CLAVI'GERO, FRANCESCO SAVERIO, was born at Vera Cruz, in Mexico, about 1720. He entered the order of Jesuits, and was sent as missionary among the Indiana in various parts of Mexico, where he says, in the preface to his work, ha spent thirty-six years, visiting the country in every direction, living at times entirely among the Indians, whose language he learned, collecting their traditions, and examining the historical paintings, manuscripts, and monuments relative to the ancient history of the aboriginal tribes, with the view of writing a correct account of Mexico; since he had found, ou reading the Spanish authors who had preceded him, that their works were disfigured by many errors and misrepresentations. After the Jesuits were suppressed by Spain in 1767, Clavigero left Mexico for Italy, where the pope granted to the expelled fathera an asylum in the States of the Church. Clavigero, and others of his brethren from Spanish America, had the town of Cessna assigned to them as their residence ; a circumstance which gave Clavigero a good opportunity of comparing his own information with that collected by his brother missionaries in various provincea of Spanish America. He now set about writing his History of Mexico,' which he published in Italian, Storia entice del 3fessico cavata dai migliori Storici Spagnuoli, e dai 3fanoscritti dalli Pitture antiche degl' Indiani,' 4 vols. 4to, Ceseua, 1780.1, with maps and plates, which he dedicated to the learned Celli. In the first
volume, after a long and critical list of all the Spanish writers on Mexico, the author gives an account of the countries constituting that empire ; of their natural history, of their early inhabitants, their various migrations, and of the establishment of the dominion of the Aztecs, and concludes with a sketch of the political state of Om country when Corte* landed on its shores in 1521. The second volume treats of the manners, customs, arta, sciences, and language of the people. The third, which contains the account of the conquest by Cortex, is written with great impartiality. The author feels as MeIIC112 rather than a Spaniard. The fourth volume consists of dissertations on the physical and moral constitution of the museient Mexicana, on their pin the arts and sciences, ou their religion, on proper of the empire of Anahuac ; and lastly, the author gives a list of works written in the various native languages since the conquest, either by Spaniards or native*. In these disserta tions Clevigero has at times shown more Industry and honest zeal than critical discrimination; his work however is, upon the whole, the best that has been written on ancient Mexico. It was translated into English by C. Cullen : 'The History of Mexico,' 2 yolk 4to, London, 1787. Clavigero died at Cesena in October 1793.