BERNARDINO de SAHAGÚN. - Illustrious missionary and ethnographer of Mexico, b. at Sahagún (Spain) in 1500, d. in Mexico on 23 Oct. 1590. While studying at the University of Salamanca he entered the Franciscan Order in that city. In 1529 he embarked for New Spain (Mexico) and remained there until his death. He learned to perfection Nahuatl, the language then most used in the country, was a professor and at times rector of the famous college (for Indian nobles and for the indigenous clergy) of Santa Croce di Tlatilolco, in which he stayed 40 years. He was also visitor of the province of Michoacán and definitor of that of the Holy Gospel. A gentle and patient character and at the same time tenacious in his literary purposes, to which he had dedicated himself in the interest of missionary formation, he had to suffer various setbacks, especially over the great work Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, written in the Nahuatl language and translated, or rather paraphrased, into Spanish.
There are 12 books concerning the pagan antiquities, sacred and profane, of pre-Cortesian Mexico, collected from the indigenous people, checked and sifted by the author through three successive redactions. It is a most precious work, today highly appreciated by ethnologists, both for its content, being the best source for Mexican antiquities, and for the method used in gathering the material. The Spanish text has been published five times: by C. M. de Bustamante, in 3 vols. in 4°, Mexico 1829-30; by Lord Kingsborough, Antiquities of Mexico, V, London 1830, pp. 345-93; VII, pp. 1-464; by Ireneo Paz, 4 vols. in 8°, Mexico 1890-95; and recently in 5 vols. in 8°, ibid. 1938, which is the best edition, although it does not fully meet the severe demands of criticism, and by M. Acosta Saignes, in 3 vols. in 12°, Mexico 1946, with many illustrations, a rich bibliography and indexes. The Nahuatl text is still unpublished. F. del Paso y Troncoso, however, reproduced some codices in facsimile, Madrid 1905 ff. A French version was prepared by D. Jourdanet-R. Siméon, Histoire générale des choses de la Nouvelle-Espagne, Paris 1880. E. Seler translated certain parts into German from the Nahuatl text: Einige Kapitel aus dem Geschichtswerk des Fray B. S., Stuttgart 1927. Of the first two books the author sent in 1570 a summary to St. Pius V: Breve compendio de los ritos idolátricos de Nueva España, edited by L. Oliger, in Antonianum, 17 (1942), pp. 3-38, 133-74, and separately, Rome 1942. Other works are: Pláticas o Coloquios, that is, discourses of the first missionaries made to the indigenous people, edited, as far as what survives, by Gius. Pou y Marti, in Miscellanea Fr. Ehrle, III, Rome 1924, pp. 281-333 (Spanish text, and Nahuatl in facsimile); Evangelium Epistolarium et Lectionarium aztecum sive mexicanum, edited by B. Biondelli, Milan 1858; Psalmodia christiana y sermonaria de los sanctos del año en lengua mexicana, Mexico 1583, the only work published during the author's lifetime. Other works, among them a life of St. Bernardino da Siena in the Nahuatl language, were lost.
Bibliography7 works
Livario Oliger