Alcalá de Henares - Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso

Alcalá de Henares is a city in the "Community of Madrid", located about 30 kilometers northeast of the center of Madrid. It has a population of about 200,000.

In the first century AD, the Romans founded a settlement in the Henares Valley, which they called Complutum. The city thrived because it was an important waypoint on the road between Mérida and Zaragoza and had a population of over 10,000. In 711, during the conquest by the Moorish Berber people, the Christian city was not taken. On the other side of the Henares River, a Muslim-built fortress was built, which existed for over 400 years in a relatively peaceful neighborhood with the Christian-inhabited settlement. In 1118, the Archbishop of Toledo Bernardo de Sedirac conquered the Muslim settlement. Alcalá received city rights in 1184.

In 1499, Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo, whose archdiocese then included the city, founded a university here. Together with the Colegio Mayor building, Cisneros had six Colegios Menores built from 1499. The colegios were the part of the university where the students who attended lectures from the various departments lived and learned. Other colegios were founded under the patronage of kings and various nobles.

The facade of the "Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso" was designed by the architect Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón and was created between 1537 and 1553 by a large number of stonemasons and sculptors. It is considered a remarkable work of the Plateresque style, a special form of Renaissance architecture. Through a comprehensive restoration from 2016 to 2017, the facade regained its original appearance.