On to Salamanca

We began this morning on the glassy Douro River in the little riverside town of Barca do Alva. The bus ride today took us back into Spain. I have long wanted to visit Salamanca, primarily to see its two major universities. First, though, we went to the cathedral.

Salamanca cathedral is unique because it actually is two cathedrals zipped together. The old church begun in the fifteenth century was hauntingly beautiful. It was seriously damaged in the great Lisbon earthquake in 1755. Rather than destroying what remained, the town built a new building in and around the old one. If anything it is even more magnificent, more detailed and even more intricate. In decorating the north door in the twentieth century, one sculptor included normal twentieth century items in his theological sculptures. So he has a demon eating an ice cream cone. Similarly, another artist wanted to include a man who was physically the closest person to God up in heaven, spatially, at least. So he includes an astronaut. My “WOW-meter” certainly pegged out.

The University of Salamanca considers itself the fourth university in the world. Founded in 1218, it was preceded by Bologna, Paris, and Oxford. Those who successfully complete their doctoral studies here win the right to adorn an exterior wall of the administration building with a traditional emblem that incorporates an element representing the student’s own identity. They have done this for nearly eight hundred years, and surrounding the recently painted emblems are red smudges—remains of identical logos going back to the thirteenth century. In the early days of the university the students themselves rented a hall, pooled their resources and hired a lecturer. Thus, they were the administrators and the faculty were their employees. It took over a century for the customs to change so that professional non-students became the school administration. Interesting details adorned the elaborately carved facade of the old university buildings. For example, one sculptor chiseled a frog sitting on a skull. Since frogs in the fifteenth century were symbolic of lust, the artist was reminding rowdy students that lust leads to death.

The second university here is the Catholic University, originally run by Jesuits teaching only theology, canon law and civil law, the Jesuits were expelled from Spain in the eighteenth century. Now the school continues to offer church-related degrees, but they also offer bachelor’s degrees in such secular fields as journalism, modern languages, education and computer science.

We had time for a quick visit to the museum of modern art, whose stained glass ceiling grabs the visitor’s attention. Paintings, statues, glass works, toys and even dolls from the 1920’s are on display. Visitors are not allowed to take photos, so you will need to go online to see more details about the Casa de Lis which houses the museum. The displays of clothing, art and even toys from the Roaring Twenties reveal a time after the War-to-End-All-Wars when all of the old moral, social, political and artistic rules had broken down. Cole Porter’s song about the period told the truth for the people between the wars: Anything Goes. The exhibits in this museum are revelatory of the mindset of that generation.Read more