ALCALA DE HENARES, Spain, 17m. E.N.E. of Madrid, on the river Henares. Pop. (193o) 12,693. Alcala de Henares contains a military academy. The town has been identified with the Roman Comp/utuni, destroyed about i000, and rebuilt by the Moors in io83. Later its university, founded by Cardinal Jimenes de Cisneros in 5 io, was second only to that of Salamanca. Here the famous Complutensian Polyglot Bible was prepared from 1514 to 1517. The college of San Ildefonso completed in 1583, was the chief university building. Its modernized Gothic church, the Colegiata, contains the i6th century marble monument of Jimenes (d. 1517) and a fine reredos.
On the removal of the university to Madrid in 1836 the town declined, and the university buildings became archives of state departments and of the Inquisition. One of the principal libraries is the former palace of the archbishops of Toledo.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-H. Florez and others, "Annales Complutenses" and Bibliography.-H. Florez and others, "Annales Complutenses" and "Chronicon Complutense" in Espana Sagrada (1754-1879) ; Galo Sanchez, Fueros Castellanos de Soria y Alcala de Henares 0919).