Antonio de Nebrija

Antonio de Nebrija (1444–1522) was the leading Spanish humanist of his age. Born at Lebrija and educated at Salamanca and Bologna, he held the first chair of grammar at Salamanca from 1476 and published a Latin textbook in 1481.

In 1492 he brought out the Gramática de la lengua castellana, the first printed grammar of any modern European language, telling Queen Isabella that language was the instrument of empire. His Spanish-Latin dictionary followed in 1495. Later, under Cisneros, he worked on the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, and he died at Alcalá de Henares in 1522.