This component comprises important porticoed academic buildings, as Palazzo Poggi, the Academy of Fine Arts and the Bologna National Art Gallery (former Jesuit novitiate and church of Sant'Ignazio of the 18th century), underlining the historic value of a road that has been the centre of the city's student life for more than 200 years.

The modern urban campus within the walls of Bologna dates from the Napoleonic period and its core corresponds to the perimeter of this component; the principal academic buildings equipped with porticoes can be found inside it. The design of the porticoes as the key feature of Bolognese university architecture dates from the mid-16th century, when it was considered an old-style reworking of the medieval precedents and an evocation of the classic models.

The present university “city” has maintained this design model, identifying the portico as the most powerful bearer of the symbolic values abounding in an entire section of the city. The University's importance in the dissemination of knowledge around the world gave a strong impulse for the emulation of portico models internationally.