Rosalía de Castro was born the same year that, for the first time, a woman gained entry to the National Library of Spain. It is not known whether the Galician writer repeated such a feat during her years in Madrid, but the truth is that she was never able to pursue university studies. Nevertheless, we now know that the author's mother, Doña Teresa Castro Abadía, consciously took great care in her education. In her adolescence, Rosalía benefited from musical, dramatic, literary, and artistic instruction thanks to her connection with the progressive circles of the Liceo de la Juventud, and from her birth (reportedly attended by Professor Varela de Montes) to her marriage to Murguía, the writer undoubtedly engaged with the intellectual ideas emerging from the University — including scientific ones, particularly in the field of botany.

However, the fact remains that Rosalía never entered Fonseca, and judging by a passage from her novel Ruinas (1866), her view of the University of Santiago de Compostela was not favorable at that time. With this background, under the newly established Rosalía de Castro Chair, supported by the Natural History Museum of USC and funded by a Leonardo Grant from the BBVA Foundation, the time seems right for a symbolic and honorable restitution: the admission of the author Rosalía de Castro into the University of Santiago de Compostela.