HERRERA y TORDESILLAS, ANTONIO de. - Spanish historian, b. at Cuéllar in 1549, d. at Madrid on 29 March 1625. He was in Italy in the service of Vespasiano Gonzaga, duke of Mantua, after whose death he was appointed historiographer of the Indies by Philip II.
In the Décades or Historia general de los Castellanos en las islas y tierra firme del Mar Océano (Madrid 1601-15) he described, with humanistic propriety, the geographical discoveries from Columbus to 1554. Despite the drawbacks of the annalistic method and the apologetic intentions with regard to the Spanish government, the work has the merit of having established the historiographical line of the enterprises of Columbus and the other navigators. He also wrote the Historia de...Maria Estuarda (ibid. 1589), the Historia de Portugal y conquista de las Islas de los Azores (ibid. 1591), and the Historia general del mundo en tiempo del rey d. Felipe II el Prudente de 1557 a 1598 (ibid. 1601-1602).
HERRERA Y TORDESILLAS, ANTONIO DE
BIBL.: W. H. Prescott, History of the conquest of Mexico..., VI, Philadelphia 1874, ch. 8; H. R. Wagner, The spanish South-West, Albuquerque 1937, p. 83 ff.; E. Fueter, Storia della storiografia moderna, I, Naples 1944, pp. 361-63.
Cite this article
“HERRERA Y TORDESILLAS, ANTONIO DE.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI (1951), p. 835. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/herrera-y-tordesillas-antonio-de.