A Historic Day

  Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Friday, June 9, 2006

Alcalá de Henares is a city just 30 km's away from Madrid. Friday noon my Dad came home early from the office and we drove to this old city. The traffic was horrible and what was worse, the dark clouds forming above us spoke of impending rain. We figured we had to take the chance anyway.

When we got to Alcalá de Henares I noticed the little houses and old buildings, and in contrast, the amount of young people walking around. This seemed more of a town to retire in, not to come and have fun in. But no, apparently, as my Dad mentioned later, this was a University town. Actually the oldest University in Spain. Figures.

01_Plaza_de_Cervantes

Our first stop was the Plaza de Cervantes, a beautiful square dedicated to the 16th century author of Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes. A simple bronze statue in his honor stood in the middle of the square guarded by bushes of thick roses of all colors. We walked around for a bit until we felt the first droplets of rain. It was then we decided to have a bite to eat and escape the potential shower.

02_Cañas_y_tapas

My dad wanted to have McDonald's but when I protested he settled for a traditional Spanish meal of "tapas" and sangria. Lunch wasn't too bad, a little on the heavy side for my taste; I don't usually like to have heavy lunches as it makes me tired and sleepy. But the Sangria helped as after only two glasses I was feeling tipsy. Our tapas of tuna and egg salad, sausage, Iberia ham, shrimp in garlic, and blue-cheese croquettes were delicious, so with our Sancho Panza-like tummies we hurried to the University.

05_Sofi

So this was the first University of Spain (although some are still unsure if the University of Salamanca came first) Founded in the 15th Century by Cardinal Cisneros, the regent in Spain at the time, it was the first modern university where the humanistic arts and sciences were taught as well theology, of course. It was recognized by the UNESCO as part of the World Heritage. It's also the place where the famous Spanish literature awards, the "Premio Cervantes", is given out by the Kings of Spain.

11_University_of_Alcala

The façade was definitely something to look at. Typically Spanish Renaissance in style, it was decorated with eclectic classical allegories, symbolisms, and coats of arms, but that was something that would be explained in the tour which was to begin in 5 minutes, so we hurried inside the appropriate office.

14_Archways

The girl who gave us the tour was a petit Spanish girl who was also a student at the University of Alcalá. She spoke fast and I found it hard to keep up with her harsh Spanish accent, which is still hard for me to understand. But after a few sentences I got the hang of it.

It had started pouring by now, not the little drops of rain that I was used to from Buenos Aires, but huge globules of water splashing down on the old stone streets. For this reason, we started the indoor tour first rather than the outside one where she would explain the façade I was eager to hear about.

20_Aljibe

The first room we saw was the famous Paraninfa Theatre, where the King of Spain awards the Premio Cervantes to the maximum exponent of Spanish literature. Amongst well-known writers I was proud to find Argentines Alfredo Bioy-Casares and Jorge Luis Borges. The theatre wasn't large at all, but it was richly decorated in a very eccentric, unique way. Due to the age of the room and its historical importance, we were not allowed to take photographs inside the Paraninfa, which was a bummer because it was truly a sight.

The girl explained that besides the place where the Cervantes literary distinctions were given out, it was also a room full of history, as this was the place where students gave their doctorate exams. Not too many students signed up for the exam, mainly due to the strict and difficult qualities of the exam. The exam lasted 20 days, in which the student would have to stand in the centre podium, with 80 professors seated all around the salon's perimeter. Each professor would ask one question, so naturally the questions were hard. Not only that, the professors competed amongst themselves to see who asked the hardest question. To top that off, the entire student body of the university could be present during the exam, in the second level, where they would cheer or boo the applicant according to his correct or incorrect answers. Reason being is that if the student passed the exam, it was tradition that he would have to treat the entire town to a 3 day party. The girl mentioned that this would send most applicants into bankruptcy. If the student failed the doctorate exam, he would be carried in a small wooden carriage all around town where the town's people would humiliate him by throwing rotten food, in anger for not being able to enjoy the party. The tour guide mentioned that only 20 applicants passed this exam in 250 years, making the university authorities eventually revise the difficulty of the exam. I thought about the nervous crises I would have suffered if I had gone through something like that.

