HERRERA y TORDESILLAS, ANTONIO de. - Spanish historian, b. at Cuéllar in 1549, d. at Madrid on 29 March 1625. He served in Italy under Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, and after the latter’s death was appointed historiographer of the Indies by Philip II.
In his Décades or Historia general de los Castellanos en las islas y tierra firme del Mar Océano (Madrid 1601–15) he described, in humanistic style, the geographical discoveries from Columbus to 1554. Despite the drawbacks of an analytical method and his apologetic aims toward the Spanish government, the work merits recognition for having established the historiographical line on the enterprises of Columbus and other navigators. He also wrote Historia de...Maria Estuarda (ibid. 1589), Historia de Portugal y conquista de las Islas de los Azores (ibid. 1591), and 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, pp. 83 ff.; E. Fueter, Storia della storiografia moderna, I, Naples 1944, pp. 361–63.