V Centennial of the death of Cardinal Cisneros

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Spain – On 8 November 1517 Cardinal Gonzalo Jimenez de Cisneros died in Roa when he was traveling to Valladolid to meet the future King Charles I, just arrived from to Flanders.

This year marks the 500th anniversary of that event and Correos issues a commemorative stamp to mark the occasion. Don Gonzalo Jimenez de Cisneros was born in Torrelaguna in 1436. He took the path of the Church, starting his studies in Roa and later moving to Alcalá de Henares, Salamanca and Rome among other places.

He held various ecclesiastical positions until he became a cardinal in 1507. These positions served to endow him with an important political power, next to Queen Isabel the Catholic, becoming regent of Castile after the death of the queen Isabel and the incapacity of her daughter Juana, and also, after the death of Fernando Of Aragon, waiting for his grandson Carlos, to take possession of the Crown.

It is worth noting the cultural work carried out by Cardinal Cisneros, who proposed to renew religious life based on education, for which he founded the Cisnerian University in 1499 in Alcalá de Henares, which became a Renaissance university, humanist and universal.

He endowed the institution of the best masters and the most exquisite buildings and was concerned that the University would be endowed with a large library with a large number of books on all arts and sciences.

In the same city, he carried out the replacement of the medieval temple of San Justo by the now known Magistral Cathedral, where at first his grave was built, later to be transferred to the College of San Ildefonso, where the sculpture which is shown on the commemorative stamp, along with a detail of the main facade of the University of Alcalá de Henares.

Issue Date: 19.01.2017
Process: Offset
Size: 40.9 x 28.8 mm
Values: Tarifa B