self-denial.[1] Hardly less pious and benevolent was
the third bishop, the Dominican Bartolomé de Ledesma, who ruled from 1581 to 1604, and left a distinguished name as a writer and patron of education.[2] When the first bishop took possession the diocese was exceedingly poor, with friars alone for ministers, but toward the close of Ledesma's rule there were forty well supplied parishes in charge of the secular clergy,[3] distributed among several hundred villages and four Spanish towns, the latter being Antequera, now quite a populous place, San Ildefonso, among the Zapotecs, Santiago de Nejapa, and Espiritu Santo, in Goazacoalco.[4]
One of the most favored dioceses was Puebla, which extended over Huexotzinco, Tlascala, Puebla, and Vera Cruz districts, with over a thousand native settlements, about two hundred of them designated as towns, and divided into more than eighty parishes, half in charge of convents, of which nineteen were Franciscan, twelve Dominican, nine Augustinian, and one Carmelite. The native tributaries numbered more than two hundred thousand, not counting Tlascala, whose people paid but a nominal tax. Of the Spanish towns Puebla had about five hundred settlers, and Vera Cruz three hundred, while a considerable num-
- ↑ He founded at his own expense the convent of Santa Catarina de Sena, at Antequera, and endowed it. The dedication took place in October 1577, with three Santa Clara nuns and seven novices, two being his nieces. Burgoa, Geog. Discrip., Oaj., i. 89-92. Here his remains were deposited, after having been buried in San Pablo convent. The cathedral also claims to hold the grave of this saintly man.
- ↑ He founded the college of San Bartolomé, with a rental of 2,000 pesos for 12 poor collegians, who must be natives of the province; and he established the first chair of moral theology in New Spain. To his native town of Salamanca he left several endowments for poor clergymen. He died in February 1604 and was buried in the cathedral. One of his books, De Septem Novæ Legis Sacramentis, was printed at Mexico in 1568. 'Probably the first book printed in roman letter in Mexico,' says Rich, who also refers to an edition of 1566. Several other works were lost while on the way to Spain to be printed. Concilios Prov., MS., No. 1; Gonzalez Dávila, Teatro Ecles., i. 227.
- ↑ 'Seran tambien ricos.' Mendieta, Hist. Ecles., 547.
- ↑ Burgoa, Geog. Descrip., Oaj., i. 64-80, ii. 410-11; Mex., Informes, in Pacheco and Cárdenas, Col. Doc., xv. 449-51; Dávila Padilla, Hist. Fvnd., 291-303; and books already quoted.
