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Alfonso X the Wise (Alfonso X el Sabio) (11/23/1221, Toledo - 04/04/1284, Seville) - King of Castile and Leon (1252 - 1284).

He is the compiler and publisher of the collection `Las Cantigas de Santa Maria`.
Cantiga (Spanish, Portuguese) - Spanish and Portuguese paraliturgical song of the XIII-XIV centuries.
Most of the cantigas that have come down to us are songs of the Virgin Mary (cantigas de Santa María) - more than 420 plays recorded at the court of King Alfonso X the Wise in 1270-90 (it is possible that the monarch himself was the author of many cantigas). We have come down to us in four richly illustrated manuscripts, which date back to the end of the 13th - the 1st half of the 14th centuries. In three of them, the cantigas are written in square notation (there is an acute problem of their rhythmic transcription), in the fourth, only verses, without musical notation.