PLAZAS

Going south from the Plaza Mayor along the Rua Mayor, there is the Plaza de Anaya with the two cathedrals on it's south side. Just west of this is the university, and one block to the west, along the Calle de Libreros, is the Patio de Escuelas, a rectangular space with the facade of the university on it's east side. Done in the highly ornate Salamanca Plateresque style of the Spanish High Renaissance at the start of the 16th century, the facade is a brilliant and refined jewel of architectural sculpture.
Above it's double arched doors are three broad horizontal registers articulated by pilasters and flanked with turrets. In the lowest band, in the center is the medallion of the Catholic Monarchs, depicting the King and Queen of Spain. Above this is the coat of arms of Carlos V, flanked by those of the double-headed eagle and San Juan, with portrait busts at the top of the band. The top register depicts Hercules and Venus, in small pavilions on the left and the right, and the Pope enthroned in a larger paviliov, with two cardinals in the center.
See also the picture below, which shows a detail of the medallion of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, that is located in the center of the lowest register, above the column separating the double doors.

The Plaza Mayor is in the center of the town, and all the streets radiate into and out from it. Built in the 18th century in the Baroque style, with Plateresque and Salamancan influences, it was designed by the local architect Alberto Churriguera, after whom a highly ornate style of Spanish Baroque architecture has come to be known as Churrigueresque. There are uniform facades all the way around the space, featuring stately arcades with round arches supported on massive masonry columns, and three stories of french doors with shutters, and continuous iron balconies, topped by sloping roofs behind a balustraded cornice with finials.

The Palazzo del Ayuntamiento, or city hall, was completed in 1755 by Andres Garcia de Quinones. It comes forward in the center of the north facade, a five-bayed palazzo with a wider center bay, that rises higher in three monumental stories, than the rest of the plaza does in four. Above the magnificent arcade with it's lower, wider central arch, are two grand stories with french doors topped by pediments, and an elaborate ornamental cornice supporting sculptures greek urns. In the center is an open three-arched pavilion and belfry with a clock.
The entire structure is built from the same glowing, reddish-brown sandstone, of which much of monumental core of the city is made, and it is richly articulated with some of the most refined decoration and detailing to be witnessed in the Spanish Baroque style.

There are two cathedrals in Salamanca, standing side by side at the southern edge of the town, on the hill overlooking the Rio Tormes, where the Roman bridge crosses the river. The older cathedral was built in the 12th century, a Romanesque basilica, but with Arabic, Byzantine and other influences, a graceful, hybrid structure with the unusual Torre del Gallo, and the cozy little cloister, the Patio Chico, formed by semi-circular apses. The new cathedral was built in 1513-1733, on the west side of the old basilica. It is one of the latest structures in the Gothic style, with fine west portals and a monumental tower with a dome on the west front.

The Patio de Menores is the quadrangular cloister of the Escuelas Menores, which were built in 1533, with Salamancan Plateresque facades, on the south side of the Patio de Escuelas. On the north side the entrance portal is in the far south-west corner of the Patio de Escuelas, a graceful double arch supported on a stone column, with a tripartite register of the imperial coat of arms above. Behind this is a large single arch, and then two unequal arches, with an elaborate plaque above, and beyond that is the facade of the patio, with it's segmented Plateresque arcades.
The coat of arms above the outer arches shows the double eagle and the lion on the sides, and the double-headed griffin with the crown in the center. Below this are three medallions with portrait busts in the pendentives of the arches. The plaque above the inner arches depicts a sailing ship, as if it were about to embark on a voyage, possible a reference to one of the schools most famous students. The school also contains the Sala del Colon, with a single, central column, and a hall with a painted ceiling of the signs of the Zodiac, known as the 'Sky of Salamanca'.

This sculpted medallion in the center of the lowest register of the facade of the university in the Patio de Escuelas, shows the King and Queen, Ferdinand and Isabella, holding a staff in the center of the frame. The inscription around the top reads: " From the Monarchs to the University, and from the University to the Monarchs." Below the medallion are griffins, mythic, winged dragons, with a head in the middle, above it are trees around a finial at the center.

The Palacio de Monterrey is on the north side of the Plaza de Agustinas, west of the Plaza Mayor on the Calle del Prior. With it's broad 3-story south facade and ornate but unequal towers at the corners, it is one of the finest examples of civil and residential architecture in the Plateresque style of the Spanish Renaissance. Only the south wing of a much larger quadrangular plan was built. Behind the tower is the dome of the church of San Martin, across from the Palazzo on the south side of the Plaza de Agustinas.
The architecture of the Palacio de Monterrey is exuberantly ornamental, but stately and refined. Above the tall base are three stories of varying heights, with a half-height attic and an open loggia at the top, all delineated with deep, sharp stringcourses and cornices. The first three stories have large central windows, topped by a pediment and cornice above the third level. The loggia on the fifth story has three arches with balustrades on all four sides, and there is an elaborate ornamental balustrade with finials on top of the tower.