§ 1. INTRODUCTION
FOR a European missionary to travel to China in the great days of the Jesuit missions was no light matter. 1 In theory, if all went well, the major stages of the journey - the voyage from Lisbon to Goa, the long sojourn in India awaiting the next sailing season to China, and the voyage from Goa to Macao - together, lasted about eighteen months. 2 However, getting to Lisbon from whatever European City the missionary started from, possible delays in securing a passage, accidents en route, and stopovers at intermediate ports-of-call, could all add years to the time taken. This meant that the actual duration of the journey could never be projected with confidence, while many who started out never finished. Between 1581 and 1712, two-hundred-and-forty-nine Jesuits reached China from Europe, but no fewer than one-hundred-and-twenty-seven others died on the way -- a mortality rate of approximately one in three. 3 Nor was it uncommon for Jesuits who embarked for the China mission to be diverted during the course of the voyage, either temporarily or permanently, to other tasks in other regions, so further reducing the number that actually reached the mission. A good example is the party of twenty-two Jesuits recruited especially for service in China by Fr. Nicolas Trigault in 1617-1718, of whom only eight eventually reached China. 4 Behind such stark facts there clearly lies an intensely human story --a story of long spells of tedium punctuated by sudden bursts of excitement and danger, a story of alternating joy and sadness, and above all a story of remarkable endurance and determination. This article seeks to unveil a little of that story by examining, in some detail, what three of the missionary voyagers who set out for the Far East in the early seventeenth century, recorded about their experiences.
Jesuits who sailed to the mission fields of Asia were as a matter of course instructed to write accounts of their journeys out and send them back to Europe. 5 It is clear from the inventories compiled by Frs. Georg Schurhammer and Josef Wicki that a considerable number of such accounts were in fact written, and that many have survived -- though they appear to be far more common for the Lisbon-Goa stage of the journey than the Goa-Macao stage. 6 The travel narratives considered here were written by three members of a contingent of forty-two Jesuit priests, Brothers and novices who left Lisbon for China on the fleet of 1629. One of these three -- Fr. Dominique Le Jeunehomme -- died in India, but the other two eventually reached China safely and both laboured in the mission there for many years. They were Frs. Agostino Tudeschini and Tranquillo Grassetti.
The Lisbon-Goa fleet of 1629 was a relatively large one by the standards of the carreira da India at that time, consisting of nine ships, three of which were naus and six galleons. The captainmajor was the Viceroy Count of Linhares, and his Vice-Admiral Dom Francisco de Melo de Castro, a one-eyed fidalgo of considerable prestige and experience. The outline of the voyage itself can be traced very briefly. 7All the ships left Lisbon together on the 3rd of April and, apart from a brief ten day call at Mozambique Island, sailed non-stop to Goa, which the naus and four of the six galleons eventually reached at various dates, between the 24th of September and the 22nd of October 1629, after journeys of about seven or eight months each. The voyage followed closely the traditional route through both Oceans, and was completed in only a little more than average time for that era. During its course the fleet experienced a succession of crises involving much loss of life, including a devastating outbreak of scurvy and the destruction of two of the galleons, one foundering in rough seas approaching the Cape and the second running aground in the Mozambique Channel. Le Jeunehomme and Tudeschini were aboard this second galleon.
§2. LE JEUNEHOMME
THE author of the first narrative, Fr. Dominique Jeunehomme, was a French Walloon born in St.-Nicolas-de-Port, a town near Nancy, in Lorraine, not far from the Franco-German border. We know little of his earlier life, which he seems to have spent exclusively in Northern France. 8 He entered the novitiate at Rouen, in 1613, and served as a professor of Grammar, Humanities and Rhetoric at the College in Rennes, before being recruited for the China mission. 9Sometime in late 1626 he set out on his long journey to Macao, starting from a place called La Flesche, from where he proceeded on foot to Paris. In Paris he secured some modest funding for his journey -- two-hundred francs from the French Province of the Society of Jesus and twenty écus from a private sponsor, a Monsignor de la Rochefoucault. 10He then took a coach across France to Marseilles. His route was more or less direct, passing through Troyes, Chalon-sur-Saône, Dijon and Lyons, and then down the Rhône Valley to Avignon. He was joined on the way by two other travellers one of whom was Fr. Étienne Le Fevre, also a Macao-bound Jesuit, who was later to become well-known for his work in China. 11
As far as Marseilles the journey proceeded smoothly, but from that point on they began to experience difficulties and frustrations. The party's original intention had been to take ship direct from Marseilles to Lisbon. Twice they embarked for this voyage, but each time their ship was driven back into port by contrary winds, and they eventually spent an entire month in Marseilles. Shortly after the second abortive sailing, seven Italian Jesuits, who were also bound for the Eastern missions, arrived in Marseilles from Genoa. The two groups then combined, and quickly decided to travel to Lisbon on foot -- a decision taken primarily, according to Le Jeunehomme, to accommodate the Italians who had already spent most of their travel money, and could not afford sea passages. 12
Their initial route lay along the coast road from Marseilles to the fortress town of Perpignan, and this they duly travelled, passing successively through Arles, Aigues Mortes, Montpellier, Narbonne, and Leucate, so traversing some of the most scenic country of Southern France. They received good welcomes at most of these places and stayed wherever possible with the local Jesuits. But the going was not easy; it was cold, there was much ice on the ground and sometimes dogs threatened them. Beyond Perpignan lay the Pyrenees, but these they crossed on about the 20th of December 1626, without encountering rain or snow and by Christmas Eve they were in Barcelona. 13
For the stretch from Barcelona to Madrid they hired a dozen mules and completed it in seventeen days. On most nights they were obliged to resort to inns, but these at least provided them with a place to sleep and usually also bread and wine. They passed through Montserrat, marvelling at its rich Benedictine Monastery and magnificent Church. All this region had strong associations with St. Ignatius Loyola, and Le Jeunehomme regretted they could not turn aside to visit Manresa. This was the only stage of their journey when the weather turned foul and there was much stumbling and falling about on the rough tracks in consequence. Once, they were confronted by a couple of bandits who demanded charity at arquebus point. Then, in the mountains of Aragon, they lost their way, ending up on a narrow path above steep ravines, but by chance came across two boys collecting firewood, who led them to safety. Some in the party convinced themselves these boys were really angels; Le Jeunehomme inclined to the view they were not, although they were certainly guided by angels. 14 Adverting to more worldly matters, the most trying aspect of travel in Spain -- or so Le Jeunehomme thought -- was the repeated imposition of customs duties, which were payable on goods, mules, and even cash. Payments were required on entering and leaving each Principality and at numerous Towns, bridges and river crossings, and any protest would inevitably result in long delays. 15
Lérida was reached on the 1st of January 1627 and then the Aragonese capital of Saragossa, where they spent two days. Next were Calatayud, Alcalá and finally Madrid. The Castilian capital was a Town of mainly brick houses, and possessed an excellent public plaza surrounded by galleries, from which one could watch the bullfights. But its Jesuit College did not much impress Le Jeunehomme, and since it charged a tostão per head each day, they stayed as briefly as possible. From Madrid they journeyed West to Oropesa, where they were again well-received at the local Jesuit College, but it is unclear what route they took next. Almost certainly they crossed the border into Portugal further South - probably from Badajoz [in Spain] to Elvas [in Portugal] - for the next town mentioned in Le Jeunehomme's narrative is Évora, in the Alto Alentejo. Here he found the Jesuit College, which had been built by Prince Henrique [Henri, the Navigator], extremely impressive, its beautiful Church set in fine gardens with orange, lemon and citron trees. The Cathedral seemed very opulent, its canons richer than many Bishops. 16 From here the party which by now had swelled to twenty hurried on, and on the 31st of January 1627, only twelve days after leaving Madrid, finally entered Lisbon.
