Bernardino de Sahagún

Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590) was a Franciscan missionary to the Aztec (Nahua) people of Mexico.

Unlike most missionaries of the period, he researched Nahua culture and Nahuatl linguistics and compiled an unparalleled work in Spanish and Nahuatl, The General History of the Things of New Spain, which is known in manuscript as the Florentine Codex. Much of what we know about the Aztec people comes from Sahagun. His work was and is variously assessed, although modern scholars have other grounds for criticism than did his contemporaries.