The University of Zaragoza, sometimes referred to as Saragossa University (Spanish: Universidad de Zaragoza, UNIZAR) is a public university with teaching campuses and research centres spread over the three provinces of Aragon (Spain).

Founded in 1542, it is one of the oldest universities in Spain, with a history dating back to the Roman period.

It is the alma mater of Prime Ministers Pascual Madoz, Manuel Azaña, Salustiano de Olózaga and Eusebio Bardají, of the Nobel Prize laureate and father of modern neuroscience Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the Catholic saint Josemaría Escrivá and the Cuban national hero Jose Marti, who studied at this university.

In 2014, it had more than 30,000 students and more than 3,000 teaching members, among its 22 centers and 74 degrees. Its current rector is José Antonio Mayoral Murillo, full professor of organic chemistry.

Ecclesiastical schools were the initial elements of the University of Zaragoza. These schools were later consolidated into the School of Zaragoza, led by Bishop Braulio during the seventh century (who would later be made the patron saint of the university). The School of Arts officially became a university in 1542, though some scholars argue it could be considered a university of arts since 1477.

The studium generale of arts, also called studio mayor or primitive University of Zaragoza, was in the Magdalena and St. Nicholas neighborhoods. Its main building was a broad tower of circular base on the old wall of the city, and it had more than 20 chambers distributed in three different floors. Besides the normal chambers that were granted and rented by the university to both pupils and teachers, on the first floor the tower had the chamber called general mayor, where the grades were given, and also a library. On the second floor were the prison, the latrines and the doorkeeper's chamber. Finally, on the last floor there were bigger rooms with balconies, and the chamber of the four Masters of Arts. The studium had also bought more chambers in the tower surroundings and on the city wall; the most important were the five chambers called El Cocinador, and eleven more in the studium's square, called El Corralet chambers.

The studium's head was the chancellor, a position always held by the archbishop of Zaragoza, and the second in command was the vice-chancellor, who was also the high master of the studium. The high master collected taxes from any pupil, with the exception of the poor, the cleric from La Seo cathedral, or any student he would want to forgive such payment. Under him were the four masters of arts, four positions reserved for selected individuals who held a master of arts degree, and who were in charge of teaching liberal arts. Under them there were the bachilleres, who mostly taught advanced Latin grammar, and the camareros, who provided more basic Latin lessons. The lowest-ranking teachers were the cubicularios, also called repetidores in other studiums, who merely repeated the lessons from the other teachers. The studium also had a rector, who was an apostolic position that represented the archbishop's power in this primitive university, and had the power of approving all the academic positions in the studium, and administrated the fees from the students for reparations and other needs of the university.

The primitive University of Zaragoza had a Faculty of Aristotelian Logic and another of philosophy (it included both natural philosophy and Aristotelian ethics), and all together they formed the Faculty of Arts. But this studium generale also had a Faculty of Grammar, which had several hundred students during the early 16th century, while the Faculty of Arts had near 50. In order to get their grades, the students had to be endorsed by another older student or teacher, pass private exams, and pay fees. Lessons were taught in the mornings and afternoons, which meant that many of them would rent chambers to stay in at night.