When he was 14 years old, Anchieta went to study in Portugal at the Royal College of Arts in Coimbra. He was intensely religious and felt he had a vocation to the priesthood. He sought admission to the Jesuit College of the University of Coimbra and was accepted into the Jesuits on 1 May 1551, at the age of 17. While he was a novice, he nearly ruined his health by his excessive austerity, causing an injury to the spine that made him almost a hunchback. He learned to write Portuguese and Latin as well as his mother tongue.