25 + THE UNIVERSITY AT A GLANCE: FACTS AND FIGURES HISTORY, FACULTIES, FIELDS OF RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HISTORY The University of Jena was founded in 1558 by the Elector John Frederick of Saxony. The Elector (had) already awarded the institution the imperial privilege as a university in 1557, before the University opened a year later on 2 February 1558. A bronze statue of Elector John Frederick has stood in the city’s historical marketplace—not far from the University Main Building—ever since. Also known as ›Hanfried‹, which is a combination of his German names Johann and Friedrich, this statue is still a popular meeting place (today). The ›alma mater jenensis‹ is one of the oldest universities in Germany. The University of Jena was founded as a protestant university/higher education institution. It made a name for itself at an early stage due to the theological debates initiated by Martin Luther becoming a hub within the Reformation movement. From 1653, the mathematician and astronomer Erhard Weigel lectured in Jena. Among his students were the philosophers Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Samuel von Pufendorf. The University of Jena was one of Germany’s largest universities at the beginning of the eighteenth century boasting some 1,800 students. A certain Johann Wolfgang von Goethe then influenced the University like no other. With his policy-making and far-reaching contacts, he ensured that the years around 1800 are nowadays known as the University’s Classicist-Romanticist ›wonder years‹. Jena is still considered a centre of German Romanticism to this day. During Goethe’s time, the early-modern university had already substantially grown and differentiated itself within its four faculties (Law, Medicine, Philosophy and Theology). A list of the University staff and students from this era reads like a ›who’s who‹ of great thinkers from the period. For instance, Goethe attracted Friedrich Schiller, the University’s future eponym, to the Saale Valley as a professor of philosophy during this time. But these are only a couple of the household names that graced Jena during this era. The philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling all delivered lectures here. The same goes for the poet Johann Heinrich
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