National University of San Marcos in the context of "Pope Pius V"

Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered to the north by Ecuador and Colombia, to the east by Brazil, to the southeast by Bolivia, to the south by Chile, and to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean. Peru is a megadiverse country, with habitats ranging from the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region in the west, to the peaks of the Andes mountains extending from the north to the southeast of the country, to the tropical Amazon basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon River. Peru has a population of over 32 million, and its capital and largest city is Lima. At 1,285,216 km (496,225 sq mi), Peru is the 19th largest country in the world, and the third largest in South America.

Peruvian territory was home to several cultures during the ancient and medieval periods, and has one of the longest histories of civilization of any country, tracing its heritage back to the 10th millennium BCE Caral–Supe civilization, the earliest civilization in the Americas and considered one of the cradles of civilization. Notable succeeding cultures and civilizations include the Nazca culture, the Moche, Wari and Tiwanaku empires, the Kingdom of Cusco, and the Inca Empire, the largest known state in the pre-Columbian Americas. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and Charles V established a viceroyalty with the official name of the Kingdom of Peru that encompassed most of its South American territories, with its capital in Lima. Higher education started in the Americas with the official establishment of the National University of San Marcos in Lima in 1551.

The Basilica and Convent of Our Lady of the Rosary (Spanish: Basílica Menor y Convento Máximo de Nuestra Señora del Rosario), commonly known as the Convent of Santo Domingo (or Convent of the Holy Rosary), is a Catholic religious complex located in the city of Lima, Peru.

It was created in the 1530s under the patronage of Our Lady of the Rosary and is located in the Historic Centre of Lima. It houses the relics of Rose of Lima and Martin de Porres, and was also where the University of San Marcos, officially the first Peruvian university and the oldest university in the Americas, began to function in the 16th century.

Fray Thomas de San Martín (March 7, 1482 – August 31, 1555) was the founder of the National University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru, a notable Spanish scholar, and was appointed the first Bishop of La Plata o Charcas (1552–1559).

Alfredo Augusto Torero Fernández de Córdova (September 10, 1930 in Huacho, Lima Region, Peru – June 19, 2004 in Valencia, Spain) was a Peruvian anthropologist and linguist.

He was a student at the National University of San Marcos, from which he graduated in the early 1960s, and then traveled to France, where he continued his doctorate at the University of Paris. There he obtained a doctorate in 1965, under the direction of the linguist André Martinet, with his thesis Le puquina, la troisième langue générale du Pérou.

The list of universities established in the viceroyalties of the Hispanic America comprises all universities established by the Spanish Empire in the Americas from the settlement of the Americas in 1492 to the Wars of Independence in the early 19th century.

The transfer of the European university model to the overseas colonies in the Americas represented a decisive turning point in the educational history of the continents: