The Sky of Salamanca

Art and Astronomy in the Vault of the Old University Library
If, as Borges said, “we are our memory,” the University of Salamanca is filled with memories crystallized in works, such as the astrological vault of its Old Library, which are what endure and give consistency to its history.

With the aim of disseminating its heritage and deepening knowledge of it, the University has decided to organize this exhibition about what is popularly known as El Cielo de Salamanca (The Salamanca Sky), a term coined in 1951 by Rafael Láinez Alcalá, Professor of Art History at this University.

It is an original work created by one of the strongest and most unique personalities of our Gothic painting, Fernando Gallego (1440-1507), who sought to express in it a luminous vision of night itself, to paint the starry sky in daylight, making the invisible visible.

Salamanca was the setting for the significant advancement that took place in Spanish art in the late 15th century, as an innovative and highly modern iconography, completely different from what could be seen in Spain at the time, was conceived in its Library.

This exhibition aims to evoke and illustrate a brilliant past, at a time when this surprising pictorial work emerged, in the 1480s, destined to become the symbolic hinge facilitating the closing of one period and the opening of another: when the Chair of Astrology gained significant prominence, acting as a bridge between medieval tradition and the development of Renaissance science at the University of Salamanca itself.

The exhibition is displayed in three exhibition halls located in the Patio de Escuelas Menores (Minor Schools Courtyard) of the University of Salamanca, allowing visitors to contemplate the preserved work, its interpretation and analysis, and finally, the breakdown of the elements that comprise El Cielo de Salamanca (The Salamanca Sky).

The visual impact of these images was highlighted by the Sicilian Lucio Marineo Sículo, professor at the Salmantine Studium (University of Salamanca), in the late 15th century, as he considered them to be valued “with the greatest pleasure by those who behold them.”

This is also what is intended now: for visitors, upon completing their tour, to feel how, evoking an expression from our ballads, “Heaven fits on Earth.”