Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Viana, Francisco

VIANA, Francisco de (ve-ah'-nah), Spanish mis- sionary, b. in the province of Alava about 1530 ; d. in Coban, Guatemala, in 1609. He entered the Domini- can order at Salamanca, and about 1560 went to New Spain, where he was attached to the missions of the province of Chiapa. For more than forty years he labored among the natives of the sur- rounding district, whose language he acquired, and became superior of the convent of Coban, rebuild- ing that and the one at Zacapula. He left some valuable manuscripts, which were preserved in the library of the order at Chiapa. The principal are " Arte de la Lengua de Vera Paz," " Vocabulario de la Lengua de Vera Paz," numerous religious works, sermons, and a catechism in that language, and a "Tratado de los deberes de la Justicia, para gobierno de Alcaldes mayores de Indias," all of which were translated into Quiche by Friar Dionisio Zuniga, of the province of Guatemala.