If Lisbon was the final goal of Le Jeunehomme's European journey, then it clearly did not disappoint him. After Paris, he thought it the largest, most populous and richest City of Christendom and the Jesuit Church of St. Roch was "more beautiful than all those of the Society I have seen in Spain".17However, Le Jeunehomme's party was too large to remain for more than a few days at the Jesuit College in Lisbon and it was therefore soon split into two groups. One of these went to the Jesuits in Coimbra, and the other to Évora, where they were to await the departure of the India fleet, expected in late March or April 1627. However, a new obstacle had by now arisen. In January, Portugal had suffered very heavy shipping losses in a ferocious Atlantic storm and could only provide one nau and a pinnace for the voyage to Goa that year. 18 There was therefore not the capacity available to carry the large number of Jesuits wanting to sail and although the King had originally authorised thirty-four places for them, only eight could be provided. Le Jeunehomme, who had been among those sent to Coimbra, returned to Lisbon early in March to learn there was no place available for him and he would therefore have to wait in Portugal until the 1628 season.
Le Jeunehomme now faced the problem of what to do for the next twelve months. At Coimbra, he had been filling in his time teaching, preaching and studying, and these activities could doubtless be continued. He thought he might do some translating into Latin and also take the opportunity to integrate himself more thoroughly into Portuguese ways -- already he had adopted a Portuguese name, Domingo de São Nicolao, based on his place of birth. 19 However, a delay of twelve months also had worrying financial implications and these were not so easy to deal with. In March 1627 there were fifteen Jesuits at the House in Coimbra waiting for a passage to Goa and they had already spent onethousand écus between them. Now they would have additional living costs in Portugal to pay, as well as facing the costs of the voyage itself. For the latter they would need two sets of clothes each, one for the torrid zone and one for the cold regions, not to mention bedding, books, portable altars, food and medicines. They would have to pay for their sleeping spaces on the ship, and for use of the poop gallery. The total cost for fifteen people would amount to about five-thousand écus, but only four-hundred écus had been provided by the Crown. 20 Where would the rest come from?
Le Jeunehomme himself gives no answer to this question, though it is clear that he thought more sponsorship should be sought. So, back in Coimbra, in May 1627, he wrote to Cardinal de Sourdis, Archbishop of Bordeaux, requesting support for the missionaries and promising in return to send the Cardinal written reports about everything curious and unusual he encountered on his voyage. "We have been shipwrecked on land", he told de Sourdis, referring to their long, forced delay -- an ironical metaphor, in view of the real shipwreck he would later suffer. 21 The letter to Cardinal de Sourdis --the outcome of which remains unknown -- is our last direct word from Le Jeunehomme and the rest of his story can only be picked up fragmentarily from the narrative of his travelling companion, Fr. Tudeschini. From him we learn that Le Jeunehomme, after a year's walt, sailed with the India fleet of 1628, only to find himself back in Lisbon four months later, because the fleet had been forced to abort its voyage off the coast of Pernambuco. It was not until his third attempt, in 1629, that Le Jeunehomme successfully secured a passage for India, this time aboard the galleon Santiago, never to return.
The ill-fated voyage of the Santiago and its final wreck in the Mozambique Channel are recounted in detail by Tudeschini, and will be described later. Sufficient to say here that Le Jeunehomme was eventually rescued, together with Tudeschini and most of the ship's company, and brought to the Portuguese settlement at Mozambique. There he duly found refuge and a warm welcome at Mozambique's modest Jesuit House. After recovering from their ordeal, Le Jeunehomme and Tudeschini were asked to help the local Jesuits with preaching and hearing confessions, to which they naturally agreed. Probably Le Jeunehomme expected to stay just a few months before sailing on to India at the start of the new season and then to Macao and China. However, this was not to be; and it was at this point that his personal story diverges again from that of his companion. The reason was a sudden and unexpected development concerning the island of Madagascar.
The Portuguese had known of Madagascar from as early as 1500 when Diogo Dias, one of [Pedro Álvares] Cabral's captains, had coasted much of its shoreline. In the one-hundred-and-thirty years since that voyage official Portuguese interest in the island had been at most sporadic, Madagascar being too marginal to Portugal's vast interests in the Indian Ocean to warrant much attention. On the other hand, unofficial contacts had developed steadily, for coastal Madagascar was a useful source of rice and other supplies for the Portuguese settlements in East Africa and an increasingly important exporter of slaves. By the early seventeenth century Portuguese traders and adventurers were a familiar presence in Madagascar, especially on its Northwest and Eastern coasts. Where Portuguese traders ventured, Portuguese missionaries were usually not far behind. The Dominicans and then the Jesuits, had already tried to introduce Christian missions into Madagascar, though neither with much success. 22
Quite fortuitously, an opportunity to renew these efforts became apparent just as Le Jeunehomme was settling down into his new surroundings at the Jesuit House in Mozambique. The chance arose, rather improbably, from a kidnapping incident. 23 Shortly before the rescue of the shipwreck survivors, some Portuguese traders had seized two wives of an important Malagasy ruler, the Tingimaro of Sada, who was reputedly the wealthiest and most powerful King in Northwest Madagascar at that time. 24These women were carried off to Mozambique where they were baptised, and one of them bore a son to her Portuguese captor. Not surprisingly, the Tingimaro was greatly angered by this provocation. At first he resolved to cut off all commerce with the Portuguese and kill any of their traders who set foot in his territory. However, a Portuguese at his Court, who had long served as his personal bodyguard, was able to convince him that a better strategy would be to send an Embassy to Dom Nuno Álvares Pereira, the then Portuguese captain at Sofala, to request the women's return. On the bodyguard's suggestion, the Ambassador was instructed to promise Pereira that if the women were returned to Sada they would be permitted to live there freely as Christians and could bring a priest back with them. When he received this proposal, Pereira convened his Council to consider an appropriate response. The Council decided that the opportunity to establish a formal Church presence in one of the most important of the Malagasy Kingdoms was too good to miss and it therefore recommended that the Tingimaro's terms be accepted. Accordingly, the Jesuits were requested to provide a priest and it then became necessary to designate who should go. Short of personnel, as was so often the case, the Rector of the Mozambique College took advantage of the providential presence of the survivors from the shipwrecked Santiago and nominated Le Jeunehomme.
