Nicolás Antonio (31 July 1617 – 13 April 1684) was a Spanish bibliographer born in

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

Biography

After taking his degree in

Salamanca Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritag ...

(1636–1639), he returned to his native city, wrote his treatise ''De Exilio'' (which was not printed till 1659), and began his monumental register of Spanish writers. The fame of his learning reached

Philip IV Philip IV may refer to: * Philip IV of Macedon (died 297 BC) * Philip IV of France (1268–1314), Avignon Papacy * Philip IV of Burgundy or Philip I of Castile (1478–1506) * Philip IV, Count of Nassau-Weilburg (1542–1602) * Philip IV of Spain ...

, who conferred the

Order of Santiago The Order of Santiago (; es, Orden de Santiago ), is a religious and military order founded in the 12th century. It owes its name to the Patron Saint of Spain, "Santiago" ( St. James the Greater). Its initial objective was to protect the pilgr ...

on him in 1645, and sent him as General Agent to

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

in 1654. Returning to Spain in 1679, Antonio died at Madrid in the spring of 1684. His ''Bibliotheca Hispana nova'', dealing with the works of Spanish authors who flourished after 1500, appeared at Rome in 1672, under the title ''Bibliotheca Hispana sive Hispanorum''; the ''Bibliotheca Hispana vetus'', a literary history of Spain from the time of Augustus to the end of the 15th century, was revised by Manuel Martí, and published by Antonio's friend, Cardinal José Sáenz de Aguirre at Rome in 1696. A fine edition of both parts, with additional matter found in Antonio's manuscripts, and with supplementary notes by

Francisco Pérez Bayer Francisco Pérez Bayer (1711–1794) was a Spanish philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with esp ...

, was issued at Madrid in 1787–1788. This great work, incomparably superior to any previous bibliography, is still unsuperseded and indispensable. Of Antonio's miscellaneous writings the most important is the posthumous ''Censura de historias fabulosas'' (Valencia, 1742), in which erudition is combined with critical insight. His ''Bibliotheca Hispana rabinica'' has not been printed; the manuscript is in the national library at Madrid.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Antonio, Nicolas 1617 births 1684 deaths People from Seville 17th-century Spanish people Bibliographers University of Salamanca alumni