Ancient University of Baeza

Baeza is a university town. It was from the 16th to the 19th century and it is now with the Antonio Machado campus of the International University of Andalusia. The original center was created in 1538 by a papal bull from Pope Paul III. Its original location was where the Baeza Museum is currently located. At that time, there were barely a dozen universities in Spain. Gradually, the center gained prestige and Baeza even came to be popularly known as the "Andalusian Salamanca," since the Castilian city was the seat of the most prestigious university of the time.

This second location was erected in the same place where the San León hermitage was located, to solve the space problems that existed in the first location. During the 17th and 18th centuries, it had moments of splendor and greatness along with the other universities of Andalusia: Seville, Granada, and Osuna, but in the 19th century its decline came, receiving the first announcement of suppression in July 1807 and the definitive one in 1824. After various resurgences and changes of ownership, in 1875 it became a College of Humanities which soon would be a Secondary Education Institute.

The structure follows the typology of Renaissance palaces: a large courtyard with a double arcade with a staircase box covered with a coffered dome. The facade is in Mannerist style and is arranged on three floors. The door is a semicircular arch and is framed by a double Doric pilaster. Above it, there is a medallion representing the Holy Trinity. Flanking the main window and resting on the cornice, the shields of the university''s founder, Pedro Fernández de Córdoba, are seen. As Juan Cruz Cruz defines in his work Baeza, Historical and Monumental, "the building is authentic and pleasant and even solemn with good masonry."

The cloister

The courtyard or cloister is formed by a double arcade with semicircular arches on slender Tuscan columns. In front of the entrance door, the staircase opens up and beneath it lies the old students'' jail. Attached to one of the cloister walls is a bronze relief honoring Antonio Machado.

The auditorium is located at the back of the courtyard. Square in plan, it has wooden tiered seating and its walls are decorated with valuable paintings of its founders: the cleric Rodrigo López, San Juan de Ávila, and one of his distinguished disciples, Diego Pérez de Valdivia.

This set is completed with the chapel of San Juan Evangelista finished at the beginning of the 17th century and consisting of a single nave with a barrel vault. The main facade forms a single body with the main building and the founder''s shields are visible. The main door faces south and has a sober and elegant design with its semicircular arch and Corinthian columns. Inside, a small chapel dedicated to Fernández de Córdoba and two other Mannerist style chapels face each other in the center of the nave. The tower is divided into two bodies, one square and the other octagonal at the top, and the bell openings are semicircular arches.

Throughout its history, the University of Baeza has had professors of great prestige, such as the religious writer Juan de Ávila or the historian Jaime Vicens Vives. But its most illustrious teacher was the poet Antonio Machado, although it is true that when he arrived in the city, the university was no longer such, but a Secondary Education center. Machado taught French from 1912, shortly after his wife Leonor died. Currently, the classroom where the author of Campos de Castilla taught is a small museum open to the public, with its original furniture and numerous documents of the poet.

*ANTONIO MACHADO EXHIBITION SPACE THE EDUCATION IN HIS TIME

Through the Antonio Machado Exhibition Space and the Education of His Time, the city of Baeza pays tribute once again to this universal figure, presenting it with a heartfelt and innovative perspective. The great Sevillian poet always maintained a very special link with the city, being a regular at the "La Rebotica" gatherings and a member of the Nuevo Casino. Here he also wrote an important part of his work. Moreover, Baeza has a series of "Machadian places," spaces linked to the poet such as the house on Gaspar Becerra street, the Hotel Comercio, the pharmacy of Don Adolfo Almazán, the Paseo de las Murallas, the Encina Negra, the Casino de Artesanos, the Plaza de Santa María, the Cathedral, and numerous commemorative elements and spaces.

Through this exhibition space, the public approaches different aspects and singularities of the era in which Machado lived, defining historical, social, cultural, or economic issues. The exhibition panels are divided into three fundamental thematic blocks. The first refers to the Baeza in which Machado lived and his way of life here. The second refers to the perhaps less known facet of Machado as a teacher, which joins that of poet known by all. And the third thematic block focuses on the very space that houses this project, a wonderful Mannerist building that was the seat of the Old University of Baeza, founded in the 16th century. In addition, the space includes interactive games and audiovisual elements to learn in a fun way and learn more about Baeza and Antonio Machado.