Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/227

203 XIX. CLASSICAL LEARNING. — SCIENCE. 203 widely multiplied. Academies of repute were to chapter be found in Seville, Toledo, Salamanca, Granada, and Alcala ; and learned teachers were drawn from abroad by the most liberal emoluments. At the head of these establishments stood " the illustrious city of Salamanca," as Marineo fondly terms it, " mother of all liberal arts and virtues, alike re- nowned for noble cavaliers and learned men."^^ Such was its reputation, that foreigners as well as natives were attracted to its schools, and at one time, according to the authority of the same professor, seven thousand students were assembled within its walls. A letter of Peter Martyr, to his patron the count of Tendilla, gives a whimsical pic- lure of the literary enthusiasm of this place. The throng was so great to hear his introductory lecture on one of the Satires of Juvenal, that every avenue to the hall was blockaded, and the professor was borne in on the shoulders of the students. Pro- fessorships in every department of science then studied, as well as of polite letters, were established at the university, the " new Athens," as Martyr somewhere styles it. Before the close of Isabella's reign, however, its glories were rivalled, if not eclipsed, by those of Alcala;^" which combined 29 "La muy esclarecida ciudad says Erasmus of this university, de Salamanca, madre de las artes "non aliunde celebritatem nominis liberales, y todas virtudes, y ansi auspicata est quam a complectendo de cavalleros como de letrados va- linguas ac bonas literas. Cujus rones, muy ilustre." Cosas Me- preecipuum ornamentum est egre- morables, fol. 11. — Chacon, Hist, gius ille senex, planeque dignus de la Universidad de Salamanca, qui multos vincat Nestoras, Anto- apud Semanario Erudite, torn, xviii. nius Nebrissensis." Epist. ad Lu- pp. 1-61. dovicum Vivem, 1521. Epistolae, 30 <i Academia Complutensis," p. 755, I