University and Historic Precinct of Alcalá de Henares

• Description
• Locations & Maps
• Documents
• Threats

Brief Description

Founded by Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros in the early 16th century, Alcalá de Henares was the world's first planned university city. It was the original model for the Civitas Dei (City of God), the ideal urban community which Spanish missionaries brought to the Americas. It also served as a model for universities in Europe and elsewhere.

Justification for Inscription

Criterion ii: Alcalá de Henares was the first city to be designed and built solely as the seat of a university, and was to serve as the model for other centres of learning in Europe and the Americas. Criterion iv: The concept of the ideal city, the City of God (Civitas Dei), was first given material expression in Alcalá de Henares, from where it was widely diffused throughout the world. Criterion vi: The contribution of Alcalá de Henares to the intellectual development of humankind finds expression in its materialization of the Civitas Dei, in the advances in linguistics that took place there, not least in the definition of the Spanish language, and through the work of its great son, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and his masterpiece, Don Quixote.