See if you can find the frog in the picture above. (You'll probably need to click on the picture to make it bigger.) I'll tell you where it is at the bottom of this post! La rana, or the frog, is a famous Salamanca symbol and legend. It supposedly is a good luck frog for students, and they sell frog stuff in all the souvenir stores. I knew I couldn't leave without finding it, so the other day Amy Anne and I stood and stared at the University building until we discovered it. We talked about it in my Art History class the other day, and apparently luck isn't exactly what the professors had in mind when they put it there. The frog is actually the symbol of sin. There were lots of prostitutes in Salamanca, and syphilis was becoming a problem. The frog is on the left side of the University building, if you are looking out. The left side is associated with hell, or being on the left hand of God in the final judgement. So, as a sort of announcement, they carved a frog on a skull to remind the students not to sin, and so jeopardize their brains and end up dead and in hell. I think a good luck frog sounds a little bit happier, but there you have it. One more stereotypically Salamanca think off our list!
Found it yet? Look at the column on the right side. See the three skulls? The frog is on the left scull. It's really tiny!
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