This square, which was finished in 1611 and surrounded by a wealth of monuments in the city, is the epicenter of university life. It is at the same time classical and modern, and it was a place through which Unamuno walked every day during the years in which he developed his academic and family life in the different buildings in which he spent most of his time. It is surrounded by the Hospital of the Studium, where he held the position of rector; the building of the Escuelas Mayores, where he taught many of his lessons; the building of Escuelas Menores, which was an institute back then; and the House of the Rector, where he lived for fourteen years during his first term as a rector. The place is crowned by the statue of Fray Luis de León, a master, and the greatest figure of the University of Salamanca in the 16th century, greatly admired by Unamuno. These are the words with which he described the place in 1904: «In this cloister shuttered to the world, / and with a crumbling crest that borders / a pure sky, at the foot of the façade / which shows // the filigrees of silversmiths on stone, / in this forbidding cloister one can hear, / when the clamour of students fades away, / murmurs of the past»
1 Longhurst, C. A. (2016). Miguel de Unamuno. An Anthology of his Poetry. Oxford University Press.
