Cologne, University of

one of the largest universities of the Federal Republic of Germany, the municipal university of the city of Cologne.

It was founded in 1388 on the model of the University of Paris. In the 13th century the University of Cologne was a center of Scholastic thought and linked with the names of the major representatives of Scholastic theology and philosophy, the Dominicans Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas and the Franciscan Duns Scotus. In 1593 the faculties of law, medicine, and liberal arts were added to the faculty of theology. The establishment in Bonn of an academy in 1777 and then of a university undermined the importance of the University of Cologne, and it was closed in 1798. In 1901 the Commercial High School was opened in the building of the former university. In 1919 the University of Cologne was reopened, financed by the municipality. The reopened university represented a merger of the Commercial High School, the High School of Communal Politics and Social Administration, and the Academy of Practical Medicine. The student body was about 7,500.

In 1971 the University of Cologne had five faculties, including the faculties of economic and social science, law, medicine (including stomatology), philosophy (including the divisions of humanities, pedagogy, and music), and natural science and mathematics. The University of Cologne has 125 chairs, 80 institutes, and 13 clinics. There are institutes of economics, power engineering, commerce, and economic politics that are subordinate to the University of Cologne. In the 1971–72 academic year the university had more than 12,000 students and about 800 instructors, including 232 professors. The library of the university (founded in 1920) had about 1.5 million volumes in 1971.