Science and technology in Italy has a long presence, from the Roman era and the Renaissance. Through the centuries, it has made many significant inventions and discoveries in biology, physics, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, and other sciences. In 2019, Italy was the world's sixth-highest producer of scientific articles, publishing more than 155,000 documents. From 1996 to 2000, it published two million. It ranked 28th in the Global Innovation Index for 2025.
History As early as the 1st century AD, Rome had become one of the biggest and most advanced cities in the world. The ancient Romans invented new technologies to improve the city's sanitation systems, roads, and buildings. They developed a system of aqueducts that piped fresh water into the city, and they built sewers that removed the city's waste. The wealthiest Romans lived in large houses with gardens. Most of the population lived in apartment buildings made of stone, concrete, or limestone. The Romans developed new techniques and used materials such as volcanic soil from Pozzuoli, a village near Naples, to make their cement harder and stronger. This concrete allowed them to build large apartment buildings called insulae.
Italy had a scientific "golden age" during the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci, was trained to be a painter, but his interests and achievements spread into an astonishing variety of fields that are now considered scientific specialties. He conceived ideas vastly ahead of his time. Notably, he invented concepts for the helicopter, an armed fighting vehicle, the use of concentrated solar power, the calculator, a rudimentary theory of plate tectonics, the double hull, and many others, using inspiration from Chinese ideas. Le macchine di Leonardo da Vinci. macchinedileonardo.com. Web. 29 Sep. 2011. In addition, he greatly advanced the fields of knowledge in anatomy, astronomy, civil engineering, optics, and hydrodynamics.
The scientist Galileo Galilei is called the first modern scientist.Rowland, Wade. Galileo's mistake: a new look at the epic confrontation between Galileo and the Church. Arcade Publishing, 2003. p. 43. Web. 29 Sep. 2011. His work constitutes a significant break from that of Aristotle and medieval philosophers and scientists (who were then referred to as "natural philosophers"). Galileo's achievements include improvements to the telescope, various astronomical observations, and initial formulation of the first and second laws of motion. Galileo was suppressed by the Catholic Church, but was a founder of modern science.Jerome J. Langford, Galileo, science, and the church (U of Michigan Press, 1992) Other astronomers, such as Giovanni Domenico Cassini and Giovanni Schiaparelli, made discoveries about the Solar System. In mathematics, Joseph Louis Lagrange was active before leaving Italy. Giuseppe Peano, Lagrange, Fibonacci, and Gerolamo Cardano, whose Ars Magna is generally recognized as the first modern treatment on mathematics, made fundamental advances to the field. Luca Pacioli established accounting principles. Physicist Enrico Fermi, a Nobel Prize laureate, led the team in Chicago that developed the first nuclear reactor. Fermi helped design the atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. Italian physicists Emilio Segrè, who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton; Bruno Rossi, a pioneer in Cosmic Rays and X-ray astronomy; and other physicists were forced to leave Italy in the 1930s due to Fascist laws against Jews.Lucia Orlando, "Physics in the 1930s: Jewish Physicists' Contribution to the Realization of the" New Tasks" of Physics in Italy." Historical studies in the physical and biological sciences (1998): 141–181.
Other physicists include Amedeo Avogadro (contributions to molecular theory), Evangelista Torricelli (inventor of the barometer), Alessandro Volta (inventor of the electric battery), Guglielmo Marconi (inventor of radio), Galileo Ferraris and Antonio Pacinotti (pioneers of the induction motor), Alessandro Cruto (pioneer of the light bulb), and Innocenzo Manzetti (pioneer of automatons and robotics), Ettore Majorana (discovered Majorana fermions), Carlo Rubbia (1984 Nobel Prize in physics), and Antonio Meucci (developing voice-communication device sometimes credited as the first telephone).Wheen, Andrew. Dot-Dash to Dot.com: How Modern Telecommunications Evolved from the Telegraph to the Internet. Springer, 2010. p. 45. Web. 23 September 2011.; Cleveland, Cutler (Lead Author); Saundry, Peter (Topic Editor). Meucci, Antonio. Encyclopedia of Earth, 2006. Web. 22 July 2012. In 1964, Pier Giorgio Perotto designed one of the first desktop programmable calculators, the Programma 101.; ;
In biology, Francesco Redi was the first to challenge the theory of spontaneous generation by demonstrating that maggots come from eggs of flies. Marcello Malpighi founded microscopic anatomy; his student Antonio Maria Valsalva became famous for his research focused on the anatomy of the ears, and Valvasia pupil Giovanni Battista Morgagni is the anatomist generally regarded as the father of modern anatomical pathology. Lazzaro Spallanzani conducted research in bodily functions, animal reproduction, and cellular theory. Camillo Golgi, whose many achievements include the discovery of the Golgi complex. Rita Levi-Montalcini, who discovered the nerve growth factor, was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine). Giulio Natta received the 1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on high polymers. Giuseppe Occhialini received the 1979 Wolf Prize in Physics for the discovery of the pion or pi-meson decay in 1947. Ennio De Giorgi, a Wolf Prize in Mathematics recipient in 1990, solved Bernstein's problem about minimal surfaces and the 19th Hilbert problem on the regularity of solutions of elliptic partial differential equations.
