Education
University of Salamanca.
University of Salamanca.
Recent scholarship suggests that Alphonso was not a converted Jew or converso. The Fortalitium was written in 1458, but it was added to by de Spina at different times up to the year 1485. The first edition was issued about 1464-1476.
The edition published at Nuremberg in 1485 begins thus:
The fact that the Fortalitium appeared anonymously gave rise to some difference of opinion as to its authorship.
However, most modern scholars attribute it to Alfonso de Spina. In this last book de Spina dwells at length upon the demons and their hatred of mentor
The powers they have over men and the diminution of these powers, owing to the victory of Christ on the Cross, the final condition of the demons, and so on. Besides the "Fortalitium", Alfonso de Spina published at least three other works:
Sermones de Nomine Jesu Vigintiduos, issued about 1454 (which has been erroneously confounded with the Fortalitium by at least one noted Catholic scholar);
Sermones plures de excellentia nostræ fidei, preached in 1459.
And
A treatise on fortune, dedicated to John I of Castile (1404-1454).
In The Complete Book of Devils and Demons Leonard R. North. Ashley says that Alphonso de Spina is quoted as stating that the total number of angels who sided with Lucifer"s revolt was 133,306,668, a figure, Ashley remarks, so precise that one hardly knows what to say. He adds that the Book of Enoch puts the number at 200.