Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/349

UNIVERSITY OF ALCALA. 323 learned sages were accustomed to meet, in order to chapter XXI settle the doubts and difficulties which had arisen in — the course of their researches, and, in short, to com- pare the results of their observations. Ximenes, who, however limited his attainments in general literature, ^' was an excellent biblical critic, fre- quently presided, and took a prominent part in these deliberations. " Lose no time, my friends," he would say, " in the prosecution of our glorious work ; lest, in the casualties of life, you should lose your patron, or I have to lament the loss of those, whose services are of more price in my eyes than wealth and worldly honors." ^^ The difficulties of the undertaking: were sensibly Difficulties ° of the task. increased by those of the printing. The art was then in its infancy, and there were no types in Spain, if indeed in any part of Europe, in the ori- ental character. Ximenes, however, careful to have the whole executed under his own eye, imported artists from Germany, and had types cast in the 38 Martyr speaks of Ximenes, in some account, Lopez de Zuiiiga, a one of his epistles, as " doctrina controversialist of Erasmus, Bar- singalarioppletum." (OpusEpist., tholomeo de Castro, the famous epist. 108.) He speaks with more Greek Demetrius Cretensis, and distrust in another; " Aiunt esse Juan de Vergara ; — all thorough virum, si non Uteris, morum tamen linguists, especially in the Greek sanctitate egregium." (Epist. 160.) and Latin. To these were joined This was written some years later, Paulo Coronel, Alfonso a physi- when he had better knowledge of cian, and Alfonso Zamora, convert- him. ed Jews, and familiar with the 39 Quintanilla, Archetypo, lib. oriental languages. Zamora has 3, cap. 10. — Gomez, De Rebus the merit of the philological com- Gestis, fol. 38. pilations relative to the Hebrew The scholars employed in the and Chaldaic, in the last volume, compilation were the venerable Le- lidem auct. ut supra ; et Suma de brija, the learned Nuiiez, or Pin- la Vida de Cisneros, MS. cianp, of whom the reader has had