Unibo Magazine

Palazzo Poggi hosts the exhibition on Bologna FC’s student players

Who brought the first football to Bologna? Who introduced the club’s red-and-blue colours? Staged in the heart of the University, the exhibition traces the pivotal role played by students in bringing football to Bologna, from the earliest matches, featuring “a handful of madmen chasing a ball” on the Prati di Caprara, to the foundation and early triumphs of Bologna FC

Exhibitions and performances University sport

From Saturday 11 April to Tuesday 2 June, the exhibition “Campus di calcio. Studenti del Bologna FC dall'Università alla città” will bring the corridor of Via Zamboni 33 to life with a story rooted in the early twentieth century, when a game still barely known began to gain ground in Bologna, thanks to its university students.

It was Benito Álvarez Buylla y Lozana, a student at the Real Colegio de España, who brought one of the first leather footballs from England to Bologna, earning him the nickname “l'uomo del pallone”, the man with the ball.

Among the prominent figures of those years was Antonio Bernabeu y Yeste, brother of the Santiago after whom Real Madrid’s stadium is named; Aldo Gradi, a future notary and pioneer within the Società Sportiva Studentesca, and brother of Arrigo, to whom the club’s red-and-blue colours are owed; Vittorio Puntoni, son of the rector who bore the same name and later a physician of distinction; Emilio Sala Rosa, who fell for his country during the First World War; and Giuseppe Della Valle, an engineer, a member of the national team, and the third in a dynasty of champions.

Organised and curated by the University of Bologna’s Historical Archive, the exhibition is presented as a series of panels combining text and images, and features copies of documents drawn from the student files held in the Unibo Historical Archive, alongside visual materials provided by Bologna FC 1909, the Real Colegio de España, and Fondazione Carisbo. The exhibition traces the lives of some of those young students, drawn from different social and geographical backgrounds and united by their passion for the new game.

It also follows the evolution of the game's venues, from the improvised pitches at the Prati di Caprara to the city’s first proper grounds, and on to the construction of the Littoriale — today the Renato Dall'Ara Stadium — a symbol of football’s definitive place in the public life of Bologna. The exhibition is completed by a selection of materials from the Umberto Costanzini Collection, held at the University's Historical Archive, which documents the design of the city's sports facilities and attests to the close relationship between urban development and sporting culture.

The exhibition invites visitors to rediscover a defining chapter in Bologna’s history — one in which a passion for sport first took hold within a vibrant, culturally engaged student community before spreading across the city and helping to shape its collective identity. 

“Campus di calcio. Studenti del Bologna FC dall'Università alla città”, organised and curated by the University of Bologna's Historical Archive, is presented under the patronage of Bologna FC 1909, the Municipality of Bologna, and the Real Colegio de España.
Scientific committee: Marino Bartoletti, Gianluca Battacchi, Riccardo Brizzi, Carlo Caliceti, Carlo Felice Chiesa, Francesco Citti and Mirko Trasforini.