CANTERA BURGOS, FRANCISCO°

CANTERA BURGOS, FRANCISCO° (1901–1978), Spanish Hebraist. Born in Miranda de Ebro, Cantera Burgos had as his teachers the distiguished scholars R. Menéndez Pidal, A. Castro, and, above all, Gaspar Remiro. Under the latter's supervision he wrote his doctoral thesis on Shevet Yehudah by Solomon ibn Verga, which he translated into Spanish (1927). He taught at Madrid University, becoming professor of Hebrew and rabbinical language and literature. He was closely associated with José Maria Millás Vallicrosa\>\> of Barcelona as codirector of the Instituto Arias Montano de Estudios Hebraicos y Oriente Proximo and as coeditor and cofounder of the scholarly journal Sefarad, which he edited for three and a half decades. When Millás, who taught in Madrid, accepted the chair of Hebrew at the University of Barcelona, he recommended Cantera as his successor. Cantera filled the position for almost 40 years (1934–72). Cantera made significant contributions to Spanish-Jewish scholarship. His main contribution in his scholarly works was in the following fields: archaeology and epigraphy of the Jews in Spain; history of the Jews in Spain; history of famous Converso families; the Conversos in Castilian poetry. From 1924 onwards, he published hundreds of items, books, articles, and reviews on every aspect of Hispano-Jewish history. His publications include El judío salmantino Abraham Zacut (1931), The Beginning of Wisdom: an Astrological Treatise by Abraham ibn Ezra (in collaboration, 1939), La judería de Miranda de Ebro (1099–1492) (1941), Fuero de Miranda de Ebro (1945), Sagrada Biblia (Spanish version with J.M. Bover, 1947, 19533), Las sinagogas españolas (1955), Las inscripciones hebraicas de España (1956), La canción mozárabe (1957), El tratado "Contra caecitatem iudaeorum" de fray Bernardo Oliver (1965), La familia judeoconversa de los Cota de Toledo (1969), Judaizantes del arzobispado de Toledo habilitados por la Inquisición en 1495 y 1497 (1969), El poeta Ruy Sánchez Cota (Rodrigo Cota) y su familia de judíos conversos (1970), Sinagogas de Toledo, Segovia y Córdoba (1973), and Las juderías medievales en la provincia de Guadalajara (in collaboration with C. Carrete Parrondo, 1975). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J.L. Lacave, in: Sefarad, 37 (1977), 5–104 (Cantera's publications); S.W. Baron and B. Netanyahu, in: PAAJR 48 (1981), XXXII–XXXVI. (Yom Tov Assis (2nd ed.)