Reprinting of Nebrija’s Spelling Rules

The City Council of Alcalá de Henares has presented the book Reglas de ortografía en la lengua castellana compuestas por el Maestro Antonio de Nebrija, published by the consistory and which includes a facsimile edition of the humanist’s work printed in 1517 in the Madrid town.

According to a communiqué from the Alcala City Council, the book, which was presented this afternoon at the town’s stand at the International Tourism Fair (Fitur), includes a facsimile of Nebrija’s Reglas de ortografía en la lengua castellana, printed in the workshops of Arnao Guillén de Brocar in Alcalá in 1517, and a transcription of the rules adapted to modern language, which makes them easier to read and understand.

This reprint is the result of the commitment reached by the City Council of Alcalá, where Nebrija lived the last ten years of his life, and his native town, Lebrija, to disseminate the life and work of the author of the first grammar of the Castilian language, on the occasion of the fifth centenary of his death.

In addition, accompanying the work of Nebrija a study of the official chronicler of the town, Vicente Sanchez Molto and another of the philologist alcalaína Maria Jesus Torrens, a researcher at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC).

The Councilor for Culture of Alcalá, María Aranguren, pointed out that the town «never forgot what Nebrija meant to the city and in the 19th century gave his name to the old street of the Grammarians and decided that his effigy should appear in one of the six medallions that decorate the Plenary Hall of the Town Hall».

The Mayor of Alcala, Javier Rodriguez Palacios said that the edition of this work that the City Council will give away with every purchase at the next edition of the Book Fair is one of the many actions with which the town will remember in 2022 the memory of Elio Antonio de Nebrija.