Alcalá 1499: The City that Reinvented the University, the Cisnerian Project (Free Tour)

Alcalá de Henares was not just the city where Cervantes was born. It was the setting for one of the most ambitious educational projects of the Renaissance. 

In 1499, Cardinal Cisneros did not just found a university: he designed a city dedicated to knowledge. An innovative model that organized major and minor colleges, reformed clergy training, and turned Alcalá into an academic benchmark that influenced Europe and the Hispanic world. 

This tour is not a general historical overview. It is a look at how a medieval city transformed into a unique urban and intellectual experiment. 

Throughout the tour, we will understand the context prior to the university's founding, the power of the archbishopric, student life during the Golden Age, public exams in the Paraninfo, academic discipline, the decline after the 19th-century disentailment, and the key role of the Society of Condueños in the recovery of heritage until its declaration as a World Heritage City in 1998. 

During the tour we will see: 

• Magistral Cathedral of the Santos Niños 

• Casa de la Entrevista 

• Archbishop's Palace 

• Old Muslim quarter 

• Calle Mayor 

• Cervantes' Birthplace 

• Antezana Hospital 

• Cervantes Square 

• Corral de Comedias 

• Oidor Chapel 

• University of Alcalá 

If you want to discover how a medieval city became an intellectual reference of the Renaissance and understand why its legacy is still alive today, this is your tour. 

We will not only visit monuments: we will decipher a project that transformed education, urban planning, and the identity of Alcalá forever. 

I invite you to look at the city with new eyes and understand why, more than five centuries later, we are still talking about that ambitious university project.