Salamanca - University - Ground Floor

The University is built around a large two-story courtyard, which is surrounded by lecture halls on the ground floor. Visitors are taken on a conducted tour, turning left from the entrance, passing through two smaller halls to the lecture hall in which Fray Luis de León taught, with a desk for the lecturer and rough wooden benches for the students. Beyond this is the Paraninfo or Great Hall, used for the granting of degrees and other ceremonial occasions, which was originally the lecture hall for canon law; in it hangs a Brussels tapestry with a portrait of Charles IV after a cartoon by Goya. After seeing other rooms visitors come to the Capilla de San Jerónimo, in the right-hand wing, which was formerly the Library. It was remodeled in marble in 1767; some of the ceiling paintings from this room are now to be seen in the Escuelas Menores. Here too can be seen the diploma conferring an honorary doctorate on St Theresa of Ávila. From here the tour continues by way of the Sacristy and the Rector's Room to the Music Room, which contains fine tapestries and two pictures by Juan de Flandes.