Students at Rome's La Sapienza university protesting against cuts in the higher education sector on Wednesday threw shoes, stones and bottles at police preventing them from marching outside the university.
Around 300 students gathered to protest cuts but were pushed back by police when they tried to leave the university grounds and join the main protest led by trade unions in a central city square.
One student claimed to have been beaten by four policemen in the scuffle.
''We wanted to file out to throw slippers against the economy ministry like French students did a week ago,'' said one student, referring to the protest as ''the revolt of the shoes''.
''A European link is forming among the various student movements,'' he said.
Elsewhere in Europe students in both France and Spain protested against national government reforms in the university sectors on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Shoe-throwing has become a popular form of protest since an Iraqi journalist threw his own pair at former United States president George W. Bush during a press conference in December.
In February, a German student threw a shoe at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao when he gave a speech at Britain's Cambridge University, and several hundred French researchers hurled shoes at the department of higher education and research in Paris to protest reforms.
Rome city council and trade unions earlier this month agreed to new measures governing protests which restrict the movement of marches to six predetermined routes in the city in a bid to guarantee citizens' rights to mobility.
The Italian Students' Union on Wednesday condemned police for ''violent methods'' adopted to contain the students at La Sapienza and unions threatened to scrap the protocol agreed with the city council.
''Today was a peaceful protest and the students could have been escorted by police to the (main rally) square,'' said a spokesman from the CGIL union.
''If the protocol is used as an excuse to beat up students it's useless and should be torn up,'' he added.
