June 2018
On my week of daytrips from Madrid, Alcalá de Henares was high on the list to visit. An old Roman city halfway between Zaragoza and Mérida, the place was absolutely steeped in history. Its biggest claim to fame however was its university:
In 1293 in Alcalá de Henares King Sancho IV of Castile founded the Universidad Complutense, one of the oldest universities in the world, as a Studium Generale. With the patronage of Cardinal Cisneros, it was recognized in a 1499 papal bull, and quickly gained international fame as a main centre of learning of the Renaissance thanks to the production of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible in 1517, which is the basis for most of the current translations. By royal decree, the university moved to Madrid in 1836 (initially as the Universidad de Madrid, later as the Universidad Central, which in the 1970s would finally be renamed Universidad Complutense de Madrid). A new university was founded in the old buildings as the Universidad de Alcalá in 1977. Parts of the new university occupy the buildings of the old Universidad Complutense in the city centre, including the modern Colegio de San Ildefonso, and other Colegios, and the structures have served as a model for other universities across the Spanish territories in the Americas and other dependencies.
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The architectural influence of the university can be found in other present-day academic institutions. The University of San Diego is largely based on the Spanish university; its campus and address take the name "Alcalá Park". In addition, some buildings at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas were modeled after the architecture of Universidad de Alcalá de Henares.
What a tangled story! If we speak of the university itself, Universidad Complutense is now located in Madrid. Its venerable, original buildings, however, only again housed a university from the 1970s. If a university moves to another city, is it still the same university? If another university occupies its original old buildings, can the new entity glom onto some of the history? Convoluted and heady questions - luckily, I was in town just to see the old buildings which had been so architecturally inspirational and visit the birthplace of its famous son, Miguel de Cervantes.
It is generally accepted Miguel de Cervantes was born around 29 September 1547, in Alcalá de Henares. He was the second son of barber-surgeon Rodrigo de Cervantes and his wife, Leonor de Cortinas (c. 1520–1593).[19] Rodrigo came from Córdoba, Andalusia, where his father Juan de Cervantes was an influential lawyer.
(Wikipedia)
Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperative on my visit, but I managed to see a good bit of the university town between several, shower-filled stops for café con leche and pastries. Thank God, I love coffee. Most of the buildings were open to the public (at least the main courtyards) and my wanderings reminded me of walking around Cambridge, England where a very nondescript door off the street might lead into the massive courtyard of one of the colleges.
Alcalá could not compare to Salamanca, but it was an easy daytrip from Madrid and a place I would like to return on a guided tour that explained its history from Roman times to the present. The Romans, the Visigoths, the Moors, the Jews, and the Spanish all played a role in the city's history much more than in other cities in Spain. The father of the modern European novel was born there and one of the oldest universities in the world was established in the city as well. That is a lot going for what is now basically a suburb of metro Madrid.
Was it something in the water? Maybe the Rio Henares has more to it than meets the eye!