Università Ca' Foscari
Between Rialto and San Marco, on the Grand Canal, the name you hear most often is not simply a university brand. It is a reminder of where the institution chose to root itself: the Venetian Gothic palace of Ca’ Foscari, whose name the university still carries—Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia—and which has housed its teaching since the earliest days.
A school created by a new kingdom
The story begins with a change in political ownership that happened far beyond Venice. After the annexation of the Veneto region in 1866 into the Kingdom of Italy, a new higher-education need took shape: commerce, diplomacy, and the languages required for international trade. On 6 August 1868, a royal decree established the institution as the Regia Scuola Superiore di Commercio—the Royal College of Commerce. Teaching started in December 1868, turning the decree’s intention into daily instruction. Three promoters stand out from the beginning: Luigi Luzzatti, a political economist who later became Prime Minister of Italy; Edoardo Deodati, senator of the Kingdom of Italy and vice-president of the province of Venice; and Francesco Ferrara, a Sicilian political economist who directed the school for its first thirty years.
