The Queen's Grammar

Grammar might not be your favorite subject. All those rules about how language works—verb tenses and personal pronouns and direct objects— can seem unnecessary. Queen Isabel would have agreed with you, at least, at first. But Antonio de Nebrija, who considered grammar to be the “highest science,” would not have agreed.

- Sarah Novak

Born in Spain in 1444, Nebrija studied the literature and languages of the classical world, including Latin, like many other scholars during the Renaissance. He became a teacher (the 1496 illustration above shows him seated in the middle, teaching a class) and author, writing about religion, poetry, botany, astronomy, history—and grammar. In 1492, Nebrija’s Gramatica de la lengua castellana (“Grammar of the Castilian Language”) set down the rules for S