Cipriano de Valera (1531–1602) was a Spanish Protestant Reformer and refugee who edited the first major revision of Casiodoro de Reina's Spanish Bible, which has become known as the Reina-Valera version. Valera also edited an edition of Calvin's Institutes in Spanish, as well as writing and editing several other works. Biography Early life and conversion Valera was born at Fregenal de la Sierra about 100 kilometres north of Seville. He was a student for about six years at the University of Seville studying Dialectics and Philosophy, where he was influenced by the sermons of Giles of Viterbo amongst others. After graduation, Valera became a monk in the Order of the Hieronymites and lived at the Monastery of San Isidoro, where he adopted the surname 'de Valera', this being the Hieronymite practice. Owing to the influence of the Reformation in nearby Seville, Valera and most of the other monks at San Isidoro accepted reformist teaching with twenty-two of the forty monks in the monastery being accused of heresy. In spite of the dangers, twelve of them fled to Geneva, including Casiodoro de Reina and Antonio del Corro as well as Valera himself. Of those that remained, forty were burned to death in autos-da-fé by 1562; Valera was tried in absentia and his effigy was burned at the stake. Geneva and England Valera first went to Geneva, where he was influenced by the work of John Calvin, before travelling to England upon the accession of Elizabeth I in 1559. In that same year, Valera was made a professor of Theology at the University of Cambridge and became a Fellow of Magdalene College, where his compatriot Francisco de Enzinas had held a fellowship before Marian persecutions. Later, in 1565, the University of Oxford also granted him an M.A. In 1567, Valera moved to London to serve as the minister of the Church of St Mary Axe, a Stranger church which housed a congregation of Spanish Protestant refugees and where Reina had previously been pastor. Valera also frequently travelled to Amsterdam to support the Reformation there. Death The year of Valera's death is unknown, with the publication of the Reina-Valera Bible in 1602 being the last known date in his life. Writings In 1559, Valera assisted with the writing of the Spanish Confession of London along with Reina and others, which sought to stress the theological orthodoxy of the Spanish and Italian Protestant communities