Frog Salamanca - Façade

La Rana de Salamanca (The Frog of Salamanca)

The façade was built during the 16th century, commissioned in 1529 by the Catholic Kings, though the university itself was built in 1134, so Middle Ages, here.

The Frog
The Frog is meant to represent Seville’s Prince Juan, who died as a teenager in 1497 before the facade was built. The Frog represents Doctor Parra, the doctor who tried frantically to save the prince’s life. This explains the Frog’s nickname of Parrita (‘little Parra’).

The Astronaut
Salamanca has two cathedrals, the old and the new. The Old Cathedral was built in the 12 century in the Romanesque style and it is dedicated to Saint Mary of the See. It is closed to the public and only opened during very special occasions, however you can get a glimpse of it when visiting the New Cathedral’s permanent exhibition ‘Ieronimus’

The New Cathedral is not exactly “new”. It was built between the 16th and 18th centuries in the Gothic and Baroque styles, commissioned by Ferdinand V of Castile of Spain, the Catholic King.

For some time there were numerous debates online about the fact that one of the carvings is decidedly an astronaut. There were no Astronauts back in the 18th century, so how did it get there?

The Ice-Cream Eating Gargoyle.
To make it even more mysterious, there’s a Gargoyle clearly eating an ice-cream cone and laughing at you, very close to the astronaut.

It turns out both the astronaut and the gargoyle are details added by the craftsmen in charge of doing some restoration work on the Cathedral in 1992. It seems it’s a regular practice of these workers to ‘sign’ their works with some interesting details.

Jerónimo García, chief restorer chose the astronaut as a symbol of the 20 century and it’s said that the gargoyle represents the students.Read more