The book tells the story of the University of Bologna through a photographic route across the spaces, the buildings, the settings and the people who live the university places every day, in Bologna and on its Romagna campuses. It is a rich selection of images meant to tell of the oldest university in the western world. Founded in 1088, Bologna, even more than any other centre of learning, is not simply an institution: it is a world, a way of living, a meeting point, a place of exchange and of the working out of ideas. In many modern languages there is a formula used internationally to identify universities and academies, a simple phrase that recalls and underlines the excellence of study and is direct and effective: Alma Mater Studiorum, the nourishing mother of studies. That same formula is also the name of the oldest university in the world, so that its very existence, its daily and ancient labour, is a synonym for study and for intellectual life.