In all likelihood, the mission with which he now found himself entrusted was accepted by Le Jeunehomme with considerable misgivings. He was being asked at very short notice to establish singlehandedly a Church far from his ultimate destination, in a remote island about which he knew precious little, the language of whose people he could not speak and whose ruler was considered highly unpredictable. A visit to the area a little over a decade before by another Jesuit, Fr. Luís Mariano, had failed to lay any foundations on which a Christian community might now be constructed. 25 Nevertheless, with characteristic Jesuit fortitude, Le Jeunehomme accepted his difficult assignment and set sail for Madagascar. Landing on the coast of Sada and bringing with him the two women whose spiritual welfare was the ostensible justification for his presence, he duly made his way to the Tingimaro's capital, Ankoala, located on a river several kilometres inland. At Ankoala the mission made an encouraging start. Le Jeunehomme was well-received by the Tingimaro, was allowed to select an excellent site for his Church on a prominent hill, and was promised every assistance in building it. However, it was clear from the beginning that the progress of Christianity in the Kingdom depended almost entirely on the favour of the Tingimaro, whose conversion was therefore an urgent priority. Unfortunately for the mission, the Tingimaro was by now very elderly and soon after welcoming Le Jeunehomme, he fell seriously ill. It soon became obvious that his sickness was terminal, but all Le Jeunehomme's efforts to get access to him as he lay dying were unsuccessful and a deathbed conversion could not be effected. This untimely death not only struck a major blow against the infant mission, it also put Le Jeunehomme in immediate peril of his own life, for it was then the custom in Madagascar for "familiars and friends" of a deceased ruler to be buried alive with him. 26 Le Jeunehomme decided his only sensible recourse was immediate flight, and this he effected in the first available vessel, a Muslim trading ship which took him, along with a group of Muslim merchants fleeing Sada for the same reason, to the Portuguese port of Dio, on the coast of Gujarat.
Le Jeunehomme's precipitate flight from Sada and particularly his failure to return to East Africa, is unlikely to have greatly pleased the Church authorities in Mozambique, whence the Administrator soon sent another Father to Madagascar to replace him. 27 But Le Jeunehomme himself was doubtless happy that God had apparently seen fit to set him once more on his way to China. Having reached India at Dio he travelled quickly South to the Portuguese settlement at Bassein, where he was welcomed and taken in by the local Jesuit College. Sadly, that was to prove as far as he would get. As so often seems to have happened with missionaries ostensibly passing through, he was ordered by the local Provincial to remain at the College, for the Bassein Jesuits had been decimated by sickness, and desperately needed reinforcements. Frustratingly, Le Jeunehomme found himself once again prevented from proceeding on to his destination. The level of work proved very demanding, it was a time of pestilence in Bassein and his own health soon deteriorated. He died at an unspecified date at the Bassein College, still only half way to China.
§3. TUDESCHINI
THE Genoese Agostino Tudeschini was born, in 1598, in the small Ligurian town of Sarzana. He had trained in both Canon and Civil Law, before entering the Society of Jesus at Rome, in 1622, and he was aged about thirty at the time of his embarkation for the Far East. 28 Tudeschini sailed aboard the galleon Santiago with Le Jeunehomme as his companion and he described his experiences aboard the ship in a letter written to the Jesuit General, in Rome, in November 1631, shortly after his arrival in China. His account is in Portuguese, and consists of a tightly packed seventeen page narrative, now in the Jesuit archives in Rome. 29
Tudeschini began his long journey to China, from Rome, in October 1626. He and two Italian colleagues proceeded first to Genoa, where they teamed up with four other Fathers. 30 They then took passage for Marseilles aboard a galley, but because of storms and contrary winds, this voyage took about a month. They had to pay an écu each per day while aboard, and as a result had almost exhausted their money when they reached France. At Marseilles they encountered the French group which included Le Jeunehomme, who wrote than when he first saw his Italian confrères they were "cold, haggard, thin and altogether miserable".31 The rest of their journey to Lisbon was made together and has already been described.
Following the missionaries' failure to secure places on the India-bound fleet in 1627, Tudeschini spent the next twelve months of waiting at the Jesuit College, at Coimbra, studying and preaching. Then, early in 1628, he journeyed back to Lisbon in order to join the new India fleet of Dom Francisco de Mascarenhas. He describes movingly the ceremonial farewell he and his companions were given at Coimbra -- a local tradition when missionaries left for the East. Fathers, Brothers, and students all accompanied the missionaries in procession to the City centre from where they crossed the Mondego [River] bridge and climbed the steps to the chapel of Our Lady of Good Hope. There the rector delivered prayers followed by a brief but moving oration, and the "customary embraces".32
Dom Francisco's fleet weighed anchor on the 20th of April, with Tudeschini safely aboard, but four months later was back again in Lisbon, having failed to get beyond the coast of Pernambuco. After this frustrating experience Tudeschini spent the rest of 1628 in the Jesuit College, at Évora, before departing yet again - and this time successfully - in the fleet of 1629. By then two-and-a-half precious years had already passed since he had left Rome.
