Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/345

319 UNIVERSITY OF ALCALa. 319 XXI. ancient classics ; studies, which probably found es- chapter pecial favor with the cardinal, as furnishing the only keys to a correct criticism and interpretation of the Scriptures. ^^ Having completed his arrangements, the cardinal sought the most competent agents for carrying his plans into execution ; and this indifferently from abroad and at home. His mind was too lofty for narrow local prejudices, and the tree of knowledge, he knew, bore fruit in every clime.^'^ He took especial care, that the emolument should be suffi- cient to tempt talent from obscurity, and from quarters however remote, where it was to be found. In this he was perfectly successful, and we find the university catalogue at this time inscribed with the names of the most distinguished scholars in their various departments, many of whom we are en- abled to appreciate by the enduring memorials of erudition, which they have bequeathed to us.^^ 29 Navagiero says, it was pre- 3" Lampillas, in his usual patri- scribed the lectures should be in otic vein, stoutly maintains that Latin. Viaggio, fol. 7. — Robles, the chairs of the university were Vida de Ximenez, cap. 16. all supplied by native Spaniards. Of these professorships, six were " Trovo in Spagna," he says of appropriated to theology; six to the cardinal, " tutta quella scelta canon law ; four to medicine ; one to copia di grandi uomini, quali richie- anatomy ; one to surgery ; eight to deva la grande impresa, " &c. the arts, as they were called, em- (Letteratura Spagnuola, torn. i. bracing logic, physics, and meta- part. 2, p. 160.) Alvaro Gomez, physics ; one to ethics ; one to math- who flourished two centuries earli- ematics; four to the ancient Ian- er, and personally knew the profes- guages; four to rhetoric ; and six to sors, is the better authority. De grammar. One is struck with the Rebus Gestis, fol. 80-82. disproportion of the mathematical 31 L_ Marineo, Cosas Memora- studies to the rest. Though an bles, fol. 13. important part ef general educa- Alvaro Gomez knew several of tion, and consequently of the course these sava?is, whose scholarship embraced in most universities, it (and he was a competent judge) had too little reference to a reli- he notices with liberal panegyric, gious one, to find much favor with De Rebus Gestis, fol. 80 et seq. the cardinal.