21_Balconies

Next we moved to the University chapel where the tomb of the Cardinal Cisneros was. This was the most expensive tomb in the history of tombs in Spain...even more so than the kings' tombs. It was completely made out of Carrara marble, the rarest and most expensive kind there is (even today), and weighed I can't remember how many tons....but a lot. The girl told us that centuries ago, a lot of the students believed it to be good luck to take a chip of the university founder's tomb along to their exams, making the sarcophagus severely damaged.

There were allegories all around the tomb, representing the subjects taught in the University, such as Science, Art, Literature, Theology, etc. Since the University first only started teaching theology, some of the students were angry that "modern" and "pagan" subjects were introduced into the program, so they beheaded the marble allegories personifying Science, Arts, Literature, and so on. They only left the Theology personification with its head.

The tour guide continued her fast speech all throughout the University, and I wish I could remember all she said since it was ALL very interesting. She mentioned, for instance, that the first trilingual bible was written in the University of Alcalá, in Greek, Latin and Aramaic. She also pointed out that the swan motif carved in stone all around the campus was in representation of the Cardinal Cisneros ("Cisne" means swan in Spanish) which I thought was a cute, clever, artsy way of having its founder remembered all around the buildings. The most interesting thing was that the school was still functioning today, with students from all over the world, being one of the most prestigious Universities in Europe. I could only imagine what it must be like to sit in a classroom over 500 years old, where illustrious and not so illustrious men studied.

48_Plaza_del_Arzpbispado

Next we moved to the front façade where she explained, quickly as it was still raining a little bit, some of the different symbolic sculpture. The two-headed eagle holding the King of Castilla coat of arms was looking to the East and the West, guarding the University. Allegories of Minerva, Hercules, Eros and Venus were situated around the main door. The four Church Fathers, Saint Gregory, Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, and Saint Ambrosias were standing alongside the façade on either side of the door. At the very top, the only personification of God in the history of Architecture and Sculpture (so she says) was holding a globe. Interesting how this façade held political, pagan and religious allegories all in the same common space.

The tour was over and we were off to see another city site. The cathedral of Alcalà de Henares was sitting on a large square where I learned that two young brothers had been sacrificed in Roman times. I hadn't realized the town went as far back as Roman times so I was eager to learn more.

61_View_of_Cathedral

We walked in the cathedral, which wasn't too special or different from the ones I'd seen so far. There was a museum situated in the cloister of the church, explaining the entire history of the town and of those two little boys I was interested in learning about. Turns out that the town has it beginnings marked much farther back, where bones and tools of Prehistoric times were found in several excavations. Apparently this was the site where the "Carpetanos" people settled until the Romans came and took over. As is known, the Romans allowed the Carpetanos people to continue with their religion, culture and languages turning the settlement into a Hispanic-Roman city called Complutum, dating back from the 3rd Century B.C.E.

63_Holy_children_being_sacrifized

During the time Christianity had been secretly spreading throughout the Roman Empire, two young brothers, only 10 years of age, named Pastor and Justus, were turned into martyrs by beaheding for accepting Jesus Christ over the Roman governor as their only ruler. These two boys were later turned into Saints and named the city patrons. This was 1700 years ago.

Still being awed by the amount of history that covered the foundations of this city, we strolled with Ed, my Dad and Sophie around the small squares and narrow cobblestone streets filled with old bookstores, cafes, and homes. Puddles had been leftover from the recent afternoon rain and the smell of wet leaves and grass was everywhere. Even though this town was bustling with movement and people, it still had a very sleepy, relaxed feel to it.

After a long day of walking we headed back to find the car which was parked on the other side of town when it started raining again. The way home was long due to the heavy rush hour traffic, which gave me some time to contemplate all that I had learned today.

64_Face_of_jesus

How could a city have over 3000 years of history and still be an important modern centre for religion, education, archaeology, anthropology, literature and the arts? I found this single fact utterly fascinating and made me think that perhaps the force holding it all together in one eclectic place was the strength and endurance of the humans who inhabited it. From the prehistoric settlers, to the brother saints, to the old students of the University, to the modern-day students who all stuck to their path, to their convictions, to their beliefs, to their land. A place we could all learn from, for sure.



Click here to jump to more pictures