The twofold objective of this paper is to communicate the findings and the methodology employed by a group of Italian researchers who have spent more than six years constructing an atlas of education in the ancient Italian states from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, and to compare the quantitative observations reported in an earlier publication on this research project with a qualitative analysis of one particular aspect: changes in secondary and university education and their systemic relationship introduced after the French Revolution in the Kingdom. In Part 1 we discuss the methodology and its achievements in mapping the distribution of schooling, drawing on two areas in northern Italy; Part 2 reviews the transformations in post-primary education, as evidenced in this research; Part 3 considers the fundamental changes in organisation and roles of the universities over this period, with particular attention to the interplay of tradition and innovation. In conclusion this paper reviews the contribution of this major research project to understandings and interpretations of schools and universities and their relationship in this historic period of change. (Contains 51 footnotes and 9 figures.)