The role of Spain in understanding and spreading classical philosophy

Spain has lain outside the main currents of philosophy for some time, playi ng only a peripheral role in them. At some periods of its history, however, it played a key role in the discipline, as for example with the so-called Toledo School of Translators, which acted a veritable bridge between East a nd West. The former capital of Spain (from 1086 to 1561) was a place where philosophers and translators not only of three different religions, Christi an, Moslem and Jewish, but also from other countries of Europe met and work ed together, drawn to the new capital of Castile by its tolerant policies a fter the city was reconquered by the Christians at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries. Through Toledo came Arab, Jewish philosophy and primarily classical philosophy, the latter brought by the Arabs from those regions bo rdering on the former Eastern Roman Empire. Works were translated First fro m Arabic to Castillian and then into Latin. It was in the former capital of Spain that the foundations were laid not only of the flowering of medieval scholasticism but also of the renaissance which later developed in Italy.