@ihtkwot's last activity seems to be quoting Tome Pire's "Suma Oriental", and then being verbally thrashed by Tyler Durden for daring to suppose that gunpowder was invented in China rather than Prague. I can only speculate on why he might depart a favourite site after that.

Hm, moderators are supposed to have a harder skin than that @PieterGeerkens. That said, little value in speculating. Hopefully @ihtkwot is just taking a break from the site.

@PieterGeerkens I'd noticed that too. However, that was hardly atypical behavior for that particular user.

So I was looking into this question...

...and came across Cardinal Francisco Cisneros, who apparently single-handedly financed it.

Looked through for some kind of explanation of where those resources came from. Never did find a great answer (aside from his personal expenses probably being quite low, due to being dedicated asthetic).

But what I did find was that this guy was one serious piece of work.

The most interesting part was that there apparently was a clergical tradition in Spain of having unofficial wives. As a non-Catholic Christian myself, that seems positively sensible, particularly for the 15th Century.

...So Cisneros didn't like that at all, and insisted they quit doing that.

...and over 500 Spanish clergy instead moved to Africa with their wives and converted to Islam. Now that's a protest.