History
There has been human presence in the area since the Bronze Age, although the founding of Lebrija, possibly did not take place till the Phoenicians arrival, who baptised the settlement as Lepriptza, then to be renamed Nebrissa, during Tartessian times.
Originally, it was a port on the shores of the Lacus Ligustinus, a large inner lake surrounded by the Guadalquivir River and its tributaries and coastal sand bars to the South. The lake later filled with sediment, and gradually gave way to the current Guadalviquir marshy lowlands or, in Spanish, las Marismas.
Lebrija is also the Nabrissa or Nebrissa, surnamed Veneria, of the Romans; by Silius Italicus. According to local historian José Bellido, the word "veneria", (Latin: "that which venerates (worships)") makes reference to the mythical foundation of Lebrija by the god Dionysus (Bacchus): "Where special veneration is given to Bacchus, there where the swift satyres and the menades, at night celebrate the mysteries of that god, with their heads covered up with a deer skin".
Nebrishah was a strong and populous place during the period of Moorish domination (from 711); it was taken by King St Ferdinand in 1249, but again lost, and became finally subject to the Castilian crown only under Alfonso the Wise in 1264.
Lebrija was the birthplace of Elio Antonio de Lebrija (1444–1522), also known as Antonius Nebrissensis, one of the most important Renaissance leaders in Spain, author of the first grammar of a Romance language, the tutor of Queen Isabella, and a collaborator with Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros in the preparation of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible.
Lebrija was granted city status by letters patent in 1924.
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