ALVAREZ, FRANCIS, a Portuguese priest, and
almoner to Emanuel, king of Portugal, flourished
about the beginning of the 16th century. He was
sent ambassador from Portugal to David prince of A-
byssinia; and after a residence of six years in that coun-
try, returned with letters of friendship from David to
Juan, who had succeeded Emanuel, and of submission to
Pope Clement VII. At Bologna, in the year 1523,
he gave a narrative of his expedition to the pope, in
the presence of the emperor Charles V. In the year
1540, he published the relation of his journey in one
volume folio, in the Portuguese language. He gives
a plain and accurate description of this empire; and
we are indebted to him for the first of the kind that
ever published. This work was translated into Latin,
under the title of De Fide, Regione, Moribus Ethiopum,
by Damien Goez, a Portuguese gentleman; and it
has often been reprinted and translated into other
languages. The information of Alvarez is not, how-
ever, to be received with implicit credit, because he
does not always speak from his own observation, and
he frequently exaggerates. (Diff. Hist.)