Aboard the Santiago Tudeschini, along with Le Jeunehomme, was soon deeply involved in tending both the spiritual and temporal welfare of his fellow voyagers. There was a ship's company of four-hundred to minister to, and while these certainly included some "honourable and virtuous" men, many others were bitter and desperate, and often had criminal records, so that violence was never far below the surface. 33 Weather permitting, between them the two Jesuits said Mass daily and heard confessions. They placed great stress on giving comfort to the sick and dying, making themselves available twenty-four hours a day for this purpose. They also tried to lift the moral tone of the ship's company, making a special effort to combat swearing. This was first done through admonitions, then by imposing fines on older offenders and having younger ones beaten by one of the veteran soldiers. They intervened to adjudicate disputes, to cool tempers, and to calm and encourage the depressed and fearful. At critical times they worked almost literally till they dropped. The Santiago was so badly struck by scurvy during its passage through the Doldrums that at one stage only five men aboard remained fully fit. It was then that the stamina of the Jesuit Fathers was most sternly tested and Tudeschini and Le Jeunehomme did everything they possibly could to rise to the occasion. They went round the 'tween decks day and night, ministering to the sick and dying, often forced to get down on the floor amidst extreme filth and overpowering stench, to hear confessions. Tudeschini claims that despite both priests themselves being ill, they were able to ensure that none of the forty-one who died on the galleon during this period, died unconfessed. 34 However, this may not have been the pattern throughout the fleet, for Toral y Valdes, a military engineer who was travelling aboard the flagship Santissimo Sacramento, complained that so many men fell sick on this ship that the priests failed to attend them all and consequently many died unshriven. 35
It was a slow voyage and there were long periods with only light breezes or with contrary winds. However, two notable storms were encountered in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope. It was there that they also passed in sight of four Dutch East Indiamen, but apparently neither side wanted a confrontation and no action was joined. They sailed up the coast of Natal and into the Mozambique Channel with good winds behind them, and even hove within sight of the fort on Mozambique Island, but there their luck deserted them. First, they were hit by a sudden change of wind and for nine days were driven backward. Then at 10 pm on the 7th of September 1629, in perfectly calm weather, the Santiago struck a submerged reef, with a crash like thunder - a terrifying moment which would henceforth be imprinted indelibly on Tudeschini' s mind. 36
There was seemingly immediate and total panic and confusion after the ship struck - no order, no discipline, and every man for himself. In the absence of leadership from the Captain, who soon rowed ashore with most of the naval officers in the only ship's boat, the two Jesuits strove to restore a modicum of order. Using a mixture of practical and devotional measures, Tudeschini first persuaded the bosun and his mates to cut away the broken mast in order to lighten the ship and then sought to calm the seas by suspending Holy Relics in the water. Both Jesuits spent a tense and frantically busy night - Tudeschini at the prow trying to encourage efforts to save the ship and Le Jeunehomme, despite being sick with fever, on the poop hearing frantic confessions. Tudeschini also began to hear confessions as soon as he could and distributed crosses and other Holy Objects he had brought with him from Italy, to comfort the fearful. At dawn they discovered they were close to a low-lying island - in fact, João de Nova Island - and in one way or another people began to make their way ashore. However, for three days Tudeschini himself remained aboard; during which time he neither ate nor drank, becoming so exhausted that he could no longer speak. In the end he struggled to the island wearing only his shirt and drawers, his feet badly cut by the coral as he clambered to safety. Over sixty men lost their lives as a result of the wreck, the remainder having reached the island by a combination of swimming and wading or on rafts.
On João de Nova island the survivors were fortunate to find an abundance of food, for there were vast flocks of birds, teeming fish, numerous crabs, some huge turtles and both turtle and birds' eggs. Indeed, Tudeschini had to rebuke some of the survivors for their greed, for they were killing large ducks just to eat the livers. Eventually a man cooking a duck started a huge grass fire which could not be controlled, lasted for ten days and panicked many of the birds. During his forced stay on João de Nova Island, Tudeschini was faced with a frightening break-down of social control among the survivors and was himself almost murdered by a machete-wielding ship's carpenter, who bore a grudge against him. However, word of the plight of the Santiago's survivors eventually got through to Mozambique via those who escaped to the mainland in the ship's boat and a relief pinnace was despatched by the local Misericórdia. This finally brought Tudeschini and his companions back to terra ferma, on the 3rd of November 1629, almost two months after the wreck. 37
Tudeschini's arrival in Mozambique thus occurred under unexpected and stressful circumstances, but having to spend time at this lonely Portuguese outpost on the East African coast was nevertheless a very common experience among China-bound missionaries. Tudeschini and Le Jeunehomme were welcomed, fed and clothed at the local Jesuit House. Then, despite their desire to press on East as quickly as possible, they were persuaded by the Reitor to remain at Mozambique for the time-being so that they could help overcome an acute shortage of personnel. Le Jeunehomme agreed to preach and hear confessions, Tudeschini to teach Latin and Theology. 38 There Tudeschini remained for about six months, after which he was finally able to take ship to Goa.
As at Mozambique so at Goa the local Jesuit Provincial sought Tudeschini's services, requesting him to remain there a year. So, Tudeschini soon found himself fully engaged in familiar pastoral work, especially hearing confessions "for the greater part of the day and often of the night".39 Eventually, after seven months, he was able to persuade the Provincial that his instructions required him to press on to the China mission, and he succeeded in embarking on a galeota, bound for Macao. Once in Macao he moved quickly on to China, in November 1631, over five years since leaving Rome. He served successively in Shanghai, Changzhi, Xian and Fuzhou, and became known by the Chinese name of "Tou". After various adventures and much valuable service to the mission, death finally overtook him in 1643, at the comparatively youthful age of forty-five. Ironically, in view of his earlier escape from the wreck of the Santiago, he died by drowning. This tragedy occurred on a relatively short voyage from Fuzhou to Macao, during which his ship was attacked and set on fire by pirates. In an attempt to escape Tudeschini had jumped into the water, but he was unfortunately unable to swim and failed to reach land. Chinese Christians recovered his body and buried it on the shore near Fuzhou. 40
§4. GRASSETTI
FATHER Tranquillo Grassetti was born in the north Italian City of Modena, in 1588, and was therefore already aged forty-one when he sailed for the Far East aboard the nau Nossa Senhora de Bom Despacho, on the 3rd of April 1629. We know little about his earlier life, except that he entered the Jesuit Order at Novellara -- not far from his native City -- in 1617, subsequently taught Grammar for several years and was, by the time he left Europe, a fully ordained priest. 41 It is not clear why he was chosen to serve in distant East Asia for the first time at that relatively late stage of his life -- missionary priests usually went out to China or Japan when much younger. Originally Grassetti had been assigned to the Japan mission, but in the event he went instead to China.
