Ximénes de Cisneros, Francisco (1436–1517)

Spanish churchman, politician, and scholar. He was an energetic church reformer, seeking a return to more austere standards of Christian life, and he encouraged the conversion of the Moors of Granada. In 1507 he became inquisitor-general. A noted scholar and patron of the arts, he patronized the project to produce the Complutensian Polyglot Bible; the work on this was carried out at the university of Alcalá which he founded in 1500.

A Castilian by birth, he studied at Salamanca, becoming doctor in both canon and civil law. In 1492 Isabella of Castile chose him as her confessor and in 1495 he became archbishop of Toledo. From January 1516 until his death in November 1517 at Valladolid, he was governor of Castile and consolidated the unification of Spain achieved by Ferdinand and Isabella.