Universidad Central: The Caserón de San Bernardo
Why is it significant?
Stop opposite the long, severe neoclassical building on Calle de San Bernardo, with its columns, its pediment and its air of a place where people once sat exams in silence. Madrileños call it the Caserón de San Bernardo, the big old house of San Bernardo.
Key Facts
| Place | Universidad Central: The Caserón de San Bernardo |
|---|---|
| Address | Calle de San Bernardo 49, 28015 Madrid, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 40.42500, -3.70780 |
| Part of Walk | Dukes, Monks and an Egyptian Temple: Madrid's Conde Duque to Templo de Debod |
| Generated | Generated |
Stop opposite the long, severe neoclassical building on Calle de San Bernardo, with its columns, its pediment and its air of a place where people once sat exams in silence. Madrileños call it the Caserón de San Bernardo, the big old house of San Bernardo.
It began as something else entirely, the novitiate of the Jesuits, where young men trained for the order. When Charles III expelled the Jesuits from Spain in 1767, the building passed to other uses. Then, in 1836, the ancient university of Alcalá de Henares, founded by Cardinal Cisneros at the end of the fifteenth century, was moved to the capital and settled here. It became the Universidad Central.
For more than a century this was the summit of Spanish academic life. Until 1954, it was the only university in Spain allowed to award doctorates, so anyone in the country who wanted the title of doctor had to come here, to this street, to defend their thesis in the great hall, the Paraninfo.
Its corridors were full of future famous names. José Rizal, the hero of Philippine independence, studied medicine and philosophy here in the 1880s. The philosopher José Ortega y Gasset taught metaphysics from a chair in this university. Writers, politicians and future presidents passed through the courtyard you can glimpse from the door. Imagine the nerves of a young doctor-to-be from Seville or Galicia, after days on the road, climbing these steps to face a panel of professors in black gowns.
From the 1920s Madrid began building a whole new university city on its north-western edge, and the faculties slowly moved out. But the old house kept its ceremonial heart, and the Paraninfo is still used by the Complutense University for solemn occasions. From here, walk west through the narrow streets towards Calle de San Leonardo, to a small, curved church squeezed between apartment blocks. It hides one of the cleverest interiors in Madrid.