Exploring the Early Americas

The Jay I. Kislak Collection

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The Mexican-born Franciscan friar and artist Diego Valadés worked as a missionary among the Chichimecas in Zacatecas and Durango in Mexico.  As a device to facilitate the missionary work of priests and preachers, he wrote, and likely illustrated, the Rhetorica Christiana.  The illustrations added a visual element to help missionaries to understand Indian life in the New World.