FERNANDEZ, DIEGO, a Spanish adventurer and historian of the 16th century. He was originally educated for the church, but about 1545 he embarked for Peru, where he served in the royal army under Alonzo de Alvarado. Mendosa, marquis of Caliete, who succeeded Alvarado as viceroy, bestowed on Fernandez the office of chronicler of Peru ; and in this capacity he wrote a narrative of the insurrection of Giron, of the rebellion of Gonzalo Pizarro, and of the administration of Gases. The whole work, under the title Hlistoria del Peru, was published at Seville in 1571. It is written in a clear and intelligible style, and with more art than is usual in the compositions of the time, It gives copious details, and, as he had access to the correspondence and official documents of the royalist leaders, it is, although necessarily possessing a royalist bias, the fullest and most authentic record existing of the events it relates. A notice of the work will be found in Prescott's _History of the Conquest of Peru.