ABSTRACT: The implementation of Humanism in Spain has generated a durable controversy. Some historians have defended the existence of Humanism in the Iberian Peninsula. Nevertheless, other historians have rejected the development of this cultural movement in Spain. Nowadays, the existence of Spanish Humanism is accepted by all historians. Currently, historians focus their efforts in defining, characterizing and delimiting the Spanish Humanism. The base of Spanish Humanism was the recovery of classical languages. The humanists considered that the knowledge of classical languages was necessary to regenerate the science. Correcting the grammatical mistakes of scholastics also encouraged the cultural activity of humanist. Humanists considered that medieval grammatical ignorance generated the development of wrong knowledge. The purpose of humanists was to purify this mistaken knowledge. In order to accomplish this objective, it was necessary to improve the quality of grammatical pedagogy. Elio Antonio de Nebrija, Juan Maldonado, Andreu Sempere, or Francisco Sánchez de las Brozas tried to eradicate the gramatical ignorance. The humanists made an enormous effort in order to improve the quality of grammatical pedagogy. This effort was made in a difficult cultural context. During the Renaissance, the knowledge of classical languages was not disseminated in Spain. Several factors blocked the expansion of grammatical knowledge. The clerical ignorance, the low social position of humanists, the inefficiency of educational system and the diffusion of vernacular languages complicated the diffusion of classical languages. In spite of these difficulties, the influence of Humanism was evident in different cultural fields. Thus, during the Renaissance, the legal, medical and biblical Humanism flourished in Spain. The members of these movements considered that they were able to regenerate their disciplines by means of philological study of classical sources. It is important to highlight the development of biblical Humanism in Spain. Personalities as important as Luis de León, Elio Antonio de Nebrija, Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros or Benito Arias Montano took part of this movement. The members of this movement tried to broaden their knowledge of Christianity by means of philological studies of Holy Scriptures. In Spain, the philological study of the Bible was developed in a difficult historical context. The intransigent tradition obstructed the development of biblical studies.
