Juan Núñez de la Peña (May 1641 – January 3, 1721) was a Spanish historian. Born in

San Cristóbal de La Laguna San Cristóbal de La Laguna (commonly known as La Laguna, ) is a city and municipality in the northern part of the island of Tenerife in the Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, on the Canary Islands, Spain. The former capital of the Canary Islan ...

, he studied

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

and the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including Philosophy, certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term "humanities" referred to the study of classical literature a ...

in the college of San Agustín de La Laguna and was subsequently ordained priest. He worked in Toledo as a notary before returning to the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...

. There he began to compile and preserve for posterity municipal, notarial, and ecclesiastic documents that allowed him to write a history of the islands, called ''Conquista y antigüedades de las islas de la Gran Canaria y su descripción, con muchas advertencias de sus privilegios, conquistadores, pobladores y otras particularidades en la muy poderosa isla de Tenerife, dirigido a la milagrosa imagen de Nuestra Señora de Candelaria''. This work was published in 1676, with a second edition with corrections published three years later. In it, he examined the

Guanche people The Guanche were the indigenous inhabitants of the Spanish Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean some to the west of modern Morocco and the North African coast. The islanders spoke the Guanche language, which is believed to have been r ...

as well as the genealogies of the European families on the islands. For his work he was honored with a pension of 200 pesos and with the title of ''cronista general de los reinos de Castilla y León'' ("General Chronicler of the Kingdoms of

Castile and León Castile and León is an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in northwestern Spain. Castile and León is the largest autonomous community in Spain by area, covering 94,222 km2. It is, however, sparsely populated, with a pop ...

"). Although the first standard history his work was criticized by his successor as historian of the Canary Islands, the botanist priest José de Viera y Clavijo in his own history (1783).Benita Sampedro, Simon R. Doubleday ''Border Interrogations: Questioning Spanish Frontiers'' 2008 -Page 184 "Viera is referring here to his most distinguished predecessor among historians of the Islands, Don Juan Núñez de la Peña, who "unfortunately was one of those men lacking in sufficient instruction, without style, nor critique, nor any of the other ...... Núñez de La Peña's work is his Conquista, y Antigüedades de las islas de la Gran Canaria y su descripción (Madrid, ..."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nunez De La Pena, Juan People from San Cristóbal de La Laguna 17th-century Spanish historians Spanish genealogists 1641 births 1721 deaths