At least one, the Alma Mater Europaea in Salzburg, Austria, an international university founded by the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2010, uses the term as its official name. Other European universities, such as the Alma Mater Lipsiensis in Leipzig, Germany, or Alma Mater Jagiellonica, Poland, have used the expression similarly in conjunction with geographical or foundational characteristics. The Latin name of the University of Bologna, Alma Mater Studiorum (nourishing mother of studies), refers to its status as the oldest continuously operating university in the world. Many historic European universities have adopted Alma Mater as part of the Latin translation of their official name. In English etymological reference works, often the first university-related usage is cited as 1710, when an academic mother figure is mentioned in a remembrance of Henry More by Richard Ward. The first-known appearance of the device is on the title-page of a book by William Perkins, A Golden Chain, where the Latin phrase Alma Mater Cantabrigia ("nourishing mother Cambridge") is inscribed on a pedestal bearing a nude, lactating woman wearing a mural crown. The earliest documented use of the term to refer to a university in an English-speaking country is in 1600, when the University of Cambridge printer, John Legate, began using an emblem for the university press. " Alma Redemptoris Mater" is a well-known eleventh century antiphon devoted to Mary. Īfter the fall of Rome, the term came into Christian liturgical usage in association with the Virgin Mary. The term is related to alumnus, literally meaning a "nursling" or "one who is nourished", that frequently is used for a graduate. The term entered academic use when the University of Bologna adopted the motto Alma Mater Studiorum ("nurturing mother of studies"), to celebrate the university's historic status as the oldest and longest continuously operating university in the world.
Later, in Catholicism, it became a title of the Virgin Mary. īefore its current use, alma mater was an honorific title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. The phrase is variously translated as "nourishing mother", "nursing mother", or "fostering mother", suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to her students. almae matres) is an allegorical Latin phrase currently used to identify a school, college, or university that one formerly attended.
Alma Mater statue by Daniel Chester French, 1903, Columbia University, New York CityĪlma mater (Latin: alma mater, lit.'nourishing mother' pl.
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