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Episode details

World Service,1 min

Why is the patron saint of the internet Spanish?

The Forum

Available for over a year

In the first half of 7th century AD, Isidore of Seville compiled Etymologiae which went on to become the most widely used encyclopaedia in Europe for nearly a thousand years. Historian Janina Ramirez tells Bridget Kendall how Isidore brought together a wide range of knowledge from classical antiquity. Photo: St Isidore by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, 1655 (Wikimedia Commons)

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