De nuevo sobre Arias Montano y los libros plúmbeos de Granada

Abstract

The author presents four unpublished letters in which Benito Arias Montano (1527-1598) replies to the queries of archbishop Pedro de Castro y Quiñones in relation with the discovery in the city of Granada, at the end of the sixteenth century, of same mysterious books written in Arabic characters, formed for the most part of lead engraved plates and attributed to personalities from the primitive Christian Church. These forgeries, by Moriscos (Moors converted to Christianity) from Granada, unleashed a lively polemic regarding their authenticity and found in the person of archbishop Pedro de Castro their most fervent defender and one who appealed again and again to the authoritative opinion of Montano, the director of the Bible Polyglot of Antwerp.