In The Translations of Nebrija: Language, Culture, and Circulation in the Early Modern World, Byron Ellsworth Hamann studies the global impact of Antonio de Nebrija’s lexicographical work, particularly the Dictionarium ex hispaniensi in latinum sermonem (1495?), a Spanish-Latin vocabulary that was destined to exert a powerful influence on the intellectual history of Europe and the world. Conceived as a tool for scholars and learners of Latin, Nebrija’s was indeed one of the most frequently reprinted dictionaries of its kind in the early modern period. Moreover, as Hamann amply shows, the Dictionarium was also the main material and intellectual tool to produce important dictionaries of New World, and occasionally Asian, languages. The study of the variants of this changing product of medieval printing and Renaissance humanism, usually linked to matters of distribution and reception, allow Hamann to build a global genealogical tree for Nebrija’s swarming progeny.
The first chapter, “Nebrija...
