Arias Montano, Benito (1527-1598), Spanish Orientalist and editor of the Antwerp Polyglot, was born at Fregenal de la Sierra, in Estremadura, in 1527. After studying at the universities of Seville and Alcala, he took orders about the year 1559 and in 1562 he was appointed consulting theologian to the council of Trent. He retired to Peña de Aracena in 1564, wrote his commentary on the minor prophets (1571), and was sent to Antwerp by Philip II. to edit the polyglot Bible projected by Christopher Plantin. The work appeared in 8 volumes folio, between 1568 and 1573. León de Castro, a professor at Salamanca, thereon brought charges of heresy against Arias Montano, who was finally acquitted after a visit to Rome in 1575-1576. He was appointed royal chaplain, but withdrew to Peña de Aracena from 1579 to 1583; he resigned the chaplaincy in 1584, and went into complete seclusion at Santiago de la Espada in Seville, where he died in 1598.
He is the subject of an Elogio histórico by Tomás Gonzalez Carvajal in the Memorias de la Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid, 1832), vol. vii.
