Pedro de Valencia (humanist)

Anonymous portrait from the early 17th century, now in the Instituto Valencia de Don Juan

Pedro de Valencia (17 November 1555 – 10 April 1620) was a Spanish humanist, biblical scholar, chronicler and literary critic.

A royal chronicler from 1607, he produced reports attacking the authenticity of the Lead Books of Granada and criticizing the conduct of witch trials. In philosophy, he was a proponent of Neo-Stoicism. In theology, he was an ally of Benito Arias Montano and defended his Biblia Regia, especially its Latin translation of the Targumim, the Paraphrasis chaldaica. He argued against the expulsion of the Moriscos. He was a friend of Luis de Góngora and the first to write criticism of his poetry.