The Historical Archive of the University of Oviedo will incorporate to its collection 46 new items of a great value, donated to the Asturian academic institution by the family of Luis Arias Romero, an alumnus of the University and current Spanish ambassador in South Korea. The Rector, Vicente Gotor, was in charge of presenting this morning the new documents, accompanied by Luis Arias Romero.

"It is an honor and a satisfaction for me that these documents go back to the place that they should have never left, and I believe that this is what my father would have wanted", claimed the Asturian diplomat, son of Rafael Arias García-Braga, who was a Professor at the Faculty of Law for three decades. "This University is a reference point in my life and I think that these documents have a vital importance for their hard drive", he insisted.

The Rector thanked the Arias family for their donation "because it comprises some documents with an exceptional value that will enrich our archive and which provide a testimony of what were the seeds of our University."

The majority of the 46 documents received by the University are part of the archives of the San Gregorio College, comprised in the years between 1640 and 1992. 14 date back to the 17th Century and 28 to the 18th Century. The collection features, among many other singularities, proofs of purity of blood that, according to the Director of the Library of the University of Oviedo, Ramón Rodríguez, were conducted to determine if those that accessed a public position or studied in the classrooms of the University were "old Christians".

The college archives acquire a special relevance, since the University lost all of its similar documents in the fire that destroyed its premises during the revolution of 1934. The documents were found years ago in a private house in the West of Asturias and belong to the possesions that bishop Valdés Salás bequeathed in his will to the House of Alba.