Don Hernando Franco

Prof. Robert Stevenson in his ‘Music in Aztec and Inca Territory’ suggests that the composer of the two Nauhatl pieces in the Valdes Codex was a cacique noble, possibly trained in the Tlatelolco college for noble Indigenous youth and who adopted the name of the Chapelmaster of Mexico City Cathedral out of admiration; insisting that a mere chapelmaster would not be allowed to use the honorific “Don”. Hernando Franco was Chapelmaster 1575-1585.