For forty-nine years prior to this, however, the city had a fledgling medical school (or Estudi General, as the universities were known at that time), founded by King Martí of Aragon, but neither the Consell de Cent (Barcelona's Council of One Hundred) nor the city's other leading institutions had given it their official recognition, considering it an intrusion on their respective jurisdictions.

Alfons el Magnànim’s prerogative, though, was granted at the petition of the Consell de Cent, and so the council was always to consider the Estudi General created in 1450 as the city's true university, since it was very much under its control and patronage.

[9] The process that culminated in the foundation of the Estudi General of Barcelona can be traced back to the end of the fourteenth century, with the opening of a number of schools under the patronage of the City Hall, the cathedral schools and the Dominican convent of Santa Caterina, which established itself as a major cultural centre.

In his letter written 23 January 1398, and addressed to the councillors of Barcelona, he informed them that he had sought the Pope's permission to found a university in the city.

[10] The prerogative granted by King Alphonse the Magnanimous in 1450, authorizing the Consell de Cent to found a university in Barcelona, was the culmination of the process initiated in 1398.

For a number of reasons, in particular the civil war that raged during the reign of John II and the subsequent conflicts involving the peasant farmers, the official Estudi General of Barcelona did not begin to develop until the reign of Fernando the Catholic; but it was under Charles I, in 1536, that the foundation stone was laid for the new university building at the top end of La Rambla.

These followed hard on the heels of earlier Ordinances passed in 1539 and 1559, in which the competitive examination system for the appointment of professors had been introduced.

This period was brought to a close with the Decree issued on 23 October 1714, by the Royal High Commission for Justice and Government of Catalonia – created by the Duke of Berwick – ordering the immediate transfer of the Faculties of Philosophy, Law and Canon Law to Cervera as a punishment for the opposition to Bourbons’ rule.

The inadequate nature of these premises soon gave rise to the need to construct a larger home for the University, and in 1863, work began on Elies Rogent's new building, though it would not be fully completed until 1882.

Complementing the building work, sculptures and paintings were commissioned either directly from artists of repute or awarded in open competition.

The natural growth of the University of Barcelona has given rise to the need to undertake large-scale building work to meet the growing demands made by student numbers that were unthinkable in the nineteenth century.