MEXICO CITY.- The president of the National Counsel for Arts and Culture (CONACULTA), Rafael Tovar y de Teresa, expressed this past Sunday, November 10th through his twitter account his sorrow at the news that his brother Guillermo Tovar (historian and chronicler) had passed away. “I share with my family the pain of my brother Guillermo’s (chronicler of Mexico City) passing. May he rest in peace.”
The family of Guillermo Tovar informed that his death was caused by internal hemorrhage. His body was mourned on Monday, November 11th in the French Cemetery.

Guillermo Tovar y de Teresa (Mexico City, August 23, 1956 – November 10, 2013) grew up surrounded by books in his home located in Jalapa Street, number 78 of the compound Roma.

From an early age, Guillermo Tovar gained access to texts relating the life of people that had been important to his country’s culture, such as Lucas Alaman, Vicente Riva Palacio and Justo Sierra.

This inclination for reading and history lead him to lament the loss of this enriching tangible and intangible material, particularly in the Mexican culture composed of a Pre-Hispanic, colonial and modern legacy.

In 1967, historian Jorge Gurria Lacroix invited Guillermo Tovar to collaborate in the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), besides countless transcendental researchers such as Antonio Pompa y Pompa, Xavier Moyssen Echeverria and Constantino Reyes Valerio, who appreciated at once his erudition and knowledge.

This is how his life as a chronicler and historian started in Mexico City; from his labor here he was able to finish his book: The City of Palaces.