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The Italian paradoxes of Alfonso de Zamora(fl. 1516-1545): Abravanel on Latter Prophetsfrom Jewish Italy to Converso Castile
Jesús de Prado PlumedEcole pratique des hautes études (Paris)Universidad Complutense de Madrid
“Judaism in the Mediterranean Context”
 IX Congress of the European Association for Jewish StudiesRavenna, Italy, July 25-29, 2010
 
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(Image: Saint Ildephonsus College, Alcala).
On the eleventh of November, 1530, a most curious contractwas signed in Alcalá de Henares, a university town better known
among scholarly circles for its Latin name of “Complutum”, hencethe adjective “Complutensian” in English.
At 31 km from Madridand 107 km from Toledo, the rectorial College of Saint Ildephonsusand its other dependent colleges, that boasted around 4.000 studentsin the sixteenth century, had been opened since the 18
th
October1508. In October 1530 a new rector, the Aragonese Juan Gil had beenelected to conduct the university affairs for one year. He was one ofthe two parties signing the contract. The other contracting party wasAlfonso de Zamora, who had been the Hebrew and Aramaic
professor, or “regente de c{tedra”, for more than eighteen years,
since the 12
th
of July 1512, when he had been called to Alcalá byCardinal Ximenes de Cisneros, the founder of the university and thedriving and funding force of the main venture of Iberian scholarshipin the first part of the sixteenth-century, the well-knownComplutensian Polyglot Bible.The text of the contract, containing the signature of both
parties, has been preserved in Madrid’s National Historical Archive
or Archivo Histórico Nacional. It is quite an unexceptional, ordinary business agreement , but if one takes
a Jewish standpoint, it’s
anextraordinary document indeed. It very likely was the first contract
 
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of a Hebrew naqdan
or “punctuator”
that had been signed onIberian soil for some thirty years, since the expulsions of 1492 (fromCastile and Aragon), 1496 (from Portugal) and 1498 (from Navarre).And even more likely, it was the last contract of this kind ever to besigned in the ancient land of Sefarad if we must judge on thegrounds of extant evidence. The Spanish text of the contract conveysquite precisely what Alfonso was asked to do:
… he (Alfonso) takes care of punctu
ating a Hebrew book forthe library of the College, which is a gloss of Prophets, both former
and latter…
 
(AHN, Universidades, Alcalá, Registro de Escrituras, libro 4, f.199r)The contract also gives us the amount the University would bepaying Alfonso for his work: eight Castilian ducats. In order to better grasp the value of this honorarium, one need only point outthat it represented almost half the price of the annual rent Alfonsowas paying since 1521-1522 for his house in a central location inAlcalá. Around the same year of 1530, the University of Salamancawas prepared to pay 12 ducats for a full copy, with Latin translation,of all the Targumim. 12 ducats were nearly one third
of Alfonso’s
annual salary of 35 ducats or 50 florins.
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