was reprinted dozens of times in his lifetime. He married Isabel Montesino de Solís in 1487 and eventually fathered seven children. When Juan de Zúñiga, the master of the Order of Alcántara, offered him patronage, Nebrija quit the university in Salamanca and moved to Badajoz, where he lived for the next twelve years. After the success of his Latin textbook, Nebrija's literary scholarship turned to focus on Castilian rather than classical languages. In 1492 he published Gramática de la lengua castellana (Grammar of the Castilian Language), which he dedicated to Queen Isabella I of Castile. His book was one of the first to codify a European vernacular language, and it ultimately had considerable political and scholarly influence. Nebrija recognized that language played a crucial role in governance of the state. In his dedication he wrote to Isabella that language was "the instrument of empire" and suggested that his grammar would prove useful as the Catholic monarchs conquered peoples who spoke languages other than Castilian. In 1492 Nebrija also published the Diccionario latino-español (Latin-Spanish Dictionary). It was not the first Latin-Spanish dictionary (Alfonso de Palencia published one in 1490) but it would become hugely influential, in part because a few years later he reversed the order and published his Vocabulario español-latino (Spanish-Latin Vocabulary) in 1495. For the next century, the Spanish-Latin vocabulary continued to evolve with new words and translations. It also served as the basis for other authors developing non-Latin translating dictionaries including Spanish-Arabic (1505), Spanish-Nahuatl (1547) and Spanish-Tagalog (1613). After publishing his dictionaries Nebrija turned his attention to biblical scholarship. He wanted to improve the text and interpretation of the Bible by using the same critical analysis that Italian humanists had applied to classical literature. Around 1504 he fell under the suspicion of Diego de Deza, the Grand Inquisitor of Spain, who confiscated and destroyed his work. In 1507 Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros succeeded Deza as inquisitor general. Cisneros allowed Nebrija to resume his biblical studies and he eventually published a series of works that used the techniques of humanist scholarship to address problems of biblical translation and interpretation. Nebrija served briefly on the editorial committee assembled by Jiménez to prepare the Complutensian Polyglot Bible. He clashed with the more conservative editors, who resisted his humanist approach to translating the Bible. Jiménez supported the conservative viewpoint and Nebrija's input was largely ignored when the finished work was published in