Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 1.djvu/614

 the French architecture and sculpture of the Renaissance no less than in the criticism and the literature.

The seeds of humanism were brought to the Iberian peninsula by a few students who had visited Italy in the fifteenth century. The Spaniard Arias Barbosa, who had studied under Politian, was regarded by his countrymen as their first effective Hellenist. He lectured on Greek for about twenty years at the University of Salamanca, attracting his hearers not only by "a large and rich vein of learning," but also by his poetical taste. A higher fame, however, was gained by his contemporary, Antonio Lebrixa ("Nebrissensis"). After a sojourn of ten years in Italy, Lebrixa returned to Spain in 1473, and taught successively at the Universities of Seville, Salamanca, and Alcalä. He is described as inferior to Barbosa in Greek scholarship, but wider in his range of knowledge, which included Hebrew. Lebrixa's reputation among his Spanish contemporaries, though not in Europe at large, was comparable to that which Budaeus enjoyed in France. He had some distinguished pupils. One of them was Fernando de Guzman Nunez, better known as "Pintianus" (from Pintia, the ancient name of Val-ladolid), whose fame even eclipsed his master's. Nunez taught Greek at Alcalä, and subsequently at Salamanca, but in literature was best known by an edition of Seneca which appeared in 1536. Another pupil of Lebrixa, the Portuguese historian and poet Resende, did much to promote classical education at Lisbon.

Thus the early part of the sixteenth century afforded grounds for the hope that in the Peninsula, as in other countries of Europe, humanism was destined to flourish. Cardinal Ximenes, the founder of the College at Alcalä, caused the Greek text of the New Testament to be printed there; a task which was completed in 1514. It formed the fifth volume of the Complutensian Polyglott, published at Alcalä in 1522. That work reflected honour on the country, and might well be deemed a good omen for the future of Spanish learning. But after the compact of Charles V with Clement VII, concluded at Bologna in 1530, Spain was definitely ranged on the side of those forces which were reacting against the liberal studies of the Renaissance. The Spanish humanists had never been anything more than centres of cultivated groups, enabled by powerful patronage to defy the general hostility of priests and monks. Humanism had gained no hold on Spanish society at large; and its foes •were now more influential than ever. The Jesuits, who afterwards did so much for classical education elsewhere, were then no friends to it in Spain. The Spanish Inquisition was a terror to every suspected pursuit. It is not strange that, under such conditions, Greek learning did not prosper in the Peninsula; though it still produced good Latinists, such as Francisco Sanchez, of Brozas (1523-1601), who wrote on grammar, and the Portuguese Achille Esta9o (Achilles Statius, 1524-81) whose criticism of Suetonius was highly praised by Casaubon. The vigorous