Note 893 — Chapter III

Robertson was inclined to disparage Clavigero’s work, asserting that he could find little in him beyond what he took from Acosta and Herrera “except the improbable narratives and fanciful conjectures of Torquemada and Boturini.” Clavigero criticised Robertson, and the English historian in his later editions replied. Prescott points out (i. 70) that Clavigero only knew Sahagún through the medium of Torquemada and later writers. Bancroft (Nat. Races, v. 149; Mexico, i. 700) thinks that Clavigero “owes his reputation much more to his systematic arrangement and clear narration of traditions that had before been greatly confused, and to the omission of the most perplexing and contradictory points, than to deep research or new discoveries.”