‘Old age is not an academic subject’ – thus the Italian legal philosopher and political scientist Norberto Bobbio, then eighty-five, began a brutally honest portrayal of his own experience of ageing. In this 1994 essay he speaks out vehemently against the rhetorical glorification of life's final phase that has been common among scholars, especially under the influence of Cicero.There is no doubt that the personal experience of ageing on which Bobbio insists cannot be replaced by scholarly discourse. Nevertheless, universities have devoted a wide range of research and teaching to the topic, and their contribution to the discourse of ageing is such that modern society can no longer be imagined without it.

Early Western universities also treated the subject of ageing. the study of Aristotle and Galen was of especial importance. What it indicates, paradigmatically, is

1. an almost exclusively theoretical approach based on the scholarly reading, discussion and organization of accumulated knowledge. In contrast, practical observation (experientia) possessed almost no independent heuristic significance, generally serving instead to confirm theory. theories were developed

2. predominantly through the reception and adaptation of a canon of venerable writings endowed with the highest authority. Finally, the naturalist and philosopher Aristotle also represents

3. the starting point for the interdisciplinary academic study of old age, as he was an authority not only for medieval philosophy and theology, but also for the emerging university discipline of medicine.