Salamanca Tourist Brochure

S A L A M A N C A

The City of Thought

n I NSIDE THE UNIVERSITY : R OOMS FOR WISDOM

Inside the University, a special atmosphere receives the presence of those ones that wanted to change the world or help to improve it with their ideas and intellectual work: Fray Luis de León, Francisco de Vitoria, Antonio de Nebrija, Miguel de Unamuno, ... Once we trespass the entrance, all the rooms are ordered around a cloister patio: the assembly hall, the chapel, the old classrooms and the renaissance stairs that lead us to the magnificent library.

Fray Luis de León

n A S WE WERE SAYING YESTERDAY ...

Fray Luis de León s classroom seems to take us to the inside of an old temple of wisdom, a scene of austerity and simplicity where we seem to be able to still feel his presence. The classroom is kept the same way he left it.

n A L IBRARY WITH ROUND BOOKS

S TAIRS IN RELIEF The relief of the cloister stairs leads us to the way men have to walk from the worldly life to the celestial one. Way of perfection that has three stages: youth, middle age and old age. In each of the flights of the stairs, the temptations to be overcome and the virtues to practice are represented in a cryptic language. Founded in 1254 by Alfonso X el Sabio, it keeps many manuscripts and incunabula whose value is incalcula- ble. It deserves to be pointed out the Tohá and the “round books” that Torres Villarroel bought in Paris: these were really globes and he called them that way so that the librarian accepted and paid for them.

A library with round books

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Detail of the relief of the cloister stairs

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