Antonio de Nebrija

Antonio de Nebrija

We're going to explain the life and importance of Antonio de Nebrija’s work in 4 different parts. First of all, we're going to explain the historical context of the time when Antonio de Nebrija lived; then we’ll talk about his life, the importance of his work and his relationship with Salamanca

Historical context.

He lived from 1441 from 1522, in a time of tremendous changes and most important events. The first thing we have to remember is that at that time, there was a war between Christian kings and Arabic people who had occupied Spain's land from the year 711. This war was called "Reconquista" and it finished in 1492, when the Catholic kings conquered the last place held by a Moorish king which was Granada..

Another important fact that characterized this time is the reigning of Isabella and Ferdinand, the Catholic Monarchs, a time of territorial expansion. Apart from the union of Castile and Aragon, they also conquered the south of Italy, some parts from the north of Africa and some islands of the Atlantic Ocean.

And then in 1492, came the biggest discovery of all, the one that was the beginning of Spanish Empire: America. Cristobel Colón was commissioned and supported, mostly by Queen Isabella in his search for a different route to the Eastern lands discovered what he first thought –it was the Indias and which later would be called America.

After the Catholic Kings, their grandson, Carlos I of Spain and V of Germany reigned in Spain. He was the first king of the Austria's.

Antonio de Nebrija's life.

The real name of Nebrija was Antonio Martínez de Cala and Jarava, he was born in Sevilla in 1441 and died 1522 in Alcala de Henares. However he is better known as Elio Antonio de Nebrija, the name he chose honouring his home town. He was a Spanish humanist who studied in Salamanca first and then at the Royal College of Spain in Bologna. He is prominent in the history of the Spanish language because he wrote the first grammar of Spanish, a language considered vulgar by then, as only classical languages had written rules in those days. He wrote this grammar in 1492 and it would be of the outmost importance in the spreading of Spanish language in the newly discovered American continent. Nebrija was not only a linguistic, He was a truly Renaissance man, very accomplished as a historian, teacher, grammarian, astronomer and poet.

Born in Lebrija, in the province of Sevilla. Nebrija began studying humanities at the University of Salamanca at the age of 15. When he was 19, he moved to Italy where he studied at the College of San Clemente in Bologna. Back in Spain, he worked in Seville for the Archbishop Fonseca. He taught in the chapel of Granada, and then came back to teach grammar and rhetoric at the University of Salamanca.

He married Isabel de Solis, from whom he had 7 children. In the last years of his life, Nebrija was in Seville at the service of the archbishop.

Nebrija wrote on several subjects: cosmography, botany, and theology. He is famous for his efforts to reform the teaching of Latin. In 1492 he published his famous Spanish Grammar, work for which has passed into history. This was the first grammar of a vernacular language was written in Europe.

The importance of his work.

The Spanish Grammar was the most important work of Antonio de Nebrija, who was the first who noted the importance of the vernacular language, called "the vulgar language". By a happy coincidence, at the same time when Nebrija finished his grammar, Colón was about to discover the New World, a new land where this new language would spread all over the continent thus making Spanish one of the most important languages in our days.

Nebrija’s work is the first study of a contemporary language. In the XVth century the romance languages weren't studied because medieval men thought that only Latin and Greek were important enough to be the subject of study. Politic reasons or a premonition made Nebrija to write the Grammar, because he thought that it was necessary to fix the language with a set of rules. This would later allow Spanish to become the language of the Empire.

In 1495 he also published a new important work: a dictionary Spanish -Latin, Latin -Spanish, and this was the first dictionary of our language.

Nebrija in Salamanca.

Nebrija lived in Salamanca at three different times. The first time he came was when he was 15 years old to start his studies at university and he stayed here for 4 years . After studying at Salamanca, Nebrija resided for ten years in Italy, and completed his education at Bologna University He returned to Salamanca in 1473 decided to be a teacher and with the firm purpose of revolutionizing the teaching of Latin. However some events made him give up and move to Sevilla. In 1513, he filled the chair of rhetoric of the newly founded University Complutense in Alcalá de Henares, Nebrija died in Alcala de Henares in 1522

He returned to Salamanca again in 1505 but disagreements with his colleages made give up and definitively move to Seville first and to Alcalá later where he died in 1522.