[INTRODUCTION]
Juan Bautista Román was chief administrator of the Royal Treasury in the Philippines and was sent to Macao in 1584 to secure the release of a Spanish ship on course to Acapulco, which, following a rebellion inboard among the crew, sought refuge in the Portuguese settlement. The situation was resolved by force and the main culprits summararily executed. Meanwhile Bautista Román seems to have approved a trip to the Cidade do [Santo] Nome de Deus (City of the [Holy] Name of God) in an attempt to obtain authorisation from the mandarins in Guangdong· to establish a Spanish trading centre on the Chinese coast. The project was unsuccessful so he left Macao at the end of that year.
However during his stay in the Portuguese settlement, he had the opportunity to exchange correspondence with Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit Father who just a year earlier had settle himself in Zhaoqing, in the interior of Guangdong province, endeavouring, at the same time, to obtain information on the Middle Kingdom. In this way he was able to prepare an extensive account on Chinese affairs which he then sent to Spain, telling of the immense wealth in that Empire and encouraging King Felipe II of Spain (Filipe I of Portugal) [°1527-r.1554(S)/r.1580(P)-t 1598] to undertake his conquest, which seemed like a highly feasible enterprise. The royal administrator's account even included a copy of a letter sent from China to Macao by Matteo Ricci.
Bautista Román's Relación [...] (Report [...]), which appears below, has never been translated into Portuguese.
Portulano chart. **
LÁZAROLUÍS.
1563.
Arquivo da Câmara de Lisboa (Archives of the Lisbon Municipality), Lisbon.
In: MARQUES. Alfredo Pinheiro. A Cartografia Portuguesa do Japão (séculos XVI-XVII), Lisboa, Fundação Oriente-Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses-Imprensa Naconal-Casa da Moeda,1996, p.125.
* MS., Macao, 1584.
**South tow ards the upper part of the page (Timor, Boceiraom, Java)and North towards the lower part of the page(Japão).
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