VILLAGUTIERREZ y SOTOMAYOR, Juan de (veel-yah-goo-te-air'-reth), Spanish soldier, lived in the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries. Very little is known about his life except that he participated in 1697 as an officer in the expedition that, under General Melchor de Mencos marched from Guatemala against the province of Peten, and conquered the capital of the Itzas, on an island of the Lake of Peten. Villagutierrez wrote a history of this expedition, under the title of "Historia de la Conquista de la Provincia del Itza" (Madrid, 1701), which is valuable, and relates the interesting fact that in one of the temples were found the bones of Cortes's war-horse, which was left sick in the custody of one of the caciques, and after its death was worshipped by the natives. They also sculptured a colossal statue of the animal, which is still to be seen, partly submerged in the lake.