Juan Díaz de Arce, biography of a chronicler

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the life of Juan Díaz de Arce, religious and professor at the Royal University of Mexico, who lived during the first half of the 17th century. Through his work, Libro de la Vida del Próximo Evangélico el Venerable Padre Bernardino Álvarez, Díaz de Arce spread knowledge of the religious hospital work in New Spain narrated by the Brothers of Charity as its protagonists. Díaz de Arce’s text is considered thus a key primary source for the study of the history of hospitals and places the author as a chronicler of the Hospital Orders in Mexico.