Founded in the 13th century, Salamanca’s university was soon recognized as one of the world’s leading educational centers. Foreign rulers were known to defer to its faculty to settle disputes; those same professors foretold the wrath of inflation in Spain with the introduction of so much new wealth from the New World. Mathematical and cientific concepts were continually challenged and reinterpreted; and year after year illustrious students enrolled – Miguel de Unamuno, Fray Luis de León, St. Ignatius Loyola, Hernán Cortes, Lope de Vega and Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, to name a few. Presided over by the statue of its beloved rector Fray Luis de León in the Plaza de las Escuelas, the Gothic university building you see today was constructed in the 15th century. Its beautiful façade, in the Salamanca plateresque style, was added in 1529. It is carved with three friezes (nearsighted folks will be pleased to realize that the arabesques increase in size as they ascend). The first, above the twin doors, depicts the Catholic monarchs embracing a single scepter, said to represent the unity of Spain; the inscription, engraved in Greek, reads: “The Monarchs for the University and the University for the Monarchs.” The second frieze showcases Emperor Carlos V’s coat of arms and the third frieze a pope, though no one knows exactly which pope. Look around for the famous frog of salamanca, senn at left. According to tradition it brings good luck to anyone who locates it. (Hint: look for the three skulls on the right side of the façade.) The interior quadrangle accesses the original lecture halls. An ancient American sequoia grows in the center and a stone stairway carved with the tree of life leads to the classrooms, each named for one or another of the school’s notable intellectuals. There is the room of Francisco de Vitoria, founder of international law; the room of the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno; and the most interesting, the room once presided over by Fray Luis de León, poet and professor of humanities. While in the midst of a lecture, León was arrested and imprisoned under the auspices of the Inquisition for teaching with a Hebrew version of the bible. The room was not disturbed and hasn’t been since. According to tradition, León was released several years later, whereupon he returned to his classroom and began his lecture with the line, “As we were saying yesterday....” The university’s vast library is also located in the quadrangle, though access is restricted to scholars in order to protect the 50,000 ancient volumes. Ironically, Spaniards charged with censoring potentially damaging texts during the Inquisition left many permanently defaced. These days it is no longer the great honor and privilege that it once was for a Spaniard to declare, “I am from the University of Salamanca.” At the turn of the 17th century the university had begun a steady decline, largely the result of changes initiated for the sake of politics – changes the faculty was loathe to prevent. Jews were kicked out of the university and refused admission in the future; those of noble birth were given precedence in admissions, to the exclusion of many great minds; mathematics was removed from the curriculum, and, soon thereafter, medicine. Where the University of Salamanca had enrolled as many as 7,800 students per calendar year during its intellectual heyday in the mid-16th century, enrollment bottomed out at 300 in 1824. Today the university has rebounded, though it may never regain its esteemed position among the world’s most innovative universities.