The origins of the University go back to the VIII century AD thanks to the foundation of the celebrated Salerno medical school. In addition to teaching medicine, the school also taught philosophy, theology and law. According to some historians, after the second half of the IX century it was possible to determine the establishment of an institute, which trained and produced doctors. A direct link across the centuries can be hypothesized between the traditional Salerno medicine of the Lombard Age and older medical practice of the Greek –Roman period which puts Salerno in first place for having the oldest university established in Europe.
In 1944 a university institute of arts and education, called the Facoltà di Magistero of the University of Salerno, was established in the city, and in 1968 this became part of the state system. In only a few years, this Faculty of Arts and Education was joined by several other different faculties:
- Literature and Philosophy in1969,
- Economics and Commerce