Presentation
The Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and the Ancient World (DiSSGeA) set up on the 1st of January 2012 is the product of the fusion of the former separate Departments of History, Geography and Ancient World Sciences.

Research
The Department's research covers a wide spatial and temporal range in its objects of study as well as in the plurality of sources and methods used. On one hand, in fact, it promotes and develops research ranging from the kingdoms of the III millennium BC and Greek and Latin civilisations to the contemporary world. On the spatial plane, on the other, it encompasses Mediterranean, European and extra-European countries and areas including from a global perspective.
As far as research sources and methodologies are concerned DiSSGeA welcomes work using the following as sources: the land in its original and developed forms; local and production frameworks linked to various areas; documents, oral and written sources and literary texts suffused with the memories and projects of various historical subjects. Such work adopts, elaborates and critically applies the most varied methodologies relating to historical, geographic, cartographic, linguistic, philological, literary, palaeographical, epigraphical and anthropological research in relation to the multiplicity and diversity of its objects of study and the growing demand for a cross and inter-disciplinary and comparative reading and, lastly, the need to elaborate modern tools to raise awareness on and safeguard this.
This breadth in horizons, sources and methods focuses on three research axes which can potentially be developed in partnership with other institutions both public and private: history of the institutions and elites and of political, social and religious movements in the Mediterranean, European and global contexts with specific reference to the African and American continents. Special attention is paid to the study of the Veneto region's history and geography and the 'Venice' phenomenon on a long time frame; cultural history understood both as the history of cultural centres and institutions as well as textual history and the study of type and transmission and also as the history of 'representations of one's self and others' which are generated and modified in the formation of (ideal, material, territorial and landscape) shared, competitive or conflictual realities; history and geography of local areas, economic systems, production and markets with special attention to migration and internationalisation phenomena and globalisation processes - including with the goal of identifying mechanisms and tools in economic development and their transformation in relation to the characteristics of the various contexts - and awareness, enhancement and management of the industrial landscape and the countryside with reference to material and immaterial components in an applied history and geography perspective directly associated with research activities and higher education.

Courses of study
DiSSGeA operates as reference department for first and second level courses of study in historical disciplines and also hosts level II (Master Erasmus Mundus) and level III (inter-university research doctorate and international doctoral courses) international higher education programmes.
The History Degree course (level I), the Specialisation Degree course in Classical Literature and Ancient History, the Specialisation Degree course in Local Development, the Inter-University Specialisation Degree course in Religious Sciences, the Specialisation Degree course in Historical Sciences and the TPTI international multi-university Specialisation Degree course in History are all encompassed by DiSSGeA. The Inter-University Specialisation Degree course in History and Management of the Archival and Bibliographical Heritage is also one of the faculty's courses.
Lessons take place in the Department's three centres which make both lecture theatres and spaces for individual study available to students. The History Library is in Palazzo Luzzato Dina – Via Vescovado, 30; the Tito Livio Library is in Palazzo Liviano - Piazza Capitaniato, 8; the Geography Library is in Palazzo Wollemborg – via del Santo, 26.