Physician to Philip II of Spain, Hernández travelled to Mexico by order of the king, and studied the natural history of the region from 1570-77. His Works, which filled six folio volumes of text and 10 volumes of paintings of animals and plants, were deposited in the library of the Escorial, and in Mexico City, but never published in Hernández’s lifetime. Many of them were lost. A manuscript of this summary in Latin, edited for the king by N. A. de Recchi, found its way to Mexico where it was revised, augmented, translated into Spanish-Aztec, and published by Francisco Ximénez, a friar and nurse at the Convent of San Domingo de Mexico. It was the second printed work on the natural history, plants, and botanic medicines of Mexico issued in the New World. See Nos. 1819.1 & 1821.1. Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link. Selections from Hernández's works were published as The Mexican Treasury. The Writings of Dr. Francisco Hernández. Edited by Simon Varey. Translated by Rafael Chabran, Cynthia L. Chamberlin and Simon Varey (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).