On June 1503, Maese Rodrigo de Santaella purchases a lot near the Postigo de Jerez, to build in this place the Colegio de Santa María de Jesús. One year before this event, the Catholic Monarchs had issued a real cédula (royal decree) authorizing the creation of the StudiumGenerale in Seville, upon request of the city Council.
The foundational bull of this College-University won’t come until the 12th July 1505, at the hand of Pope Julius II and one year after the blessing of the College chapel. A magnificent reredos is located there, commissioned by Master Rodrigo to the German painter AlexoFernández to commemorate the College-University foundation.
Before the creation of Colegio de Santo Tomás in 1516, for the efforts of Fray Diego de Deza, the one of Santa María de Jesús requests to the City Hall to relinquish the rights it owned since 1502 to create a University, which happens in 1551.
After a first precarious phase, the Bourbon dynasty arrived in Spain early in the XVIII century. The aim of improving the education system was the reason of the unlinking ofSanta María deJesús College from its University. The study plan proposed by the asistente Pablo de Olavide implied the application of the Enlightenment Spirit to the University Institution. It was approved on May 1768 and included in areal cédula in 1769, in which he was instructed to put his reform into practice.
Two years earlier the Jesuitshad been expelled from Spain, through the 2nd April 1767 law, known as Pragmática Sanción and issued by King Charles III. This law stipulated the expropriation of the huge and invaluable Jesuitical heritage. Olavide’s reform led to the occupation of buildings which had formerly belonged to the Jesuit order. This was not only about filling the educational gap brought about by the order expulsion, but also it aimed to promote the University disengagement from the College, given the availability of new buildings.
The administrative union of Colegio Mayor de Santa María de Jesús and its University was kept in place until the creation of the Literary University on December 1770, although the two institutions stayed together for another year in the same building of Puerta de Jerez. At their separation, the entire heritage – including the artistically valuable part – was left in the hands of the College. In return, the University acquired the right to benefit from someincomes, not only fromColegio Mayor, but also from the Jesuit Professed House and from the vacant chairs of San Ermenegildo.
In 1836, as a result of the confiscation, the incomes and the belongings of the Colegio Santa María de Jesús were allocated by the State to the University, and shortly thereafter the College building in Puerta de Jerez became Seminary, dependent on the archbishopric of Seville.
The relocation to the new university venue followed on 21 December 1771. The provided building, though not entirely, was the one which until then had been hosting the Professed House of Society of Jesus, located in calleCompañia, nowLaraña. It also carried a college for interns. It was ceded with part of its goods, which included a very rich library, a cabinet-museum and some of the wonderful artistic heritage hosted by its walls.
This assignment involved, furthermore, the Church building, then known as Iglesia de la Encarnación, today de la Anunciación, and which became, since that moment, the chosen location for the celebration of ceremonial academic events.
In the middle of the XX century the ancient Professed House building was becoming too small to host a university. It was there by accorded to the University the emblematic building of the Real Fábrica de Tabacos (Royal Tobacco Factory), which was officially inaugurated on the 4 April 1951 as the rector’s office headquarters. In this period a sculpture program was also carried out for three of its façades, which lacked ornamentation, by the professors Carmen Jiménez, Antonio Cano, José Luis Vasallo and the architect Balbontín.