In glass cases, placed in the centre of the reading-room, are some highly-prized literary treasures; among which I saw a beautifully preserved Commentary on Dante’s Inferno, by Landino, published at Florence, and bearing the date 1485; also an illustrated volume published by Schectel and Hartmann at Nuremberg in 1493, and other fine specimens of early printing. I also saw and handled an illuminated Diurno or Book of Daily Prayer that had belonged to Ferdinand I., and bore the date 1055; in it I saw a miniature in which the copyist is presenting the book to the king and queen; all the capitals are illuminated, and all different. There is also some eleventh century musical notation in it, the notes are represented by dots (pentagrammic) over the words, and without any lines. The book itself tells us that it was written by Pedro and painted by Fructuoso. In the opinion of M. Macìus Férotin,[209] this Diurno is the most precious document in the university of Compostela; its chronology, written in gold letters, fixes the chronology of the last three kings of Leon. Férotin thinks that the lines in honour of King Bermudo III. were dictated by the queen herself. Bermudo died in battle. Sanchez believed this treasure to have been among the “sweepings” of the monastery of San Martin Pinario. A beautifully bound volume of the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, with an exquisitely stamped leather cover, was also shown to me. In another case I found what is said to be one of the oldest, if not the very oldest, specimens of handwriting in Spain—a bit of brown parchment about eight inches long and four deep, representing a bill of sale of a little village called Nogueira, near Lalin. The date on it is Era 826 (A.D. 788), and the language used is Latin: it is from the great monastery of Carboeiro, in the province of Pontevedra. Another document was shown to me bearing the date 1504, it was the last will and testament of Don Alfonso de Fonseca, the founder of the university. Another parchment bore the seal of Alfonso VII.; this was a charter conferring certain privileges on a monastery. There were also two manuscript Bibles of the fifteenth century, written and illuminated by monks of the neighbouring convents; the text was in Latin, the pages were like silk, and the colours wonderfully preserved.
The librarian, Señor B——, took me into his private room, adjoining the Library, to see the flag that was carried by the Santiago students, who, to the number of twelve thousand, formed themselves together into a volunteer battalion, and fell defending Galicia against the troops of Napoleon in 1808. The student chosen by his companions as their leader, Don José Ramon Rodil, became in later years both Minister of War and President of the Ministerial Council. In honour of his services, his country raised him to the rank of a marquis. Aguiar, writing in 1836, waxed eloquent over the heroes of Santiago university. “The University of Santiago,” he wrote, “has given us three Ministers for our Government, and four Generals for our Army, all from its battalion of student cadets who immortalised themselves in the defence of our country.” On another wall was the portrait of Don Diego de Muros, and that of Filippo de Castro, a famous Gallegan sculptor of whom we shall have occasion to speak again later on. There was also a portrait of Emmanuel Bonaventuræ Figueroa, who founded the Library, and left estates the revenues of which were to be employed in starting all his descendants in life: if men, they are entitled to a university education or a share in some business; if women, to a dowry! What a fine old fellow he must have been. I hear that his estates have increased in value, and the librarian told me that quite poor people keep unexpectedly turning up and claiming relationship—even a nephew seven times removed can claim his share. Another portrait was that of Archbishop Fonseca, whose Will I had seen in the glass case.
The Reading Room is divided into two by a passage, and one half of it is reserved for distinguished readers who might not care to sit among the general public; the other is open to the students and to the public during the hours of daylight. The books round the walls are all arranged according to their size, in order to economise space; each volume is numbered, and by means of a corresponding card it may be easily found by the attendant. The method is similar to that adopted by our Geographical Society, boxes of cards taking the place of catalogue volumes. A subject catalogue is in course of preparation, and Señor B—— is determined that no pains shall be spared to make the Library one of the most perfect of its kind. Underneath the Reading Room is another room of the same size, also lined with books; its ceiling and bookcases are decorated with the white-and-gold Louis XVI. decorations that once adorned the monastic library of San Martin Pinario, and many of its most precious volumes have come from the same place; others were bequeathed by private collectors.
