author
Pedro de Cieza de León
1518–1554
A soldier turned chronicler, he left one of the earliest and most vivid accounts of the Andes and the Spanish conquest of Peru. His writing is still valued for the care he took in describing places, peoples, and events he witnessed or investigated firsthand.
5 Audiobooks
Segunda parte de la crónica del Perú, que trata del señorio de los Incas Yupanquis y de sus grandes hechos y gobernacion
by Pedro de Cieza de León
The War of Chupas
by Pedro de Cieza de León
The travels of Pedro de Cieza de Léon; part 2
by Pedro de Cieza de León
The travels of Pedro de Cieza de Léon, A.D. 1532-50, contained in the first part of his Chronicle of Peru
by Pedro de Cieza de León
The War of Quito
by Pedro de Cieza de León
About the author
Born in Llerena, Spain, in either 1518 or around 1520, Pedro de Cieza de León traveled to the Americas while still very young and took part in Spanish campaigns in what are now Colombia and Peru. Over time he became known less for fighting than for observing, asking questions, and writing down what he learned about the lands and societies around him.
He is best remembered for Crónicas del Perú (Chronicle of Peru), a major work that drew on his travels and on conversations with local people and Spanish participants in the conquest. The first part was published in 1553 during his lifetime, and the larger project later became an important source for historians studying the Inca world, the conquest, and early colonial South America.
Cieza de León died in Seville in 1554, not long after publishing his best-known work. Even centuries later, readers return to him because his chronicles combine the viewpoint of a 16th-century Spaniard with an unusual effort to record geography, customs, and history in careful detail.