Archival History:

The history of the custody: The head offices of the four Spanish Military Orders were abolished by Royal Decree of 9 March 1836, being all their goods and incomes sent to pay off the Public Debt. The general archives of the Military Orders, who contained the history of the Orders before they had been incorporated to the Royal Family, passed to the "Archivo Histórico Nacional" with the rest of the confiscated archives under the command of the provincial "Contadurías de Arbitrios y Amortización".

However, the general archives of the Order of Santiago's entry took more time. Even though it was legally given to the Royal Academy of History by Royal Decree of 28 August 1850, the "Tribunal Especial de las Órdenes" opposed. With the creation of the "Archivo Histórico Nacional", these documents legally became part of its funds, but this transfer could not happen until 1872. Nowadays, its archives and its rich library represent a crucial part of the ancient bibliographical fund of the "Archivo Histórico Nacional". This fund is available on the Military Orders section.

On the othe hand, the library had been located in the Monastery of Uclés since its creation. After the secularization law, it remains without surveillance. Consequently, it had suffered some thefts. The Royal Order of 28 August 1850 assigned the archive and library of Uclés to the Royal Academy of History, but the opposition of the "Tribunal Especial de las Órdenes" made this giving difficult over two decades. By Royal Order of 4 March 1860, a commission made up of Antonio Marín Cossío, Manuel de Goicoechea, José María Escudero de la Peña and Miguel Velasco y Santos was established in order to make realize an inventory of codexes, books and manuscripts which belonged to the Monastery. All the members of the commission belonged to the "Cuerpo Facultativo de Archiveros y Bibliotecarios", and it was directed by Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. As a result, they elaborated a very detailed inventory which is still essential nowadays to identify the volumes which have belonged to the ancient Library (they are currently kept in the National Historical Archives under the call number OM,Ind.152). Moreover, all the volumes are sealed with a red-ink seal, which is still fundamental to identify them currently. At the moment of the elaboration of the inventory, the library contained 4978 volumes, 31 Greek codexes and 23 Latin codexes. Their relocation could not be carried out then. Finally, the Royal Order of 25 January 1872 by the "Ministerio de Fomento" transferred to the National Historical Archives the documents belonged to the Archive of Uclés, as well as the codexes, manuscripts and documents relevant to bibliography. The rest of them were sent to the Institute of secondary studies in Cuenca (which later on would be the Provincial Library). Several printed volumes about civil, religious, national and foreign history, archeology, chronology and diplomacy were chosen, as well as all the relevant documents to the works carried out in the Archives. Greek and Latin codexes were selected too. This Bibliographical Fund of Uclés is the foundational core of the current library of the "Archivo Histórico Nacional". The rest of copies (around 200) were sent to the Library of Cuenca. There's another chapter in the history of the bibliographical fund of the Library of Uclés. Between 1896 and 1952, when the "Archivo Histórico Nacional" and the "Biblioteca Nacional de España" shared headquarters at the "Palacio de los Archivos y Bibliotecas de Recoletos", Madrid, both institutions exchanged some manuscripts. Specifically, the Greek and Latin manuscripts passed from Uclés to the "Biblioteca Nacional de España", as well as the majority of the incunables.

Biography / Administrative history:

The general archives of the Order of Santiago were guarded in the Monastery of Santiago de Uclés. The first informations about its existence date back to the 13th century. In the 18th century, the "Consejo de Órdenes" asked Juan Antonio Fernández, archivist and notary of the bishop of Tudela, to create a new inventory of this archive. Nowadays, it is available on the "Archivo Histórico Nacional" thanks to the Commission of the Royal Academy of History, which was in charge of gathering the Archive of Uclés, which respected its organization.

Name of the creator(s):

Monasterio de Santiago de Uclés (Cuenca, España)

Scope and Content:

Coming from the Library of the Monastery of Uclés, this work belongs to the 123 of the 600 published copies which have been survived until now. It was financed by the Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros and printed by Arnao Guillén de Brocar, and was started in 1514 and finished on July 10, 1517. In 1502, Diego López de Zúñiga began to direct the project, and for the following 15 years the converts Alonso de Alcalá, Pablo Coronel y Alfonso de Zamora have been working on it, specifically on the Hebrew and Aramaic part. The Greek part was carried out by the Cretan Demtrio Ducas and Hernán Núñez de Toledo, called "el Pinciano" and Antonio de Nebrija, who was also in charge of the revision of the Vulgate.

