national scenario which followed the Unification and to the need of identifying inside it the new identities of the individual urban realities comprising the newly formed Italy, through the creation of a shared past, recognised by the single communities