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 tradition that the Virgin Mary (under the title Our Lady of Guadalupe) appeared to Juan Diego in 1531.
The Nican Mopohua was published in 1649 by Luis Lasso 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.