Isidore of Seville c. 560 – 636

Isidore of Seville was a Spanish bishop, encyclopedist, and the last of the Latin Fathers of the Church. Presiding over Visigothic Spain during the long transition from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages, he set himself the task of preserving the intellectual heritage of the classical world for future generations. His twenty-volume Etymologiae compiled the available learning of his age in an accessible form and remained a standard reference work throughout the Middle Ages. He has been proposed in modern times as the patron saint of the internet for his encyclopedic ambitions.