University of Würzburg, autonomous, state-supported university in Würzburg, Ger., founded in 1582. Early a famous centre for the study of Roman Catholic theology, it was secularized in 1814 and became best known for its medical school. Among its teachers were the philosopher F.W. Schelling, the pathologist Rudolf Virchow, and the physicist Wilhelm Röntgen, who discovered X rays there in 1895.