l66 



UNIVERSITY OF ST. MARK. 



delivery of his lesssons ; but being moved by his discourses, 

 he threw off the effeminate ornaments by v/hich his head was 

 covered, and instantly set about the reform of his manners. 



To establish them most conformably to the spirit of religion 

 and society, in the extensive possessions which had recently 

 been annexed to the crown of Castille, was the ardent wish of 

 the monarchs of Spain. With this view, the emperor Charles, 

 and his august mother, lent a favourable ear to the represen- 

 tations of friar Tomas De San Martin, first provincial of the 

 order of Saint Domingo in Peru, and afterward bishop of 

 Chuquisaca, who, in the name of the city of Lima, and con- 

 formably to the instru6tion with which he had been furnished 

 on his departure for Spain in 1550, in company with the li- 

 centiate Gasca, solicited the foundation of a general seminary 

 of learning, with privileges, franchises, and exemptions, si- 

 milar to those enjoyed by the celebrated university of Salaman- 

 ca. The apartments of the principal convent belonging to his 

 order were to be assigned to this establishment. 



The royal schedule of approbation reached Lima in 1553 ; 

 but as there was not any aid, beside that of three hundred and 

 fifty piastres in gold w^hich the order had set aside as the basis 

 of the establishment, the proje6t of a general instru6tion in all 

 the sciences, could not be carried into effedt by the reverend 

 priors who were successively redlors of the school. The annual 

 allowance of four hundred piastres, settled on the foundation 

 in 1557, by the then viceroy, the Marquis of Canete, did not 

 suffice to arouse it from the languid state in which it had con- 

 tinued, the sum being too small to correspond with the various 

 obje6ts for which it was destined. The epoch of the stability 

 of the academy may be dated in 1571, when the rectorship 



was 



