LOPEZ de GÓMARA, FRANCISCO. - Spanish writer, b. at Gómara in 1512, d. at Seville probably in 1572.
Chaplain to the conquistador Hernán Cortés, he wrote the Historia de las Indias y conquista de Méjico (Saragossa, 1552), in which he drew upon his experience of overseas lands, but gave excessive prominence to the figure of his patron, leaving that of the rank and file in the shadows, and attributed predominant interest to the conquest of Mexico. He is nevertheless an estimable writer for his ethnographic information, his criticism of sources, and his clear, and in anecdotes even picturesque, style.
His annalistic history of the deeds of Charles V was edited by R. B. Erriman under the title Annals of the emperor Charles V (London, 1912).
BIBL.: The Historia was published in Biblioteca de Autores españoles, vol. XXII; the part relating to Mexico by Y. Ramírez Cabanas, in 2 vols., Mexico, 1943. - Studies: E. Jos, F. L. de G., minutes biográficos, in Rev. occ., 18 (1927), p. 274 ff.; E. Fueter, Storia della storiografia moderna, I, Naples, 1944, pp. 358-61; II, ibid., 1944, p. 363. Constancio Egula