This college is now occupied, as its modern name implies, by Irish
theological students, whose original seminary was founded by Philip II.
in 1592. A college for Scottish Catholics was founded at the same time
in Valladolid.
Of the forty colleges which once composed the University of Salamanca,
the three described above alone remain. Most have utterly disappeared;
of others, a few columns or chambers still exist, forming part now of
buildings of another sort. The Colegio de Calatrava has survived, as a
building, the three other colleges founded by the great military orders.
It was extensively restored at the end of the eighteenth century, but
the old doorway was spared with the saint’s head and knights upholding
the banner of the order carved above it. The fine court has been
dismantled, and the large chapel with transept and cupola has been
stripped of the paintings and altar-pieces which once adorned it.
MINOR CHURCHES
Among the sacred edifices of Salamanca, next to the two cathedrals,
ranks the church and convent of the Dominicans, variously known as Santo
Domingo and San Estéban. The Dominicans, on their establishment at
Salamanca in the year 1221, were first housed at San Juan el Blanco.
Thirty years later they removed to San Estéban. Their convent was
honoured in 1484 by the presence of Columbus, who found a generous host,
a powerful protector, and a mind sufficiently broad to comprehend his
project in the Friar Diego de Deza, afterwards grand inquisitor of
Spain. His scheme, rejected by the university, was carefully considered
by this learned man, and recommended to the queen. In gratitude,
Columbus named the first town founded by him in the New World, Santo
Domingo, after the order which had befriended him. From this monastery,
too, departed the first Christian missionaries for America.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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