Benito Arias Montano
Benito Arias Montano (b. c. 1525/27–d. 1598) was a Spanish humanist, censor, polymath, and chaplain to King Philip II, as well as librarian for the royal library at El Escorial. He is best known for having produced the Polyglot Bible—also known as the Biblia Regia (Royal Bible)—printed by Christopher Plantin in Antwerp, a monumental undertaking for which it was necessary to move physically to the Netherlands for an extended period of seven years. There he became an agent of international book culture by virtue of his work on the Inquisitorial Index of prohibited and expurgated books, as well as an acquisitions broker for the Spanish royal library and a circle of prominent Spanish intellectuals including Fernando de Herrera and Francisco Pacheco. In addition to printing the Royal Bible, Plantin also received a contract from the Spanish Crown to print other devotional literature (prayer books, breviaries, missals, books of hours, etc.). Arias Montano supervised this publishing program too. The “Rey Prudente” trusted his judgement enough to request his input on important political decisions after he distinguished himself as part of the Spanish delegation to the Council of Trent, the multi-year gathering which launched the Counter-Reformation. Educated in theology at the Universities of Seville and Alcalá, he also became a Knight of the Order of Santiago. He wrote poetry and prose in both Latin and Spanish on a wide range of topics including medicine, geology, physics, architecture, botany, and even painting. His epistolary correspondence with a transnational network of merchants, diplomats and intellectuals is voluminous. In addition to the above-mentioned languages, he was also fluent in Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and French. His probable converso origins might explain some of his activities as a Hebraist, mostly focused around providing a more literal translation of the Bible than the outdated, but still standard, Vulgate.