Every department of this university is being energetically overhauled and rearranged, so that it may be quite up to date, but a melancholy mistake made by the architect in planning the Natural History Museum cannot, unfortunately, be rectified. Wishing to give plenty of room for the cases containing stuffed animals, birds, and such like, he built it in a square, with an open space reaching from the ground floor to the roof of the building, and covered the walls with glass cases which could be reached by two spiral iron staircases, and a gallery running round on a level with each floor. The result is that the glass cases not immediately on a level with the galleries are utterly useless, for they cannot be reached without the help of a long ladder and a climb to a dizzy height! The student who could study specimens under these difficulties must be endowed with considerable nerve. To walk round the top gallery and look down was enough to make me feel giddy. I found Professor Varela, a naturalist newly arrived from Madrid, busy rearranging the specimens. He was a comparative stranger to Galicia, and had a hard task before him. I pitied him for having such a stupidly constructed museum, and wondered how he would eventually utilise all those inaccessible glass cases. Professor Varela showed me a valuable collection of the many kinds of wood to be found in Galicia, but lamented over the ridiculous mistake that had been made in polishing and varnishing each block, instead of leaving them in their natural state. He also attracted my attention to an interesting collection of skulls from Mindanao, the largest of the Philippine Islands, which he was engaged in measuring. He had already discovered that they belonged to two distinct races: his measuring instrument was a simple compass, which he preferred to any of the recent inventions. He spoke of the wonderful influence that climate has upon the shape of the human skull, and of the short time it had taken for the skulls of Anglo-Saxons of North America to become quite different from that of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain. Professor Varela hopes eventually to devote a large section of his museum to local specimens.
The University of Santiago is under the management of a Rector and a General Secretary, assisted by thirty-eight professors and from forty to fifty assistant professors, all of whom have taken their Doctor’s degree at Madrid. In all the larger town there are Institutos or Grammar Schools, which take boys at the age of ten and prepare them for the university, which they enter at the age of seventeen. The official course lasts six years, but it is not obligatory. Those who pass the examination at the end of their six years become Licenciados, they then have to put in a year at the Madrid university if they wish to obtain their Doctor’s degree. The Academic year begins about October 9th, and ends about May 20th, this is called the Calendario. The vacations, including Sundays, Feast Days, and local Holidays, cover seventy days of the year. The Law Faculty has its own library of legal literature quite separate from the general library.
As I have said, Santiago is one of the four Spanish universities which have a Faculty for pharmacy. In Spain, all chemists, until 1907, had to be university men, and no man, however thoroughly he might have studied his subject, was allowed to open a chemist’s shop and dispense medicines if he had not passed through the university. This arrangement had deplorable results, for chemists’ assistants and druggists who wished to open chemists’ shops on their own account took to bribing university men to allow their names to be put up above the shops. In such cases, if any one was accidentally poisoned through a mistake on the part of the dispenser, the university chemist whose name was over the shop had to bear all the responsibility. At length the Spanish public became alarmed at the idea that the men who dispensed for them would get off scot-free no matter how many people they poisoned, and as the result of a general agitation the Government issued a proclamation on 7th April 1907, that, in future, chemists’ assistants who had practised for a certain period, I think three years, should be eligible as candidates for a chemists’ diploma. This reform was a most necessary and rational one, and all the university chemists rejoiced that they would no longer be liable when their assistants poisoned their customers by mistake; but the silly young students looked at the matter from a different standpoint. Longing to find an excuse for a riot, they persuaded themselves that by allowing chemists’ assistants to gain diplomas without having passed through the university the Government had grievously insulted that venerable institution. Accordingly, at eleven o’clock in the morning they poured forth into the streets of Santiago in unruly crowds, hooting and shouting and leaping in the air. Drawn to my window by their hissing and hooting, I saw some two hundred of them pass down the street in the wildest state of excitement, while the townspeople watched them from their balconies and smiled at their folly.
