King Philip V

King Philip V played a very important role in the development of higher education in the city of Barcelona. He was responsible for the transfer to the town of Cervera in 1714 of courses in Philosophy, Canon Law and Law and, three years later, in 1717, for the establishment of the single university in Cervera, bringing together all departments from Barcelona and the universities there had been in other Catalan towns and cities. With this decision, university education would be exiled from Barcelona for more than a hundred years. The image we reproduce here comes, precisely, from Cervera, which the King rewarded for the support it had offered him during the War of the Spanish Succession.

As Agustí Duran Sanpere mentions in his Llibre de Cervera, the municipal authorities did not like this portrait very much and they obliged the painter to alter it or to return the money he had received for the commission.