Alcalá de Henares, birthplace of Cervantes and seat of a university founded in 1499, is closely tied to one of the most significant scholarly projects to draw on Jewish learning in post-expulsion Spain: the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, produced with the direct participation of converso scholars.
Alcalá's former Jewish quarter lay near the old town close to the later university district, its medieval outline largely absorbed into the Renaissance city Cardinal Cisneros built around his new university. No synagogue survives, but the Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso and the university's historic library, where the Complutensian Polyglot project was carried out, remain the most tangible sites connecting the town to its converso scholarly history.
Alcalá's Jewish community, present from the medieval period, dissolved with the 1492 expulsion, but the town's subsequent transformation under Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros drew directly on converso expertise: the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, printed between 1514 and 1517, relied on Hebrew and Aramaic textual scholarship provided in part by converted Jewish scholars, including Alfonso de Zamora, whose linguistic training predated his conversion.
The Complutensian Polyglot, presenting the biblical text in parallel Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic and Latin columns, stands as one of the most significant products of post-expulsion Christian Hebraism in Spain, made possible only by the retained expertise of converso scholars whose Jewish education continued to shape Spanish intellectual life a generation after 1492, even as that same background exposed them to Inquisitorial suspicion.
Alcalá de Henares is generally visited as a half-day from Madrid, with a private guide covering the university quarter and the Complutensian Polyglot's history alongside the town's Cervantes associations.
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A landmark multilingual biblical edition produced at Alcalá between 1514 and 1517, relying on Hebrew scholarship contributed by converso scholars.
It is an optional half-day within the Madrid segment of our fourteen-day Iberian Sephardic Legacy journey.
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