Pioneering work of Castilian letters by the humanist Antonio de Nebrija.
'Grammatica' was a landmark study of the Castilian language and its rules published in five volumes in 1492. Its author, Antonio Martínez de Cala y Jarava, commonly known as Antonio de Nebrija, was one of the great Spanish humanists. This is the first book to focus on the study of a language in western Europe other than Latin, which made it the subject of harsh criticism. Nebrija divided the study of Castilian into four areas: spelling, prosody and syllabics, etymology and diction, and syntax. To these four sections, contained in four volumes, was added a fifth volume entitled 'De las introducciones de la lengua castellana para los que de estraña lengua querrán deprender' ('Introductions to the Castilian tongue for those wishing to learn a foreign language').
The publication of this work was responsible for making grammar an important field of study for humanists up until the emergence of linguistics in the 19th century.