Nevertheless, the whole work was not on sale until 1522 due to the delay of the Papal concession to be printed and the Cardinal Cisneros' death on November 1517. This delay involved that the Greco-Latin edition of the New Testament, made by Erasmus of Rotterdam in 1516, had become into the editio princeps, when in fact the 5th volume of the Cisneros' Polyglot was earlier. According to its spreading, the Polyglot did not success, since most of the 60 printed copies (paper ones, plus 6 more in vellum) had disappeared during a shipwreck near Italy. Despite this unfortunate loss, several copies have been kept in different libraries (two of them are in the Library of "Archivo Histórico Nacional", which are complete). On the other side, this Bible had influenced some other similar works, such as the Polyglot Bible of Antwerp, called as well the Biblia Regia by Benito Arias Montano (1576).

Content Structure:

It is composed of six volumes. The first four contain the Old Testament, the fifth the Greek Scriptures and the sixth a Vocabularium Hebraicum atque Chaldai-cum and a Hebrew grammar, that is, the critical apparatus of the Old Testament.

General accessibility conditions:

©MCD. Archivos Estatales (España). La difusión de la información descriptiva y de las imágenes digitales de este documento ha sido autorizada por el titular de los derechos de propiedad intelectual exclusivamente para uso privado y para actividades de docencia e investigación. En ningún caso se autoriza su reproducción con finalidad lucrativa ni su distribución, comunicación pública y transformación por cualquier medio sin autorización expresa y por escrito del propietario.

Image accessibility condition:

Some images/documents have restrictions

Language and Scripts:

Arameo (Alfabeto hebreo), Español (Alfabeto latino), Hebreo (Alfabeto hebreo), Latín (Alfabeto latino). 
From a typographic point of view, the Polyglot Bible is of great interest. It is, in the words of experts, one of the sixteenth-century typographical monuments and, at the same time, an authentic Iberian post-incunabula, since, between 1501 and 1520, they were not really produced in Spain or Portugal Significant changes in the printing procedures of the books in relation to the incunable period, so that the Complutense Bible is maximum representative of the artisan methods typical of the workshops of the fifteenth century. It's important to keep in mind also for the printing of the Polyglot it was necessary to design and fuse ex professo a series of mobile types.

Description Indices:

Alcalá, Alonso de (1465-ca. 1540)

Biblia. A.T. Políglota

Brocar, Arnao Guillén de (ca.1460-1523)

Coronel, Pablo (1480-1534)

Ducas, Demetrio (ca. 1480-ca. 1527)

Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros (1436-1517, OFM)

Lengua aramea bíblica

López de Zúñiga, Diego (?-1531)

Nebrija, Antonio de (ca. 1444-1522)

Núñez de Guzmán, Hernán (ca.1478-1553)

Zamora, Alfonso de (ca. 1476-ca. 1545)

Fuentes:

Sec uda pars Veteris testamenti Hebraico Gregoque idiomate nunc primun impressa : adiuncta vtique sua latina interpretatione. [Compluti: Arnao Guillén de Brocar. 260 h..

Quarta pars Veteris testamenti Hebraico Grecoq[ue] idiomate nunc primum impressa : adiuncta vtriq[ue] sua Latina interpretatione. Impressa in hac preclarissima Complutensi vniuersitate: de mandato ac sumptibus Reuerendissimi in christo patris & domini F. Francisci Ximenez de Cisneros ...: [268] h; Fol.

Tertia pars Veteris testamenti Hebraico Grecoque idiomate nunc primum impressa : adiuncta vtrique sua latina interpretatione. [Compluti: Arnao Guillén de Brocar. [202] h, [2] h. en bl..

Vetus testament u multiplici lingua n uc primo impresum et imprimis Pentateuchus Hebraico Greco atque Chaldaico idiomate : adi ucta vnicuique sua latina interpretatione. [Compluti: [299] h..

Vocabularium hebraicum atque chaldaic u totius veteris testamenti c u alijs tractatibus prout infra in prefatione continentur in academia complutensi nouiter impressum. ipress u in... C oplutensi uniuersitate: sumptibus Francisci Ximenez de Cisnerosindustria Arnaldi Guilielimi de Brocario. [1], CLXXII, [34], XV h..

Nouum testamentum grece [et] latine in academia complutensi nouiter impressum. [Compluti] In ... C oplutensi vniuersitate: de m adato [et] sumptibus ... Fr acisci Ximenez deindustria [et] solertia ... Arnaldi guilielmi de Brocario ... Cisneros .... [271] h..

Marías Martínez, Laura. La Biblia políglota Complutense del la Biblioteca del AHN. Pieza del mes de diciembre de 2017.

Notes:

This document was pre-selected for THE CONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE, FROM CHARLEMAGNE TO THE EU TREATIES - OVER 1000 YEARS OF EUROPEAN CONSTRUCTION, exhibition of the "European Digital Treasures" project, funded by the European Union's Creative Europe Programme.