LEON, PETER CIEGA DE, author of the History of Peru. He left Spain, his native country, at thirteen years of age, in order to proceed into America, where he resided seventeen years, and observed so many remarkable things, that he resolved to commit them to writing. His history was begun in 1541, and completed in 1550. He was at Lima, the capital of the kingdom of Peru, when he put the finishing stroke to the work, and was then thirty-two years of age. The first part was printed at Seville in 1553.