Grassetti's account of his experiences on the voyage out is contained in a letter he wrote from the Jesuit College at Rachol, near Goa, dated the 19th of February 1630. 42 The letter was addressed to a Fr. Dionigio Grassetti, who was perhaps his uncle or brother. Tranquillo Grassetti was quite an acute observer and wrote vividly about the life he saw around him - on board ship and in India. However, his letter describes only what occurred from the time of his ship's departure from Portugal until about four months after his arrival in Goa. It tells us virtually nothing of what happened before he left Lisbon and nor, of course, does it describe what happened between Goa and Macao. Because of these limitations we do not even know for certain how he got to Portugal from Italy, although he was probably one of the party of seven Italian Jesuits who came over in 1626-1627, as referred to by both Tudeschini and Le Jeunehomme. 43
As indicated earlier, the Jesuit priests who sailed out on the fleet of 1629 were distributed two or three to a ship so that they could minister to the spiritual needs of the passengers and crews during the long voyage, as well as take responsibility for certain welfare tasks, such as handing out alms and medicines. Grassetti was assigned to the Bom Despacho where he was initially accompanied by two colleagues -- Fr. Sebastião Vieira and Fr. Étienne Le Fevre. Vieira was a veteran Portuguese missionary who had long worked in Japan, to which he was returning as the new Vice-Provincial; Le Fevre was a French Jesuit who initially was also bound for Japan, but, like Grassetti himself, he was diverted instead to China, where he subsequently spent many years. Also aboard the Bom Despacho were all the Jesuit Brothers and novices voyaging out that year -- sixteen of the former and seven of the latter -- who were travelling together as a group. They were accommodated on the ship's poop-deck, where they were closely supervised by Grassetti and the other two Fathers. 44
It is possible to reconstruct the successive stages of the voyage of the Bom Despacho with some precision, using Grassetti' snarrative. 45 Having left Lisbon on the 3rd of April [1629] the ship steered a Southerly course for about six weeks without encountering any serious difficulties. On the 12th of May she crossed the Equator safely, but was then becalmed for sixteen to eighteen days. During this period nearly everyone on board, from the Captain downwards, fell sick, and about twenty slaves died, although there were apparently no deaths among the Portuguese. Grassetti himself became ill on the 16th of June, and never fully recovered till the end of the voyage. The Cape of Good Hope was passed and actually sighted by Grassetti, on the 17th July 1629, in unusually calm weather, but after that the weather worsened. They entered the Mozambique Channel, sighting the coast of Madagascar, on the 17th of August. From there they had to struggle North against contrary winds, which proved so strong that they were driven back for five or six days and Grassetti feared the ship might be driven onto the rocks. Happily this did not happen and eventually they anchored below the fortress on Mozambique Island, on the 8th of September. After a short stay in Mozambique the ship weighed anchor again for Goa, which it reached on the 18th of October, one week ahead of the first of its consorts and without suffering any major mishap.
If this brief resumé of the fortunes of the Bom Despacho, in 1629, leaves the impression that its Jesuit passengers, including Grassetti, enjoyed a relatively easy passage to India, then that impression certainly needs to be modified. While it is true that the voyage was felicitous in the sense that, in contrast to the ill-fated Santiago, both ship and passengers eventually reached Goa safely, a closer scrutiny of Grassetti's narrative shows that the voyage was anything but comfortable and far from trouble-free for the Jesuit party. Accommodation aboard a seventeenth century Portuguese Indiaman was extremely spartan at the best of times, and Grassetti's experience was no exception. "I was in a cubicle [...] so narrow that one could not move without touching one's companion", Grassetti tells us. It was also so stifling that he could not sleep for more than three hours each night, while rats and vermin seemingly without number, tormented him. 46 Like most passengers with any means, the Jesuits took their own food supplies on board with them, including such items as salt meat, cooking oil, biscuit, jars of preserves, figs and raisins. But as the voyage progressed these supplies became depleted and Grassetti noted that even spending five-hundred scudi per head was not sufficient to provide for the Jesuits what was required. 47 Some of their stock was lost through pilfering, as there were many thieves on board, and by the time they reached the Cape of Good Hope the biscuit was already a year old and beginning to rot. Grassetti found he could not eat the salted meat or fish any more and so became largely limited to a diet of broth, supplemented by a few raisins and almonds, and some quince marmalade. He still drank the wine for "it gave me life", but it had badly deteriorated in appearance and taste. He was grateful to some fellow Italians on the ship who shared with him and to the captain, who had a cow, wethers and chickens on board, and "each week presented us with fresh meat".48
Under these trying conditions the burden of work that Grassetti and his colleagues were obliged to shoulder on their ship was an extremely heavy one.There were over six-hundred persons on board to be ministered to, and soon only Grassetti and Vieira were left to take on the task. (The third Jesuit priest, Fr. Le Fevre, had been transferred to one of the accompanying galleons about a month out of Lisbon, to replace another priest who had died). As with Tudeschini and Le Jeunehomme, their primary responsibility was, of course, a spiritual one; celebrating Mass, hearing confessions, preaching, and other activities related to the cure of souls. Except when the sea was too rough, Grassetti celebrated daily Mass on the poop deck, which was converted into a temporary chapel, brightly hung with gilded leather. He also spent many tedious hours in hearing confessions, some from men who had never previously been confessed, for -- he assures us -- he saw it as his duty "to confess the entire ship".49Since confessing and communicating on a weekly basis was considered necessary, this was certainly no small task. It was particularly difficult for Grassetti to keep up with the work in the later stages of the voyage when he was himself so weakened by illness that he could hardly stand; but he resolved never to refuse confession to anyone, for he knew that many supplicants were close to death when they came to him. 50
The soldiers and sailors who made up the bulk of any seventeenth century Portuguese Indiamen's company invariably formed a kind of under-class, rough, deprived, mostly uneducated and often containing a strong criminal element. Grassetti thought that the Bom Despacho was rather better off in this respect than the galleons, because a large proportion of the latter's recruits were prisoners scoured up from various Portuguese jails. These he described as "full of syphilis and other filthy diseases" and as men devoid of money, conscience or honour, who would without compunction steal from the very Jesuits who were trying to help them. 51 At the same time he expressed sympathy for them, believing that they often stole because they were starving and that under such circumstances it was wrong to punish them. But discipline was strict, though less brutal than on the ships of some other nations. The Portuguese, unlike the Dutch, did not keel-haul even serious offenders, considering this to be an excessively cruel and un-Christian punishment. Instead, they merely lowered their victims into the sea for a spell and then pulled them up. A more common punishment was confinement in the stocks, which on the Bom Despacho were never empty. Men so confined, and thereby abandoned to sun and water, were constantly begging Grassetti to intervene on their behalf, with the ship's Captain.