The first internal combustion engine was invented by Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci, the Barsanti-Matteucci engine, in 1852. It was fueled by a mix of air and hydrogen. The first gasoline internal combustion engine motor vehicle was invented by Enrico Bernardi in 1884. The first pc (personal computer), the Olivetti P6040 and the P6060 was invented by Olivetti engineer Pier Giorgio Perotto in 1975.
Accademia dei Lincei
The Accademia dei Lincei (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed", but anglicised as the Lincean Academy) is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy.
Founded in the Papal States in 1603 by Federico Cesi, the academy was named after the lynx, an animal whose sharp vision symbolizes the observational prowess that science requires. Galileo Galilei was the intellectual centre of the academy and adopted "Galileo Galilei Linceo" as his signature. "The Lincei did not long survive the death in 1630 of Cesi, its founder and patron",Quoted from: Peter M.J Hess, Paul L. Allen. Catholicism and Science. . Page 39. and "disappeared in 1651".Quoted from: Agustín Udías. Searching the Heavens and the Earth: The History of Jesuit Observatories. Springer, 2003. . Page 5.
During the nineteenth century, it was revived, first in the Vatican and later in the nation of Italy. Thus the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, established in 1936, claims this heritage as the Accademia Pontificia dei Nuovi Lincei ("Pontifical Academy of the New Lynxes"), founded in 1847, descending from the first two incarnations of the academy. Similarly, a lynx-eyed academy of the 1870s became the national academy of Italy, encompassing both literature and science among its concerns.Thomas G. Bergin (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Italy (Oxford and New York: New Market Books, 1987).
Main universities
QS World University Rankings # Institution 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016201820191Polytechnic University of Milan (Politecnico di Milano)200+200+3113432912862952772442302291871831701562University of Bologna (Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna)1861592071731921741761831941881822042081881803Sapienza University of Rome (Sapienza – Università di Roma)1621251971832052051902102161962022132232152174Polytechnic University of Turin (Politecnico di Torino)---500+500+400+450+450+400+3703653143053073875University of Padua (Università degli Studi di Padova)200+200+3703122963122612632982672623093382962496University of Milan (Università degli Studi di Milano)----500+500+450+2752562352383063703253257University of Pisa (Università di Pisa)200+200+326325333322300322314259245367431-440421-4304229University of Florence (Università degli Studi di Firenze)200+199338329349377328360400+379352411-420451-460461-470501-51010University of Rome Tor Vergata (Università degli Studi di Roma – Tor Vergata)--423416400+400+400+380336320305401-410481-490461-470511-52011University of Naples Federico II (Università degli Studi di Napoli – Federico II)---420398400+400+400+450+397345441-450481-490481-490472
Research
The National Research Council (, CNR) is the main Italian public research body. Supervised by the Ministry of university and Research, has the task of carrying out, promoting, disseminating, transferring and enhancing scientific and technological research activities in the main sectors of knowledge development and their applications, promoting scientific progress, technological, economic and social. According to the scientific journal Nature, in 2018 the CNR ranked 10th among the most innovative public research bodies in the world for the number of scientific articles published in about 80 journals monitored by the same journal.
Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) is the largest underground research center in the world. Situated below Gran Sasso mountain in Italy, it is well known for particle physics research by the INFN. In addition to a surface portion of the laboratory, there are extensive underground facilities beneath the mountain. The nearest towns are L'Aquila and Teramo. The facility is located about 120 km from Rome. The primary mission of the laboratory is to host experiments that require a low background environment in the fields of astroparticle physics and nuclear astrophysics and other disciplines that can profit of its characteristics and of its infrastructures. The LNGS is, like the three other European underground astroparticle laboratories (Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane, Laboratorio subterráneo de Canfranc, and Boulby Underground Laboratory), a member of the coordinating group ILIAS.
ELETTRA, Eurac Research, ESA Centre for Earth Observation, Institute for Scientific Interchange, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics conduct basic research. Trieste has the highest percentage of researchers in Europe in relation to the population.G. Bar "Trieste, è record europeo di ricercatori: 37 ogni mille abitanti. Più della Finlandia", In: il Fatto Quotidiano, 26 April 2018. Italy was ranked 26th in the Global Innovation Index in 2023. The country and especially the Italian Institute of Technology have produced some ingenious humanoid robots like iCub.
CINECA
CINECA is a non-profit consortium, made up of 69 Italian universities, 27 national public research centres, the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research (MUR) and the Italian Ministry of Education (MI), and was established in 1969 in Casalecchio di Reno, Bologna.
It is the most powerful supercomputing centre for scientific research in Italy,TOP500 List – November 2021, retrieved 15 December 2021 as stated in the TOP500 list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world: Marconi100, is ranked at the 18th position of the list as of November 2021, with about 30 P/FLOPS.