The humanitarian Jean Sturm was headmaster until 1581. Martin Bucer, Jean Calvin, Wolfang Capiton and Caspar Hédion taught there.
The gymnasium was marked by humanism and the Protestant faith. It was a Latin secondary school and a primary school where rhetoric, knowledge and divinity were taught.
In 1566, it became the first academy to award university degrees, and then in 1621 a became a university comprising of four faculties awarding doctorates.