Geneva’s most celebrated scholars through the ages may not be all as well known as Jean Calvin and Jean Piaget, but the University of Geneva (UNIGE) is addressing that.

As part of its 450th anniversary celebrations, the university has established an attraction that allows you to learn more about its most famous academics – but brace yourself for a long walk.

A nine-kilometre itinerary starting in the Old Town and ending at the Place des Nations showcases 22 of the city’s great minds through the ages with panel displays.

Each display, featuring a rotating panel, offers information in English and French about a different scholar on a journey that also passes through the major areas of the university’s scattered campus.

UNIGE has published a free pamphlet in English on the “citizen scholars” that outlines the route and provides brief biographies. Calvin, whose 500th anniversary is also being celebrated this year, can hardly be avoided.

The walk begins at the Collège Calvin, the school the 16th-century protestant theologian founded along with the Geneva Academy, the forerunner of today’s university. A Frenchman who was initially expelled for his bid to establish a protestant theocracy in Geneva, he returned to complete the job in 1541 after a sojourn in Strasbourg.

You can read all about his achievements on a panel installed outside the school. You have to walk to the 19th panel outside the Palais Wilson to find the display on Piaget, the pioneer in the study of child learning.

“Few Swiss scientists have achieved the scientific and popular recognition of Piaget, who is considered to be one of the greatest psychologists of the 20th century,” says the citation for the man who taught at the university from 1929 to 1971. A native of Neuchâtel, he was regarded as a prodigy even in his youth.

A nature enthusiast, he wrote his first article on molluscs at the age of 11. The Neuchâtel Museum offered him a job as curator “before he had even finished secondary school.”

He also has a connection with the Palais Wilson, headquarters to the League of Nations (forerunner to the United Nations), as it was the site of his first laboratory.

Other famous scholars include Horace-Benedict de Saussure, who installed the first lightning conductor on the roof of his house overlooking the Place Neuve in 1776. He was also famous for climbing Mont Blanc 11 years later with Chamonix guide Jacques Balmat, just a year after the first ascent of the highest mountain in the Alps.

De Saussure took loads of scientific instruments with him and pioneering equipment that included shoes fitted with crampons, and sunglasses. He became known as a “mountain scholar,” an expert in geology who returned to climb the Alps over and over.

Another famed Geneva academic was Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle (1778-1841), who set out to catalogue all the world’s known plants. The gigantic task was taken up by his son Alphonse and grandson Casimir. Together they wrote descriptions of almost 59,000 plants making Geneva, in the process, a global centre for botany.

Other scholars include a surgeon who hunted butterflies, an 18th-century astronomer whose name was used for a lunar crater, “the inventor of the comic strip” and an Egyptologist who left behind a fabulous library that can be seen at the Geneva Library in the Bastions Building.

There’s even an American expat in the line-up. William Rappard (1883-1958), a Harvard-trained historian, lawyer and economist, was born in New York. His mastery of foreign languages led him into the field of diplomacy, which further led him to work for the International Labour Organization (ILO).

He was also instrumental in arguing for the establishment of the League of Nations in Geneva, appreciating Switzerland’s position as a neutral country. He taught economic history at its university for 44 years and even served as its rector.

But he is now best remembered for lending his name to the building that houses the headquarters of the World Trade Organization (formerly used by the ILO), which is where a panel to Rappard can be found.

The itinerary passes by the university’s principal buildings - its medical centre, the Uni-Mail complex, the school of medicine, the Uni-Dufour building and the library and associated buildings near the Bastions park.

The open-air Citizen Scholars exhibition opened on Monday and runs until October 2009. As an alternative to walking the route, the university suggests cycling. Of course, it is always possible to break up the journey and see sections of the walk over several separate days. Pamphlets in English and French can be obtained at the Uni-Dufour building, 24, rue du Général-Dufour.