Grassetti and his colleagues had been saddled with responsibility for administering such welfare benefits as were available, in the small world of their Indiaman. In particular, this meant attending to the sick and they were thus, as Grassetti put it, both spiritual and temporal doctors. 52 They served as almoners, distributing special rations to the sick and needy, and they were given the guardianship of the medical and pharmaceutical supplies. This latter proved a great personal inconvenience because of the problem of storage. Grassetti cites the case of a colleague aboard the galleon São Bartolomeu who found that flasks and medicine bottles took up practically the entire space in his tiny cubicle. The lack of medical personnel also hugely increased the burden of work and responsibility that devolved upon Grassetti and his colleagues. Apart from the Viceroy's personal physician, who travelled aboard the flagship, there appear to have been no qualified doctors on the fleet, but only barber-surgeons, for whose medical skills Grassetti had scant respect. "Whoever falls sick on this ship", he wrote, "finds himself in great misery, for the barbers know nothing other than bleeding".53
As with so many long Ocean voyages in this Era, the greatest health problem encountered aboard was scurvy, which certainly took a devastating toll. According to Grassetti, who provides a graphic description of the inroads of this disease aboard the Bom Despacho, it affected the gums, caused the teeth to fall out, and attacked the legs which then swelled, displaying what he described as putrefying sores (but actually, internal haemorrhaging). Always scurvy caused excruciating pain and, in some victims, induced a kind of dementia. Grassetti describes how one sufferer on the Bom Despacho went round the ship shrieking, then made the sign of the cross and promptly jumped overboard. Thirty men on the ship died of the disease "screaming miserably".54 As it took hold of a ship's company, scurvy had a crushing psychological impact on seamen, landsmen and priests alike. Aboard the eight ships of the fleet as a whole about five-hundred men allegedly succumbed to scurvy during the passage through the Doldrums, a toll which suggests the Bom Despacho escaped rather lightly. Deaths continued thereafter, though at a reduced rate, from both scurvy and other illnesses. 55
Practically all the Jesuit priests aboard the fleet of 1629 themselves fell sick at one stage or another during the voyage, most of them seriously. Among the latter were Vieira, who almost died, and Grassetti and Le Fevre. Grassetti's health problems had begun in June when he contacted an unidentified fever. While it lasted his bed seemed to be full of stones which "broke my bones". First he was bled, but then he was treated with a bezoar stone which he claims cured him, though he remained weak for months afterwards. He also developed an extremely painful eye complaint, then a cough "so strong and vexing that it did not even allow me to rest", and finally ominous symptoms of scurvy. 56
While the Jesuit priests on board the Bom Despacho, in 1629, were constantly overworked and over-stressed in extremely unpleasant conditions, the Brothers and novices who accompanied them also had a very testing time. They were almost entirely confined to their reserved space on the poop deck, which they apparently seldom left, except to preach. At nights the area was closed off, and Vieira and Grassetti stationed themselves just outside, ready for any emergency calls. During the day the Brothers and novices said their prayers at the regular sounding of a bell and spent much time examining their consciences, confessing, receiving absolution, and performing penances. Grassetti speaks of "il tedio della longa navigazione" (the monotony of the long voyage) an affliction that was perhaps particularly a problem for these younger members of the Order. 57 But some of them seem to have combated it effectively enough, finding various outlets for their energy and talents. One unnamed but enterprising Portuguese Brother not only took over the cooking, but also proved such an effective speaker that he was able to persuade even some of the most hardened of ruffians to make their confessions to Grassetti -- including a man who had previously declared he would rather be confessed by the Devil than by a Jesuit. 58
Sometimes the monotony of voyages was broken by seeing "wonders of the deep" but Grassetti apparently was little excited by experiences of this kind and merely reports that he saw nothing extraordinary during his passage to India, and in particular none of the monstrous birds or fish habitually depicted on the mappaemundi. 59 For him, probably the most stimulating interlude of the voyage was the ten day stopover in Mozambique. This he described as a small, sleepy settlement with a Portuguese fortress and a modest, palm-thatched Jesuit College, run by four Fathers and a Brother. Here he and his fellow Jesuit voyagers were housed during their stay. Later he would especially recall the blissful experience of a warm bath at the College, which much restored his spirits --"[it] gave me life [he wrote gratefully] and resulted in my feeling wholly restored. I seemed to be reborn[...]."60 Nevertheless, he found Mozambique Island poor and barren, its houses mere huts. It was feverish, produced little apart from coconuts, and its drinking water was in such short supply that it was distributed "for the love of God, as wine is given in Italy" -which suggests that his bath was a luxury indeed. 61 The fort was primarily maintained, he explained, because of the gold, ivory and ebony of the interior to which it gave access and because of the reverse trade in textiles.
During his short stay in Mozambique, Grassetti picked up and repeated some wildly uncomprehending opinions concerning the local Bantu, which suggests that as a putative missionary he still had a lot to learn about coming to terms with the unfamiliar "other". He described these tribesmen as ugly, and extraordinarily simple-minded. "They don't even cover their genitals", he said, adding that, "they have huge bellies and are so fat that they seem dropsical". They were also "so stupid" that they thought firearms were some kind of sorcery, and that the Portuguese "take a stick, look through it, make a noise, and suddenly one or more of us falls dead".62 Yet he also conceded that the Bantu were a happy people who were constantly dancing and dancing with such joyfulness that they could even make the stones laugh.
One month after leaving Mozambique, the Bom Despacho reached Goa. There Grassetti and his colleagues received a wonderful welcome from their local co-religionists, the Fr. Provincial himself coming out to meet them as they entered the Mandovi River, with garlands of flowers and a band and choir of seminarists. They were taken to a nearby country retreat, clothed in Indian style, and feasted in a manner they could only have dreamed of during the previous six months. When Grassetti wrote his letter home at the Rachol Seminary in Salsette, four months later, his sense of elation at this welcome remained undiminished.
