[5] Ac portenti quidem simile est, quot mihi antiquissimi Isidori Codices in Urbis (Rome) bibliothecis sed maxime in Vaticana occurrerint. Arevalo, _Prolegomena_, cap. 1, 7. Manuscripts of Isidore’s works are numerous also in Spain and France. [6] The editions of Isidore’s complete works are as follows: (1) that of de la Bigne published at Paris in 1580; (2) that of Grial, Madrid, 1599; (3) that of du Breul, Paris, 1601; that of Arevalus, Rome, 1796. Arevalus, in the _Prolegomena_ to his edition, enumerates ten editions of the _Etymologies_ between 1477 and 1577. Others of Isidore’s works appeared also in frequent separate editions. [7] See Cañal, _San Isidoro_, ch. 7. For a fuller understanding of Isidore’s historical setting some attention must be given to the country in which he lived. Spanish culture in the early middle ages seems to have been relatively superior. It is well known that the country had been thoroughly Romanized. How complete the process had been may be judged from the list of men of Spanish birth who had won distinction in the wider world of the empire; it includes the two Senecas, Lucan, Quintilian, Martial, Hyginus, Pomponius Mela, Columella, Orosius, and the two emperors, Trajan and Hadrian. In fact Spain had lost its individuality and had become an integral part of the Roman world, little inferior in its culture even to Italy itself; and the close of Roman rule found the people of Spain speaking the Latin language, reading the Latin literature, and habituated to Roman institutions and modes of thought.