Valeriano says that "my hands are trembling, my eyes are clouded, and my ears closed" (manus namque vacillant, oculi calignant, et aures occlusae) and signing as "Your most loving, but unworthy, Antonius Valerianus" Tui amantissimus etsi indignus.

[5] Though not noble himself, Valeriano was of Nahua origin and was connected to the previous royal dynasty through marrying a daughter of the tlatoani and governor Diego de Alvarado Huanitzin.

[5][6] As judge-governor, Valeriano operated between two worlds;[7] he spoke both Spanish and Nahuatl and served as both a preserver and destroyer of the pre-colonial culture.

[9] The question of Valeriano's authorship of the Nahuatl text known as Nican Mopohua has become a point of contention in the long-running dispute over the historicity of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary (under the title Our Lady of Guadalupe) to Juan Diego in 1531.

The Nican Mopohua was published in 1649 by Luis Laso de la Vega as part of a composite text known from its opening words as the Huei tlamahuiçoltica, and de la Vega's claims of authorship in the preface to that work notwithstanding, the Nican Mopohua has long been attributed to Valeriano.