Overview
The capital of the Old Castile Province of Salamanca, this city has a population of approximately 140,000 inhabitants. Founded by the Iberians and given the name Salmantica, it was taken by Hannibal in 217 BC. Salamanca prospered later under Roman rule—an example of their architecture is the Roman bridge still in use over the Tomes River. The sixth century saw the Vandals, then the Visigoths, in power. As in the rest of Spain, the eighth century brought the Moors as the conquerors of Salamanca. The Christian Reconquest came earlier to Salamanca than to cities of the South when Alphonse VI of Castile regained control in 1085. The Moors were expelled but destroyed the city before the Christians could take over completely. Salamanca recovered and became important as a university city in the thirteenth century. The university was founded at the beginning of the thirteenth century and by the year 1250 was considered to be one of the four main universities of Europe (after Paris, Bologna, and Oxford).
The French occupied Salamanca during the War of Independence. Junot passed through in November 1807 when he led his troops to Portugal. Later, Salamanca was the camp of General Massena—both before and after the Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro (May 1811). Marmont fortified the convents to create points of resistance after the fall of Ciudad Rodrigo. Wellington entered Salamanca in June 1812 but shortly moved south to Arapiles Valley where on July 21 (or 22), 1812 he easily won the Victory of Salamanca. This triumph turned out to be the beginning of the end of French occupancy of Spain.
The University
The University of Salamanca is proud of its early foundation. As early as the 12th century, lectures were being given in the old cathedral. Alphonse IX, king of Leon, initiated the development of courses, and in 1218 founded the University to which Ferdinand III conceded important privileges.
Alphonse X of Castile created new professorships in 1254. The University of Salamanca’s teaching was soon widely renowned (it took part also in the reform of the Catholic Church) and by the 16th century, it numbered 70 professors of studies and 12,000 students. Christopher Columbus consulted its astronomy professors concerning his projects on looking for a new access route to the Indies. It was at the University of Salamanca where the concept of international law was born and where the greatest of the humanists taught. Among its great and famous members have been the Infante Don Juan (son of the Catholic Monarchs), St. John of the Cross and his teacher Fray Luis de León (1527–1591), and Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936), Professor of Greek, University Rector and philosopher of international standing.
In the sixteenth century, when Copernicus was considered a heretic in most European countries, his theory of the cosmogenic system was taught in the University of Salamanca. In present times, it is in decline and only occupies, as far as enrollment, the 8th place among Spanish universities. Today, there are approximately 15,000 students with biology, medicine, and theology being the most popular fields of study.
The entrance to the University is a brilliant piece of sculpture. Dating from 1534, it is considered to be one of the best examples of Salamanca Plateresque. Above the twin doors, covered by basket-handle arches, the carving is in ever-greater relief as it rises through three registers to the final pierced frieze and pinnacles, compensating for the increasing distance from the ground. A central medallion in the first register shows the Catholic Monarchs who presented the doorway; in the second, above crowned escutcheons and medallions, are portrait heads in scallop shell niches; in the third, flanking the pope supported by cardinals, are Venus and Hercules and the Virtues in roundels.
Off the patio are the lecture halls: the Large or Paraninfo Hall, where official functions were held, is hung with 17th-century Brussels tapestries and a portrait of Charles IV by Goya. Master Salinas Hall (Salinas (1513–1590) was professor of music) contains two fragments of a predella painted by Juan of Flanders and a 15th-century portfolio of music. A hall where Fray Luis de León lectured in theology is as it was in the 16th century with the professor’s desk beneath a sounding board and scarred students’ benches—a luxury in days when students usually sat on the ground. The chapel (1767) where Fray Luis is buried was formerly the University Library and has a remarkable 15th-century painted ceiling, of which a large part has been removed to the Minorite Schools.
