Francisco Cervantes de Salazar

Francisco Cervantes de Salazar (1514? – 1575) was a Spanish man of letters and rector of the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, founded in 1551.

He was born and raised in Toledo, Spain. He first attended Alejo Venegas’s Grammar School and then studied at the University of Salamanca. In 1539 he accompanied Licenciado Pedro Giron to the Low Countries where he met Juan Luis Vives. In 1546 he published a collection of three works, Apólogo de la ociosidad y el trabajo by Luis Mejia, Introducción y camino de la sabiuduría by J. L. Vives, and Diálogo de la dignidad del hombre by Pérez de Oliva, which Cervantes completed by adding almost two-thirds to the original draft by Oliva.

After spending the first part of his life in Spain, he went to Mexico around 1550, and lived there until his death. He had a successful academic career in the recently founded Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, and was appointed rector twice. He published a collection of Latin dialogues describing the city of Mexico in 1554 ^[1] and left unfinished a chronicle of the Mexican conquest (Crónica de la Nueva España, about 1560), which remained unpublished until 1914.^[2] Recently, it has been suggested that he may be the author of the first picaresque novel, La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes (1554).

• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (1546). Works that Francisco Cervantes de Salazar has done, glossed, and translated . Francisco Cerdá y Rico (ed.).
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (1560). Imperial Tomb of the Great City of Mexico . Antonio de Espinosa.
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (1575). Chronicle of New Spain, its description, its quality and temperament, the property and nature of the Indians .
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (1875). Mexico in 1554. Three Latin dialogues that Francisco Cervantes de Salazar wrote and printed in Mexico in that year . Joaquín García Icazbalceta (ed.). Mexico: Former Bookstore of Andrade and Morales.
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (1914). Chronicle of New Spain written by the doctor and teacher Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, Chronicler of Mexico City. Manuscript 2011 from the National Library of Madrid, lyrics from the mid-16th century . Papers of New Spain. Francisco del Paso y Troncoso (ed.). Madrid: Hauser and Menet.
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (1914). Chronicle of New Spain written by Dr. Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, Chronicler of the Imperial City of Mexico . Manuel Magallón (ed.). Madrid: The Hispanic Society of America.
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (1953). Life in the imperial and loyal city of Mexico in New Spain and the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico as described in the Dialogues for the study of the Latin language prepared by Francisco Cervantes de Salazar for use in his classes and printed in 1554 by Juan Pablos . Carlos Eduardo Castañeda (ed.), Minnie Lee Barret Shepard (trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press.
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (1963). Mexico in 1554 and the Imperial Tomb . Know how many... Edmundo O'Gorman (ed.). Mexico: Porrúa.
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (1971). Chronicle of New Spain . Agustín Millares Carlo, Manuel Magallón (eds.). Madrid: Atlas Editions.
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (1985). Chronicle of New Spain . Porrúa Library. Juan Miralles Ostos (ed.). Mexico: Porrúa.
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (1993). Mexico in 1554. University Student Library. Mexico: National Autonomous University of Mexico. ISBN 978-968-36-3043-8
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (2001). Mexico in 1554. Three Latin dialogues by Cervantes de Salazar . National Autonomous University of Mexico. ISBN 978-968-36-9613-7
• Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco (2008). Chronicle of New Spain . Barcelona: Linkgua Editions. ISBN 978-84-9897-316-7

• Catholic Encyclopedia article