Curated playlist
University of Salamanca alumni
- Luis de MolinaHow can God know the future without taking away human freedom? Jesuit Luis de Molina proposed middle knowledge.
- Tomás de MercadoTomás de Mercado, a Spanish Dominican friar who lived from 1525 to 1575, died at sea on a voyage back to Mexico. Even his birthplace is uncertain, because Seville and Mexico are both possible. What he left behind was the Summa de Tratos y…
- Pedro MexíaPedro Mexía's Silva de varia lección left traces in Cervantes, Montaigne and Shakespeare.
- John of the CrossJohn of the Cross wrote poetry on scraps of paper in a Toledo prison cell. Fellow Carmelites had seized him in 1577.
- Bartolomé de las CasasBartolomé de las Casas began as a slave owner with a gold-rich estate on Hispaniola.
- Gil VicenteGil Vicente's first known play was staged in the queen's rooms to celebrate a prince's birth.
- Juan del EncinaJuan del Encina, a shoemaker's son, became the man historians call the founder of Spanish drama.
- Antonio de NebrijaIn 1492, Antonio de Nebrija wrote the first grammar of a modern European language. He dedicated it to Queen Isabella I.
- Abraham ZacutoAbraham Zacuto helped guide Vasco da Gama to India, then fled Portugal as a refugee. He was the king's Royal Astronomer.
- Fernando de RojasFernando de Rojas wrote La Celestina as a law student, then apparently never wrote fiction again.
- Luis de LeónLuis de León, a Spanish friar, poet and professor, is said to have returned to his Salamanca classroom on the 29th of January 1577. He began with a Latin line, Dicebamus hesterna die, meaning "As we were saying yesterday." The words skip…
- Pedro NunesPedro Nunes showed why a ship holding a steady compass bearing misses the shortest route.