Padua is an historical city located 20 kilometers west of Venice and claims to be among the oldest cities in northern Italy. According to tradition Padua was founded around 1183 BC by the Trojan prince Antenor. With Rome’s northwards expansion, Padua was gradually assimilated into the Roman Republic. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 and in the end of the century the Carraresi Signoria made the university more prestigious.
Among the main cultural venues there are the Scrovegni Chapel, whose cycle of frescoes were completed in 1305 by Giotto; Palazzo della Ragione, with its great hall covered with allegorical frescoes; the Basilica di Sant’Antonio da Padova, the most celebrated churches in the city: the Caffè Pedrocchi, built in 1831 in neoclassical style with Egyptian influence and Palazzo del Bo, the center of the University.
The 14th Italian Liquid Crystals Society Meeting will be held at the Department of Chemical Sciences (DiSC) in Padua (PD).
The first chair of chemistry at the University of Padova dates back to 1749, when the Republic of Venice created the “Schola Chimica Theorica et Experimentalis”. Over the years, chemistry has always been a well-established subject of study in Padova, giving rise to three departments active in the fields of physical, organic, inorganic, analytical and industrial chemistry, which merged together in 2004 to form the Department of Chemical Sciences (DiSC). Nowadays DiSC hosts 101 tenure and tenure-track professors and researchers of the University of Padova, and CNR-National Council of Research and one researcher of the INSTM-National Interuniversity Consortium of Materials Science and Technology.
DiSC is the reference structure of four Bachelor Degree Courses (Chemistry, Industrial Chemistry, Materials Science, Science and Technology for the Environment), three Master Degree Courses (Chemistry, Industrial Chemistry, Materials Science) and a Specialization School in Evaluation and Management of Chemical Risk. Furthermore, DiSC hosts two PhD Courses: Molecular Sciences (in collaboration with the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences) and Science and Engineering of Materials and Nanostructures, with the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Department of Industrial Engineering.