Spain Guide
Castilla y León and La Rioja
Universidad de Salamanca
Address: c/Libreros
Website: www.usal.es
Opening time: Mon– Fri 9.30am–1.30pm & 4–7pm, Sat 9.30am–1.30pm & 4–6.30pm, Sun 10am–1pm
Price: €4, free Mon morning
The Universidad de Salamanca was founded by Alfonso IX in 1218. After the union of Castile and León, it swiftly became the most important in Spain. Within thirty years Pope Alexander IV proclaimed it equal to the greatest universities. As at Oxford, Paris and Bologna, theories formulated here were accepted throughout Europe. The university continued to flourish under the Reyes Católicos, and was powerful enough to resist Felipe II's Inquisition, but, eventually, freedom of thought was stifled by the extreme clericalism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Books were banned, and mathematics and medicine disappeared from the curriculum.
During the Peninsular War, the French demolished 20 of the 25 colleges, and by the end of the nineteenth century no more than three hundred students remained. Today, however, numbers are higher than ever (around 30,000 students). Salamanca Uni has a certain social cachet, though it ranks academically well behind Madrid, Barcelona and Seville. It also runs a highly successful language school.
You'll recognize the university's historic core by the milling tour groups, all straining their necks to examine the magnificent facade, the ultimate expression of Plateresque. It's covered with medallions, heraldic emblems and floral decorations, amid which lurks a hidden frog said to bring good luck and marriage within the year to anyone who spots it unaided. The centre is occupied by a portrait of Isabel and Fernando.
Inside, the old lecture rooms are arranged round a courtyard. The Aula Fray Luís de León preserves the rugged original benches and the pulpit where this celebrated professor lectured. In 1573, the Inquisition muscled into the room and arrested Fray Luís for alleged subversion of the faith; five years of torture and imprisonment followed, but upon his release he calmly resumed his lecture with the words "Dicebamus hesterna die..." ("As we were saying yesterday..."). An elegant Plateresque stairway leads to the upper floor, where you'll find the old university library, stuffed with thousands of antiquated books on wooden shelves and huge globes of the world, whose faded magnificence gives some idea of Renaissance Salamanca's academic splendour.