Besides the important edifices to which I have devoted several of my earlier chapters, Santiago possesses a good many interesting churches, and is rich in convents for women, which also deserve a brief notice. The Capilla de Las Animas is a church dedicated to prayer for souls passing through purgatory; it was built towards the end of the eighteenth century, and is in the Greco-Roman style. Four tall Doric columns support its pediment, which is crowned with a cross and a statue of an adoring angel on either side. But the most striking thing about this façade is the alto-relief group of souls wrapt in purgatorial flames above the entrance. The interior of this church is lined with remarkable alto-relief, life-size, brightly painted wooden figures in groups, representing the principal scenes connected with the Crucifixion. They are the work of Prado, a Gallegan sculptor. This church has always had immense attractions for pilgrims, both rich and poor. More masses are said there than in any church in the town except the Cathedral; they begin at five in winter and at four in summer. Close to the church is the Plaza de Cervantes, with a bust of the author of Don Quixote on a column above a fountain from which hundreds of women and girls come to fill their buckets every morning. To the east is the little church of San Benito, now considered to be the oldest in Santiago, which has recently been restored under the auspices of a clever archæologist.
Santiago has a pleasant Alameda lined with four rows of camellias and many fine trees. Here a band plays on fine afternoons, and here the ladies of the town, who seldom appear in the streets before four in the afternoon, may be seen sauntering under enormous hats. I had been three weeks in Santiago before I saw a woman in a hat, for the ladies who go to early Mass always appeared in black mantillas, and the poor women wore handkerchiefs. The Alameda winds round a hill planted with oak trees, in the centre of which stands a tiny church, Santa Susana. The original edifice was built by Gelmirez in 1105, and bore the name of Santo Sepulcro until the remains of Santa Susana were brought to Santiago from Braga three years later. Santa Susana is one of the patron saints of Santiago. Sanchez states that the present portico of the church is the one built by Gelmirez, and that some of the arches also date from his day; but as it was always closed when I tried to enter it I can give no opinion. The finest view obtainable of Santiago and its Cathedral is from this Alameda, and no visitor should miss it.
Another little church that interested me was that of Santa Maria Salomé, in the Rua Nueva, named after the Mother of St. James the Greater. As Sanchez has remarked, “its portico attracts the attention of intelligent persons”; it is a quaint, Romanesque portico, of which the central arch is Gothic, covering a part of the footway and forming a useful shelter to foot passengers on a rainy day. The arch above the entrance to the church is semicircular, and supported on two columns with richly sculptured capitals. The statue of the Virgin seated on a throne, with a crown on her head and the Child Jesus in her arms, is also worthy of attention. Just above it is a row of remarkable corbels. On either side of the entrance there are two quaint statues, one is the angel Gabriel, and the other the Virgin receiving his message. In one of the triangles of the arch is the inscription Iglesia reservada para refugio. At one time all the churches of Santiago were churches of refuge, but in the eighteenth century an outcry was raised because they harboured too many criminals, and the result was that eventually only the church of Maria Salomé was allowed to be used as a refuge. In the present day the whole custom has been quite done away with. The church dates from the twelfth, and its portico from the end of the fifteenth century.
Another small church of considerable antiquity is that of San Felix de Solovio, or, as the Gallegans call it, San Fins de Lovio. Sanchez thought this edifice older than San Benito; in fact he speaks of it as the oldest church in Santiago. The truth is that it was built on the ruins of an older church of the same name, which had been reduced to ashes by Almanzor and his followers. The present edifice has a graceful entrance, with four Byzantine columns supporting its two arches, the interior of which is in the shape of a horse-shoe, while the outer one is semicircular and decorated with diminutive arches also of the horse-shoe form; the whole being a curious mixture of the Romanesque and the Arabic styles. In the church, in a niche in the southern nave, is a sculptured group representing the Adoration of the Magi, which, like the entrance, dates from the twelfth century; it is quite Byzantine. The whole building underwent restoration at the beginning of the eighteenth century.