The Universitat de València celebrates the commemorative ceremony of the death of Lluís Vives on Monday

  • Press Office
  • May 6th, 2019
 
Sculpture of Lluís Vives in the cloister of La Nau.
Sculpture of Lluís Vives in the cloister of La Nau.

As always in recent years, the Universitat de València celebrates a memorial of the humanist Joan Luís Vives on Monday, 6th of May, when he died 479 years ago. The tribute is scheduled at 12 p.m. at the Cultural centre La Nau. This year, the 500th anniversary of the publication of Opuscula Varia, his first significant work, will be commemorated

Opuscula Varia includes ‘Fabula de homine’ and ‘In pseudo-dialecticos’, among others.  Tomás Moro read the texts and wrote a praising brief to Erasmus Roterodamus.

Today, the ceremony will be headed by the Vice-principal for Culture of the Universitat de València, Antonio Ariño, and members of the Associació d’Amigues i Amics de Lluís Vives of the Universitat de València will attend it.

Joan Lluís Vives died in Bruges on the 6th of May of 1540.  Since the 19th century, a sculpture of his figure has chaired La Nau.  It was designed by José Azuela on the advice of the principal Josep Monserrat Riutort and, after a tough controversy in the press released by the conservative media, it was placed in the centre of the cloister of the old Universitat de València in 1880.  The statue is solid and was cast in one-piece-bronze by the known Vicente Ríos Enrique, which technically constitutes a great feat for the time.

The Universitat de València is the only one in the world which has decided to place a student in a so-honourable place, since Lluís Vives was a student of the Universitat de València, but he was never lecturer at it.