Antonio de Nebrija

Antonio de Nebrija (14445 July 1522) was a Spanish humanist. He wrote poetry, commented on literary works, and encouraged the study of classical languages and literature, but his most important contributions were in the fields of grammar and lexicography. Nebrija was the author of the Spanish Grammar (Gramática de la lengua castellana, 1492) and the first dictionary of the Spanish language. His grammar is the first published grammar study of any modern European language.

Nebrija was one of the most influentual Spanish humanists and an illustrious member of the School of Salamanca. His chief works were published and republished many times during and after his life, and his scholarship had a great influence for more than a century, both in Spain and in the expanding Spanish Empire.

Name Nebrija was baptized . In typical Renaissance humanist fashion, he Latinized his name as (or in Spanish) by taking Aelius from the Roman inscriptions of his native Lebrija, known in Roman times as . He was also known as , , and .

He married Isabel Montesino de Solís in 1487 and eventually fathered seven children. When Juan de Zúñiga, the master of the Order of Alcántara, offered him patronage, Nebrija quit the university in Salamanca and moved to Badajoz, where he lived for the next twelve years.

Works Introductiones latinae, 1481 Gramática de la lengua castellana, 1492 Diccionario latino-español, 1492 Vocabulario español-latino, ca. 1495 Iuris civilis lexicon, 1506 Artis rhetoricae, 1515 Reglas de ortografía española, 1517 Posthumously published Reglas de ortografía en la lengua castellana, 1523 Dictionarium quadruplex (Alvala, 1532, fol.) Quinquagena locorum S. Scripturae non vulgariter enarratorum (Paris, 1520; Basle, 1543)