BERNARDINO da SAHAGÚN. — An illustrious missionary and ethnographer of Mexico, born at Sahagún (Spain) in 1500, died in Mexico on 23 October 1590. While studying at the University of Salamanca, he entered the Franciscan Order in that city. In 1529 he embarked for New Spain (Mexico), where he remained until his death. He learned Nahuatl, the language then most widely used in the country, to perfection; he was professor and at times rector of the famous college of S. Croce of Tlatilolco (for Indian nobles and the indigenous clergy), where he spent forty years. He was also visitor of the province of Michoacán and definitor of that of the Holy Gospel. Mild and patient in character, yet tenacious in his literary purposes, to which he had devoted himself in the interests of missionary formation, he had to endure various adversities, especially on account of the great work Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, written in Nahuatl and translated, or rather paraphrased, into Spanish.
It consists of twelve books concerning the pagan, sacred, and profane antiquities of pre-Cortesian Mexico, collected from the indigenous peoples and checked and assessed by the author through three successive redactions. It is an extremely valuable work, today highly esteemed by ethnologists, both for its content, since it is the best source for Mexican antiquities, and for the method used in collecting 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 more recently in 5 vols. in 8°, ibid. 1938, which is the best edition, although it does not fully meet the stringent requirements 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 The Nahuatl text is still unpublished.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 several 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 sections 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 a summary in 1570 to St Pius V: Breve compendio de los ritos idolátricos de Nueva España, published 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 delivered by the first missionaries to the indigenous peoples, published, insofar as it has been preserved, 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, including a life of St Bernardino da Siena in Nahuatl, were lost.