Grassetti was much intrigued by the life of India around him -- its colourful peoples, its rich, varied and unfamiliar foods, and its exotic animals and plants. He explored much of Goa, which he thought a fine and populous City with broad streets, and small, low, but welcoming houses. He reported that it contained few Portuguese, but allegedly "more than 100,000 Hindus".63 He described with animation its great sights, naturally giving pride of place to that illustrious Jesuit hero, St. Francis Xavier, whose body he viewed in its recently constructed Italianate tomb, glittering with gold and jewels, in the Church of the Bom Jesus. He also saw and embraced the then Archbishop of Goa, a few days before that prelate died. But he soon settled down in the College at Rachol where, together with Le Fevre and four other colleagues, he devoted his time to learning Japanese, and preparing himself generally for the Japan mission. He began to grow a long beard, explaining that he and his companions were preparing to enter Japan surreptitiously, disguised as merchants. Apparently he was undeterred by the expectation of grave dangers, reporting the recently received news of the martyrdom in Japan of a fellow Italian Jesuit, Fr. Battista Zolla, as though it were the most joyous news. 64
It has not been possible from the sources available to reconstruct Grassetti's voyage beyond Goa in any detail, or to provide a full account of his subsequent career as a missionary priest. But his fortunes can nevertheless be briefly outlined. Grassetti made the voyage on to Macao, in the 1630 season, and it was almost certainly after his arrival there that the decision was made to send both himself and Le Fevre to the China mission rather than to Japan. No doubt this change was made partly because of the persecutions then under way in Japan and the difficulty of smuggling Jesuits in, but there was also another reason. 1630 was a rare year of opportunity for the Jesuits in China, because of the Ming Government's desire to secure military assistance from the Portuguese in its war against the Manchus. As a result, the Society [of Jesus] was able to get five additional missionaries into the Celestial Kingdom in association with a military mission from Macao, and Grassetti was included among them. 65He entered China that October -- eighteen months after his embarkation in Lisbon -- and was posted to Nanchang, in Jiangxi Province. He worked in Nanchang and the surrounding region for the next fourteen years. Then in 1644, during the lawlessness and confusion of the Manchu invasions and the collapse of Ming Government, his ministry came to an abrupt and violent end when he was brutally murdered, apparently by a group of bandits. 66
§5. CONCLUSION
THE travel experiences of Frs. Le Jeunehomme, Tudeschini and Grassetti, in 1626-1631, suggest that getting to the China mission was an extremely long, expensive and exhausting experience, which could quite easily take five years to accomplish -- if one got there at all. It was a salutary preparation for the further rigours that lay ahead at the mission. The three accounts also make clear that missionaries who undertook the journey were very likely to find that, during its course, heavy demands were imposed on their time and energy, for purposes quite unconnected with the China mission. It was possible for them to be permanently deflected from their original purpose by these demands, and the demands were sometimes so onerous that they proved fatal. The Jesuits themselves appear to have regarded as their greatest obstacle in getting to China not the expense, nor the tough conditions aboard ship, which they were prepared to endure with religious fortitude, but the crippling burden of extra, coincidental work. In this regard the last word may appropriately be left to Tudeschini. He pointed out what a great frustration it was for missionaries who had left their native lands "in order to come and help these blind heathens, and give them the knowledge of God", to have to shoulder so much extra work on the ships aboard which they travelled, work which was so burdensome that many of them simply died of exhaustion, "without ever achieving the end which for so many years they have been seeking".67
NOTES
1 While in modem works the label "missionary" is routinely given to a Jesuit who worked in foreign missions, the Portuguese term missionário was in fact very rarely used for this purpose in the seventeenth century -- although missionante (missioner) is encountered more often.
ARSI: Jap.-Sin., 115, II fol. 437 "Agostino Tudeschini (Shanghai?) to Father General of Society of Jesus, November 1631" -- (Hereinafter cited as, TUDESCHINI).
2 CORREIA-AFONSO, John, Jesuit Letters and Indian History 1542-1773, Bombay, Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 27-28.
3 DEHERGNE, Joseph, Repertoire des Jesuites de Chine de 1552 a 1800, Roma, Institutum Historicum SocietatisIesu, 1973, p.324.
4 DUNNE, George H., Generation of Giants. The Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decades of the Ming Dynasty, Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame, 1962, pp. 178-179.
5 HAMBYE, E. R., A typical voyage Lisbon-Goa in 1633, in: "Vice Almirante A. Teixeira da Mota. In Memoriam", 2 vols., Lisboa, Academia da Marinha and Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, 1987, vol.1, p.405.
6 SCHURHAMMER, Georg, Francis Xavier, 4 vols., Roma, Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, vol. 3, pp. 3-132; WICKI, Josef, As relaçõres de viagens dos Jesuitas na carreira das Naus da India de 1541 a 1598, in: "II Seminário Internacional de História Indo-Portuguesa", Lisboa, Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical and Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga, 1985, pp. 5-17.
7 DISNEY, Anthony, The World of Long Distance Voyaging in the Seventeenth Century: the Lisbon-Goa Fleet of 1629 as a case Study, in: Ed. MATTHEW, K. S. "Studies in Maritime History", Pondicherry, Pondicherry University, 1990, pp 143-158 -- For a more fully description of this voyage.
8 CARAYON, Auguste, Relation d'un voyage de La Flesche a Lisbonne, en 1627, par le P. Dominique Lejeunehomme, in: "Documents inedits concernant la Compagnie de Jesus", 12 vols., Poitiers, Henri Oudin,1864, vol.4, pp.1-63 -- (Hereinafter cited as, LE JEUNEHOMME).
9 Ibidem., pp. 55-56.
DAINVILLE, Francois de, Une lettre de Quête de 1627, in: "Revue d'Histoire des Missions", Paris, (15) 1938, p.285. Also see: TUDESCHINI, op. cit., fols.436-444vo -- Tudeschini has a slightly different account, merely saying[...]"Balão [...] Rhetorica."(this quotation from fol. 437vo).
10 LE JEUNEHOMME, op. cit., p.1.
11 Ibidem., pp. 2-3.
12 Ibidem., p.3; TUDESCHINI, op. cit., fol. 436.
13 LE JEUNEHOMME, op. cit., pp. 3-6.
14 Ibidem., p.23; TUDESCHINI, fol. 436vo.
15 LE JEUNEHOMME, op. cit., p.8.
16 Ibidem., pp. 17-18.
17 Ibidem., p.18.
18 On the 9th of January 1627 the Portuguese Atlantic fleet commanded by Dom Manuel de Meneses was virtually destroyed in a storm off the coast of France, in which two incoming India naus were also lost.
See: MELO, Francisco Manuel de, Epanáforas de vária história portuguesa, Ed. SERRÃO, Joel, Lisboa, Imprensa Nacional - Casa da Moeda, 1977, pp.119-209 -- For the tragedy's graphical description.
