The University of Pisa is one of the most renowed educational institutions in Italy boasting 20 departments, with high level research centres in the sectors of agriculture, physics, computer science, engineering, medicine and veterinary medicine. Furthermore the University has close relations with the Pisan Institutes of the National Board of Research, with many cultural institutions of national and international importance, and with industry, especially that of information technology, which went through a phase of rapid expansion in Pisa during the nineteen sixties and seventies. Although formally founded in 1343, there are records to indicate that the University of Pisa has been active since the 11th century. Famous alumni of the university include Galileo Galilei, the founder of modern science, and the Nobel prize winners Enrico Fermi and Carlo Rubbia, as well as such famous personalities as the poets Giosuè Carducci (he too a Nobel prize winner) and Giovanni Pascoli; the physicist Antonio Pacinotti; the former President of the Republic of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi; the former Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, the film directors Mario Monicelli, and Paolo and Vittorio Taviani; the writer Antonio Tabucchi, the journalist Tiziano Terzani and the tenor Andrea Bocelli.
