A window into the unknown and bright past of the UB

The book, published in the collection History of Universities, from the Carlos III University of Madrid, and edited by Dykinso, studies the evolution of the University of Barcelona from 1595 to 1714. Given the lack of internal documentation of the University for that period of time, the authors have worked with several sources of city documentation to create a factitious chronicle (reconstruction of all the news about the University found in the archives, set out in a chronological order), detailing the name of many professors, and regulating many educational, economic and cultural aspects. The preliminary study contextualizes the chronicle and presents the prosopography of the main professors.  

The authors of this chronicle had addressed the history of the University of Barcelona in the 17^th century in the book dedicated to the ordinations of the 1638 General Study (Las ordenaciones de la universidad de Barcelona de 1638, 2019). Renowned experts on history of universities in modern times, they have recently published studies on the universities of Vic, Girona and Tarragona of the 17^th century. In the current study, they focus on the academic life, university conflicts and on professors.

According to Professor Alcoberro, “this is an important contribution to the knowledge of the UB’s history, in the century that ended 1714 with the closing of the University and its deportation to Cervera”. “This work, which we have to vindicate in our next commemoration of the 575 anniversary of the University, fills a historiographic gap, it denies the apparent decline of the institution and it confirms its great social and cultural influence at the time”.

It is noteworthy noting that emeritus professor Joaquim Prats, recently awarded Il Portico d’oro – Jacques Le Goff by the University of Bologna, got his doctorate studies in 1987 with the thesis La Universidad de Cervera en el siglo XVIII, supervised by Ricardo García Cárcel, which allows a completion of the historic panoramic view of the Catalan university of modern times.

Rafael Ramis Barceló is a professor of History of Law and Institutions at the University of the Balearic Islands. As a researcher, he majored on history of law thought, history of universities, history of ideas, and Ramon Llull studies.

Pedro Ramis Serra graduated in Philosophy at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Rome) and got his doctoral degree in Philosophy and Arts at the University of Barcelona (1989), with a thesis on Llull’s work. He was a high-school teacher until his retirement.