The city was very favorably situated not far from the Spanish border, and the receding tide of the Arab invasion in the eighth century had left a strong Arabic influence in that province.

The date of the origin of the university is uncertain, but there were teachers of medicine there in the twelfth century, though it was not until 1289 that it was formally founded by a papal bull.
Arnold of Villanova was one of the most prolific writers of the Middle Ages.

He had travelled much, was deeply read in Arabic medicine and was also a student of law and of philosophy.

He was an early editor of the Regimen Sanitatis, and a strong advocate of diet and hygiene.

His views on disease were largely those of the Arabian physicians, and we cannot see that he himself made any very important contribution to our knowledge; but he was a man of strong individuality and left an enduring mark on mediaeval medicine, as one may judge from the fact that among the first hundred medical books printed there were many associated with his name.