Even the last corner of Salamanca is university: during the school period, you will find students in the cafes, in the Plaza Mayor, the libraries packed with students … And the whole city revolves around the University , an educational institution with no less than eight centuries old.
However, despite the years or centuries, the university soul of Salamanca keeps it young , thanks to the thousands of students who circulate through it and occupy it every year, breathing fresh air, life and youth into it.
The University of Salamanca
In Salamanca there are two universities: the public University of Salamanca and the Pontifical University . The first dates from 1218 and was founded by Alfonso IX of León, and later promoted by Alfonso X el Sabio. The Pontifical University is later. It was created in 1940 by Pius XII, and is established in the Clerecía building, which was the Royal College of the Holy Spirit of the Society of Jesus (from the 17th and 18th centuries).
The University of Salamanca, or the building in which it is housed, has an imposing Plateresque façade. It is the courtyard of Escuelas Mayores , on the cover of which there is a hidden frog that visitors and first-year students strive to find. It is a legend, and they say that to graduate it is necessary to find it.
Once inside, the university rooms are distributed from the cloister: the Rhetoric and Eloquence classrooms, the Canon Law class and the Theology or Fray Luis de León classrooms. You will also have to visit Francisco de Vitoria’s classroom and the Columna classroom.
Going up the main staircase you will reach a high gallery where the library is located , a true marvel that contains more than 1,000 books published between the 16th and 18th centuries, 3,000 manuscripts and 500 incunabula.