Antonio de Lebrija, also known as Antonio de Nebrija, Elio Antonio de Lebrija, Antonius Nebrissensis, and Antonio of Lebrixa, (1441-1522) was a Spanish scholar born at Lebrija in the province of Seville.
Nebrija wrote a grammar of the Castilian language, credited as the first published grammar of any Romance language.
|
Contents
|
Name
His given name was Antonio Martínez de Calá. In typical humanist fashion, he latinized his name as Aelius Antonius Nebrissensis by taking Aelius from the Roman inscriptions of his native Lebrija, the Roman Nebrissa Veneria. He also signed his books as Antonius Lebrixen (1481) and Antonius Nebrissen (1501).
Life
After studying at Salamanca he resided for ten years in Italy, and completed his education at Bologna University. On his return to Spain (1473), he devoted himself to the advancement of classical learning among his fellow countrymen. After obtaining the professorship of poetry and grammar at Salamanca, he was transferred to the university of Alcalá de Henares.
His services to the cause of classical literature in Spain have been compared with those rendered by Valla, Erasmus and Scidaeus to Italy, the Netherlands and France. In 1492, he published the first grammar of the Spanish language.
He produced a large number of works on a variety of subjects, including a Latin-Spanish dictionary, commentaries on Sedulius and Persius.
Works
- Introductiones latinae, 1481
- Gramática de la lengua castellana, 1492
- Latin-Spanish (1492) and Spanish-Latin (1495) dictionaries.
References
- Nicolás Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana Nova, i. 132 (1888)
- Prescott, History of Ferdinand and Isabella, i. 410 (note)
- Thomas McCrie, The Reformation in Spain in the Sixteenth Century (1829).
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
