Comunale, dating from 1245, the Palazzo del Podesta, completed in the same year, and the fine bronze statue of Neptune by Giovanni da Bologna (Jean Bologne of Douai). The famous university of Bologna was founded in the 11th century (its foundation by Theodosius the Great in A.D. 425 is legendary), and acquired a European reputation as a school of jurisprudence under Pepo, the first known teacher at Bologna of Roman law (about 1076), and his successor Irnerius and their followers the glossators. The students numbered between three and five thousand in the 12th to the 15th century, and in 1262, it is said, nearly ten thousand (among them were both Dante and Petrarch). Anatomy was taught here in the 14th century. But despite its fame, the university, though an autonomous corporation, does not seem to have had any fixed residence: the professors lectured in their own houses, or later in rooms hired or lent by the civic authorities. It was only in 1520 that the professors of law were given apartments in a building belonging to the church of S. Petronio; and in 1562, by order of Pius IV., the university itself was constructed close by, by Carlo Borromeo, then cardinal legate. The reason of this measure was no doubt partly disciplinary, Bologna itself having in 1506 passed under the dominion of the papacy. Shortly after this, in 1564, Tasso was a student there, and was tried for writing a satirical poem. One of the most famous professors was Marcello Malpighi, a great anatomist of the 17th century. The building has served as the communal library since 1838. Its courtyard contains the arms of those students who were elected as representatives of their respective nations or faculties. The university has since 1803 been established in the (16th century) Palazzo Poggi. Between 1815 and 1848 the number of students sank to about a hundred in some years, chiefly owing to the political persecutions of the government: in 1859 the number had risen to 355. It now possesses four faculties and is attended by some 1700 students. Among its professors women have more than once been numbered. The Museo Civico is one of the most important museums in Italy, containing especially fine collections of antiquities from Bologna and its neighbourhood. The picture gallery is equally important in its way, affording a survey both of the earlier Bolognese paintings and of the works of the Bolognese eclectics of the 16th and 17th centuries, the Caracci, Guido Reni, Domenichino, Guercino, &c. The primitive masters are not of great excellence, but the works of the masters of the 15th century, especially those of Francesco Francia (1450-1517) and Lorenzo Costa of Ferrara (1460-1535), are of considerable merit. The great treasure of the collection is, however, Raphael's S. Cecilia, painted for the church of S. Giovanni in Monte, about 1515.