Facciata - Palazzo dei Cavalieri di Santo Stefano (G. Bettini, Comune di Pisa)The Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa has its main office right in Piazza dei Cavalieri. The school was founded by Napoleonic decree in 1810 as an academic pension for university students and a branch of the École Normale Supérieure of Paris. The first seat was the convent of San Silvestro and the term Normale refers to the rules that were to educate citizens about obedience, laws and the Emperor. Over the course of the centuries, the school has seen various events, was suppressed and opened again and its statute has undergone a number of revisions until 2014, the year that defined the subdivision of the school into three academic structures: Human Sciences, Mathematic and Natural Sciences and Institute of Human and Social Sciences. It is an elite school based on equality, attended by students from all over the world, which can be accessed following an exam. Every year few are admitted but over the centuries important scientists, writers, politicians, economists and men of culture, who have made history in our country, have graduated from this school, such as Tiziano Terzani, Antonio Tabucchi and Nobel Prize winners Giosuè Carducci, Enrico Fermi and Carlo Rubbia.