19 LE JEUNHOMME, op. cit., pp. 55-56 -- For his adoption of the name Domingo de São Nicolao, pp. 51-52. Ibidem., p.40 -- He thought he might translate a work by a Fr. Bruno, which described a new method of navigating.
20 Ibidem., pp. 51-52.
21 DAINVILLE, Francois de, op. cit., p.290 --"Nous avons faict naufrage sur terre, le pauvreté nous a arresté".
22SANTOS, João dos, Ethiopia Oriental, 2 vols., Lisboa, Melo de Azevedo, 1891, vol.1, pp. 285-286 --The Dominican João de São Thomaz briefly established a mission somewhere on the Madagascar coast in the late 1580s; but it did not survive his own death in 1587, possibly poisoned by hostile Muslim traders.
KENT, Raymond K., Early Kingdoms in Madagascar 1500-1700, New York, Holt- Rinehart & Winston, 1970, pp. 70-73, 179-183 -- The Jesuits Luís Mariano and António de Azevedo carried out missionary work in North and Northwest Madagascar in 1613-1614 and 1616-1617, but, apparently, failed to make any converts. Ed. GRANDIDIER, Alfred and Guillaume, Collection des ouvrages anciens concernant Madagascar, 9 vols., Paris, Comité de Madagascar, 1903-20, vol.2, passim -- For the reproduction of documents relating to the Mariano-Azevedo mission.
23 TUDESCHINI, op. cit., fols. 443-444 -- For the original source of the following account of Le Jeunehomme's mission to Madagascar.
24 SANTOS, João dos, op. cit., vol. 1, p.284 -- According to the author Madagascar was divided into over forty frequently warring Kingdoms at the start of the seventeenth century. VERIN, Pierre, The History of Civilisation in North Madagascar, Rotterdam - Boston, A. A. Balkema 1986, pp. 198-206; KENT, Raymond K., op. cit., pp. 80-81 -- For the Kingdom of Tingimaro. On the basis of the use of the word "Tingimaro" in Fr. Mariano's narrative, Kent suggests that it signifies a title rather than a name. If true, this would explain TUDESCHINI, op. cit., fol. 443vo claim that King "Quingimaro", as he calls him, was aged one-hundred-and-sixty at his death, and had ruled for no less than one-hundred-and-twenty years.
25KENT, Raymond K., op. cit., p.180 -- Sada had been previously visited by Fr. Mariano for a four week period during his missionary journeys in Madagascar, in 1614.
26TUDESCHINI, op. cit., fol. 444. Also VERIN, Pierre, op. cit., p.203 -- Who cites a letter of Fr. Mariano, dated 1619, stating that "the natives usually kill all the foreigners who come into their hands, when their King dies".
Ibidem., p.204 -- Where a colleague of Mariano, Fr. João Gomes, alleges that it was the custom for over three-thousand people to be killed to keep the dead King company and that neither Portuguese, nor other foreigners, were spared.
27 Idem. -- The replacement priest was almost certainly Fr. Mariano, the leader of the abortive missionary journeys, in 1613-1620.
28PFISTER, Louis, Notices Biographiques et Bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l'Ancienne Mission de Chine, 2 vols., Shanghai, Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique, 1932, vol.1, p.215.
29 See: Note 9 supra.
30TUDESCHINI, op. cit., p.436.
31LE JEUNEHOMME, op. cit., p.3.
32TUDESCHINI, op. cit., fol. 437.
33 Ibidem, fol. 437.
34 Ibidem., fol. 437vo.
35Ed. SERRANO Y SANZ, Manuel, Relacion de la vida de Capitan Domingo de Toraly Valdes, in: "Autobiografias y Memorias", Madrid, Bailly, Bailliére e hijos, 1905, pp. 491-492.
36TUDESCHINI, op. cit., fol. 438.
37 Ibidem., fols. 438vo-443vo -- For the wreck and subsequent experiences on João de Nova Island.
38 Ibidem., fols. 443vo-444.
39 Ibidem., fol. 444.
40PFISTER, Louis, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 215-216; DEHERGNE, Joseph, op. cit., p.276.
41 Ibidem., p.118; PFISTER, Louis, op. cit., pp. 207-218.
42ARSI: Goa, 34I, fols. 34-38 "Tranquillo Grassetti's letter (from Salsete, India) to Fr. Dionigio Grassetti, in Rome, 1630". BL: Ms. Ad. 8712, fols.145-153vo -- For a also a virtually identical text, though in a different hand. (Hereinafter cited as GRASSETTI).
43 Ibidem., fol. 145 -- For an allusion to an earlier letter in which he had apparently already described his journey to Lisbon. This earlier GRASSETTI letter as yet remains unlocated. Also see the above sections on TUDESCHINI and LE JEUNEHOMME.
44GRASSETTI, op. cit., fols. 145, 147.
45 Idem., in passim; ibidem., fols. 145vo, 148, 149-150.
46 Ibidem., fols. 146vo-147.
47 Ibidem., fo1. 146.
48 Ibidem., fols. 147vo, 148.
49 Ibidem., fol. 146vo.
50 Ibidem., fol. 147vo.
51 Ibidem., fol. 145vo.
52 Idem.
53 Idem.
54GRASSETTI, op. cit., fol. 146vo.
55Ed. SERRANO Y SANZ, Manuel, op. cit., p.492.
56GRASSETTI, op. cit., fo1. 148.
57 Ibidem., fol. 146vo.
58 Ibidem., fol. 147vo.
59 Ibidem, fol. 146vo.
60 Ibidem., fo1. 149 .
61 Ibidem., fol. 148vo.
62 Ibidem., fo1. 149.
63 Ibidem., fol. 151 vo. --"piu di cento mila gentili".
64 Ibidem., fo1. 153.
65DUNNE, George, op. cit., pp. 206, 216-218.
66PFIZER, Louis, op. cit., p.208.
67TUDESCHINI, op. cit., fol. 437vo.
*BA in Modern History (Oxford); Ph. D in History (Harvard) -- Thesis dissertation: An Early Imperial Crisis: The Portuguese Empire in India in the Early Seventeenth Century and its Responses to the Anglo-Dutch Challenge. Lecturer in the Department of History, University of Melbourne; Senior Lecturer in La Trobe University, Melbourne. Member of the Executive Commission of the International Seminary on Indo-Portuguese History. Published articles on "The Expansion of the Portuguese Empire in the Orient". Currently preparing a forthcoming publication on "The History of Portugal and of the Portuguese Empire".
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