CENTENARIOS 2005

Thanks to the initiative of archdeacon Maese Rodrigo Fernández de Santaella of creating a school-university for poor pupils, the Santa María de Jesús school in Sevilla was founded: the old headquarters and starting point of the current university of Seville which now celebrates its 500 anniversary. Five centuries of intense educational work which deserve recognition through this issue. From its beginnings the School received the impulse of Pope Julius III and was granted a bull which allowed the institution to confer the degrees of Philosophy, Theology, Law, Medicine and Arts. We know in fact that by the statutes of 1621 the University of Seville had four schools: Canons and Laws, Theology, Medicine and Arts and awarded different grades. After this first, long foundational stage which went from 1505 until 1771, the University changed its headquarters and installed itself in the Casa Profesa de la Compañia de Jesús. It's during the reign of Charles III when its spirit of renewal was expressed in the " report and syllabus of Pablo de Olavide" . In 1845 a third centralizing stage comes along by which smaller universities join up more important ones, and thus the University of Seville becomes more relevant. The Pidal Plan is implemented, the Moyano Bill as well and the institution is provided with new schools subjects and professorships. Finally the University of Seville finds a new headquarter in the old Royal Factory of Tobaccos and its main façade, work of Architect Van der Borcht, is depicted in the stamp.

The stamp devoted to the First Royal Spanish Pharmacopoeia commemorates the publishing of the work Officina Medicamentorum, a book of more than 400 pages that gathers the knowledge of the time on making medicines of vegetable, animal and mineral origin. The book cover is depicted in the stamp. It began to be written in 1601 by pharmacists from the Valencian Association of Aphotecaries (Col. Legi dels Apothecaris de la Ciutat y Regne de Valencia) which is the oldest in the world and was finished in 1603. A year later it was distributed throughout the Spanish Territories which belonged to the crown of Aragon. This edition was authorised by King Felipe III and is considered to be the first Royal Spanish Pharmacopoeia . The work is the code of specification that must meet the medicines and their raw materials. It's therefore an official text of vital importance that guarantees the making of medicines, assures their quality and protects the health of consumers. The Greek word farmacopea means "how to make medicines".