University of Salzburg

The University of Salzburg (Universität Salzburg), also known as the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg (Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg, PLUS), is an Austrian public university in Salzburg municipality, Salzburg state, named after its founder, Prince-Archbishop Paris Lodron. Established in 1622, the university was closed in 1810 and re-established in 1962. Nowadays, it has around 18,000 students and 2,800 employees; it is the largest educational institution in Salzburg state. It is divided into six faculties: Catholic Theology, Law and Economics, Cultural Sciences, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, Analytical and Life Sciences. On 23 July 1622, Archbishop Paris Lodron appointed the scholar Albert Keuslin first rector of the Benedictine university. Keuslin, a graduate of the Jesuit University of Dillingen, had established the Akademisches Gymnasium, a secondary school, at Salzburg five years earlier. By resolution of Emperor Ferdinand II, issued on October 8, the Gymnasium was raised to a university. While the Thirty Years' War raged outside the Archbishopric of Salzburg, the university was built up and maintained by a federation of Benedictine abbeys from Salzburg, Switzerland, Bavaria and Austria. In its early years, courses taught were theology, divinity, philosophy, law, and medicine. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Prince-Archbishopric was secularized as the Electorate of Salzburg in 1803. It was ruled by Archduke Ferdinand III of Austria, a brother of Emperor Francis I, who established a Faculty of Medicine. After Salzburg was annexed by the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1810, however, the university was closed on 24 December and replaced by a Lyzeum college with sections for divinity and philosophy, as well as a school for medicine and surgery. After the Napoleonic Wars, Salzburg became part of the Austrian Empire. The divinity section was again converted to a faculty in 1850. In World War I, plans were evolved to relocate the Francis Joseph University from Czernowitz to Salzburg, though never carried out.