With the decline of literature in Spain, the teaching that science is an evil spread everywhere. In the seventeenth century, on the authority of Spanish historians, the arts had fallen into decay. At the same time the trade of Seville greatly suffered. The city was reaping the harvest of trouble sown by the Inquisition, with its disastrous proscriptions of scientific inquiry, and its taboos upon learning and the arts. Not only were Bibles burnt publicly in Seville and elsewhere, but secular books, treating upon many subjects, were thrown to the flames, in the height of the Inquisition fanaticism. At the end of the fifteenth century six thousand volumes were thus destroyed at Salamanca. Such wanton acts contributed to the causes that brought the downfall of Spain. When Córdova, Granada and Seville were under the Saracen rule, the conquered Christians were protected in their religious rights, and there was no restraint upon knowledge. These cities possessed excellent schools and huge libraries. The Arabic and Spanish languages were both spoken, and there was an Arabian translation of the Bible. Unfortunately, the Christians failed to profit by this example of rational tolerance when they again came into power. Classical learning was fostered in Seville by Antonio de Lebrixa, who lectured in the University, about 1473. Lebrixa had studied for ten years in Italy. He was opposed by the Sevillian clergy, who claimed sole authority in instruction; but fortunately Lebrixa found favour with influential persons, and so contrived to save himself from persecution. Queen Isabella had lessons from the learned Lebrixa, who may be called the Erasmus of Spain. But the royal tutor narrowly escaped the awful punishments of the Holy Tribunal, under Deza, Archbishop of Seville, and successor of Torquemada. The Inquisitor-General commanded the manuscripts of Lebrixa to be seized, and accused him of heresy for making corrections on the text of the Vulgate, and for his exposition of passages of Scripture. 'The Archbishop's object,' wrote Lebrixa in an Apologia, 'was to deter me from writing. He wished to extinguish the knowledge of the two languages on which our religion depends; and I was condemned for impiety, because, being no divine but a mere grammarian, I presumed to treat of theological subjects. If a person endeavour to restore the purity of the sacred text, and points out the mistakes which have vitiated it, unless he will retract his opinions, he must be loaded with infamy, excommunicated and doomed to an ignominious punishment!'