ABSTRACT
The history of intellectual migrations, scientific exchange and international cooperation is a key issue that, since the Middle Ages embodied the process of elites’ formation of Western Europe. This chapter outlines the trends of different waves which led foreign students to Italy, examines the map of their countries of origin, following their curricula in Italian universities and faculties, and elicits the different reasons why they were attracted to Italy, by adopting the push/pull scheme used by historians of the Great Emigration. The orientation consolidated strongly in the 1870s and 1880s and gained concreteness in two different trends: one towards institutional and organizational emulation and the other in terms of intellectual mobility. Liberal Italy opened universities’ doors to foreign students and tried to emulate the most celebrated German, British and French institutions of high learning. The chapter focuses on the different kinds of official sources and archives concerning this subject and presents the bibliography available.
