century. In 1681 work was commenced on the new church, the first stone being laid by Archbishop Diego de Castrillo, 25 July 1685. This grandiose edifice, 140 metres in length, covers the capella angelica, where the celebrated image of the Blessed Virgin is venerated. Though the style of the building is not of the best period, attention is attracted by its exterior, its multitude of cupolas, which are reflected in the waters of the river Ebro, giving it a character all its own. Saragossa possesses many very noteworthy churches. Among them is that of St. Engratia, built on the spot where the victims of Dacian were martyred. It was destroyed in the Spanish War of Independence, only the crypt and the doorway being left; it was rebuilt in the late 19th or early 20th century, and now serves as a parish church. The University of Saragossa obtained from Charles I (the Emperor Charles V) in 1542, the privileges accorded to others in Spain. Its importance was afterwards promoted by Pedro Cerbuna, Bishop of Tarazona; he gave it a building which lasted until it was blown up by the French in 1808. A separate building has been erected for the faculties of medicine and sciences. The archiepiscopal palace is a splendid edifice erected by Archbishop Agustín de Lezo y Palomeque. There are two ecclesiastical seminaries. That of Sts. Valerius and Braulius, founded by Archbishop Agustín de Lezo y Palomeque in 1788, was destroyed by an explosion and was rebuilt in 1824 by Archbishop Bernardo Francés Caballero; that of St. Charles Borromeo, formerly a Jesuit college, was converted into a seminary by King Charles III. History Before the Roman period the site of Saragossa appears to have been occupied by Salduba, a little village of Edetania, within the boundaries of Celtiberia. Roman period (1st to 5th centuries) In 24 BC (727 a.u.c.) Emperor Octavius Augustus, then in his seventh consulate, founded the colony of Caesar Augusta, giving it the Italian franchise and making it the capital of a juridical conventus. Geographer Pomponius Mela called it "the most illustrious of the inland cities of Hispania Tarraconensis." The diocese is one of the oldest in Spain, for its origin dates back to the coming of the Apostle James — a fact of which there had never been any doubt until Caesar Baronius, influenced by a fabulous story of García de Loaisa, called it in