The grand staircase rises beneath spread star vaulting, its banister carved with foliated scrollwork and imaginary scenes and at the third flight with a bullfight. A gallery on the first floor has its original rich coffered ceiling with stalactite ornaments and a delicate low-relief frieze along the walls. A still-Gothic-style door with a fine 16th-century grille opens into the 18th-century library that contains 3,600 manuscripts and 400 11th–16th-century incunabula.
Standing to the right of the hospital and crowned by the same openwork Renaissance frieze is the entrance to the Minorite Schools, a Plateresque panel decorated with coats of arms, roundels, and scrollwork. The typical Salamanca patio (1428) inside has lovely lines. The library, on the right as you enter, has a double Mudejar ceiling; the Calderón de la Barca gallery, on the patio side, contains the University Library decoration transferred in the 18th century, including a third of the Fernando Gallego so-called “Salamanca ceiling” of the constellations and signs of the zodiac—the interest of even this remaining part gives an idea of what the whole must have been like in the 15th century.
Plaza Mayor
Begun in 1729 by Alberto Churriguera and finished in 1755 by Andrés García de Quiñones, the Plaza Mayor is considered to be the most beautiful of all Baroque plazas in Spain. Philip V built it for the city in gratitude for its support in the War of Succession. Designed as a unit, it has four plain, ground-level arcades, circular-arched, which support the balconied windows of three stories. These rise in perfect formation to a pinnacled balustrade.
The House of the Shells (Casa de las Conchas)
This is the civil monument most representative of the architecture of the time of the Catholic Monarchs (end of the 15th century). The façade is decorated with shells of pilgrimage. The patio has delicate mixtilinear arches, pierced balustrades and, as decoration, sculptured lions’ heads and coats of arms.
Seminary (Clerecía)
This was constructed by the Jesuits from 1617 to 1755, through the initiative of Philip III and his wife. The church, the work of Gómez de Mora (except the façade by Pedro de Matos, dating from early 18th century), houses an altar mayor of Churrigueresque style.
New Cathedral (Catedral Nueva)
Begun in 1513 by Gil de Hontañón, the New Cathedral wasn’t finished until the 18th century, which explains the mixture of Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architectural styles.
The west front is divided below the windows into four wide bays which correspond to the ground plan— a fifth at the south end was incorporated in the tower reinforcement in the 18th century. The bays are outlined by pierced stonework, carved as minutely as the keystones in the arches, the friezes and pinnacled balustrades that mark the Gothic building’s horizontal lines. The decoration on the single portal, which in retable style includes scenes such as a Crucifixion, overflows the covings and tympanum.
Old Cathedral (Catedral Vieja)
Fortunately, the builders of the New Cathedral respected the fabric of the Old which, nevertheless, is almost totally masked outside by its larger descendant. It was built in the 12th century and is a good example of Romanesque, the pointed vaulting being a legitimate, if unusual, innovation; the lantern or Cock Tower (Torre del Gallo), with two tiers of windows and ribbing, is outstanding. High up beneath the vaulting, the capitals are carved with tournament scenes and fantastic animals.
The altarpiece in the central absidal chapel was painted in 1445 by Nicholas of Florence and comprises 53 compartments decorated in still-fresh colours in vivid detail beneath a Last Judgment in which the dark background adds to the brilliance of the Risen Christ. The Virgin of the Vega at the retable centre is a 12th-century wooden statue, plated in gilded and enamelled bronze. Recesses in the south transept contain obviously French-influenced 13th-century recumbent figures and frescoes; the St. Martin Chapel, at the west end of the nave, is entirely covered in 13th and 14th-century frescoes.
Cloisters
The cloisters are 18th century, earlier Romanesque galleries having collapsed in 1755 during the Lisbon earthquake. Adjoining are the Talavera Chapel with a Mudejar dome on carved ribs where the ancient Mozarabic rite was celebrated (the altarpiece is by Pedro Berruguete) and the St. Barbara Chapel, formerly used for university examinations. The diocesan museum contains works by Fernando Gallego (St.).