4.1 The Desire for the Far East
One of the focuses of this book is the Far Eastern destination. How many Jesuit petitioners clearly stated a preference for Asia? What were the reasons for this choice? How successful could be those candidates applying for unreachable missionary lands? The following pages firstly deal with data and statistics about the Asian destination, and then tell the stories of four petitioners, two of them gaining the “license” and the other two not having the same fortunate outcome.
The Fondo Gesuitico preserves 1,565 litterae indipetae written from Italy during the years 1687 to 1730 (the generalates of González de Santalla and Tamburini).1 As for their geographical distribution, they were sent by members of the Jesuit provinces of: Sicily (thirty-eight percent), Naples (twenty-seven percent), Milan (twenty-five percent), and Rome (eleven percent). There is no doubt that the most frequently requested destination were, simply, the “Indies.” The indifference and submission required to all Jesuits took shape also in silencing any personal will, and entrusting the general with such a fundamental and life changing decision. However, about ten percent of all letters—nearly 150 in all—dared to show a peculiar interest for the Far Eastern destinations, and in detail for the following missions:2
Philippines: 27%
China: 25%
“East Indies,” “some corner of the East,” Asia, and others: 24%
Japan: 13%
Malabar: 3%
Tibet: 3%
Madurai: 3%
Goa: 1%
Vietnam: 1%
From these statistics, the Filipino choice emerges preponderantly (forty-one indipetae), but this need not necessarily be linked to a particular affection for this territory. The Philippines had the great advantage of being part of the Spanish empire (the same from where Sicilians and Neapolitans were writing, for most years) and an ideal stopping point before a move to China or Japan. The Filipino destination became extremely popular especially if petitioners knew that their procurators were back in Europe, looking for new recruits. This happened, in particular, in the years 1704, 1717, and 1728–29, when the attention of the indipetentes focused on the Philippines. They were aware that, if they could join the expeditions under preparation, they would have sailed without waiting and suffering for more years.3 After some time there, the possibility to turn to the surrounding countries was always left open.
For some Jesuits, however, an assignment to the Philippines could be seen as a punishment compared to China and Japan. Writing from Sicily in 1642, Mario Finochiaro was desperate after being destined there, and felt it was “important to clarify to Your Paternity how I want my longed-for Japanese or Chinese mission,” because his “vocation has always been for Japan or China, not for any other place.”4 “Dying of melancholy,” he felt he went “crazy, thinking how the Lord mortifies me, appointing me to the Philippines, for which I never had any vocation.” He highlighted how he “explicitly asked for Japan or China,” writing to the procurator of China and not to the Philippines’ one. For Finochiaro and others missioned to the Philippines, their assignment was a tantalizing and yet unfulfilling one, so close to where they really wished to labor.
The preference for China and generic “East Indies” is numerically not far below (thirty-eight and thirty-six indipetae). Moreover, with the latter definition petitioners often intended the first one. China, even in the complicated years of the Rites controversy, was a destination quite frequent in indipetae letters. Meanwhile, the Jesuit historiography and promotion of the Japanese missions had a remarkable and lasting effect as twenty letters requested this empire, confirming it remained a desirable destination even after several decades of its closure to all foreigners (1641). The other Eastern countries explicitly mentioned in indipetae were: Malabar, Tibet, Madurai, the current Vietnam, and Goa. Malabar, Madurai, and Goa are part of the Indian province, thus India was the most coveted missionary horizon after the aforementioned Philippines, China, and Japan. As for the West Indies, the most popular locations of indipetae that explicitly mentioned them were, in order of importance: Mexico, Chile, Paraguay, generic West Indies (also named “Americas” and “New World”), Maranhão, California, Quito, “New Kingdom,” and Brazil. Finally, less distant missionary territories that sporadically appeared in indipetae were: Tunis, Lebanon, Palestine, Dalmatia, Corsica, England, Zante, Greece, and all those areas afflicted with plagues.
There still is no all-encompassing statistical snapshot taking into consideration the geographical origin of the petitioners and the preference they expressed.5 In general, and according to the chances their kingdoms or empires offered, French Jesuits were inclined to ask for New France or French Antilles. Spanish Jesuits knew it was easier for them to be sent to the Spanish Americas, or the Philippines in Asia. Italian and German Jesuits did not have any overseas empires directly supporting their yearnings (even if Southern Italy was, at the time, under Spanish dominion). The “luckiest” in this respect were the Portuguese Jesuits, able to reach almost every corner of the known world.
A Far Eastern preference can be found in 144 of the about 1500 petitions analyzed for this book. This desire was often camouflaged with rather neutral expressions, such as the longing for “some corner of the East” expressed by Giuseppe Paternò in 1692.6 Similarly, Tomaso de Domenicis always longed for the “Eastern missions,” and he had entered the Society of Jesus to reach them: the more he lived as a Jesuit, the more he felt “pushed to them.”7 Without the ready access available to the French, Spanish, and Portuguese Jesuits but with the same yearning for a missionary assignment, these Italian Jesuits had a more difficult path to fulfill their desires and had to employ tactics more discreetly. The following section will focus on indipetae aimed at East Asia, and on the motivations involved in this choice. The purpose of the case studies is to reach a larger conclusion about the motivations: did they vary or are they common? In both cases, what do they indicate?
The Italian Giulio Gori (1686–1764), for example, articulated one of the rare explanations for the reasons to join the Chinese missions. Member of a rich and important family in Siena, Gori had studied philosophy as a lay man and then became a Jesuit at the age of eighteen.8 His apostolic zeal was never fulfilled, and he worked as a professor of philosophy and canon law in Italy. In his courses he also taught forbidden scientific and philosophical theories, and some of his work was condemned by both the Church and the Society of Jesus. Nevertheless, he remained in the order for the remainder of his life. Gori pleaded passionately to be sent to the Chinese Empire in three detailed letters, all written in the days close to Xavier’s (1506–52) anniversary (the second and third days of December). He applied when he was eighteen and then again at twenty-three. Gori’s first letter started by supposing that the general might be skeptical about his intentions and preemptively explained that it was really “the World”—that is, worldly desires for fame and adventure rather than a real divine calling—that prompted him to request the mission to China.9 Consequently, he explained that “the World has the habit to deceive with only three things: riches, honor, and pleasures,” but none of them could be found in the Chinese Empire.10
No missionary could imagine obtaining money or a good reputation in China. On the contrary, a Jesuit should expect discomfort from the very beginning of the missionary experience, Gori continued, starting with “a very humiliating navigation, always with a terrible crew, that continuously vituperate, mistreat, and insult you, and you cannot nonetheless do anything but serve them, and be anyone’s slave.”11 Even after he landed at his destination, a Jesuit would pass many days and months in learning the language and practicing accommodatio—that is, adapting himself to food, clothing, cultural expectations, and ceremonies, as well as spending “much time in the residence, sweeping and cooking so as not to be idle: tasks which no worldly man would consider honorable.” As for “honors,” Gori argued that he had to be sent to the Indies because leaving him in the Italian assistancy would be dangerous to his spiritual integrity. He described himself as “inclined to [intellectual] speculation:” staying in Europe was “tempting for my honor.” As for the third seduction of riches, China meant to him “getting rid of the many legitimate and honest recreations that we can enjoy here in the Society of Jesus, losing some luxury and comfort” to which human beings are naturally attracted. Gori asserted as an “indisputable fact that people do not like inconvenience, the sufferings of navigation, or even worse, every change of climate, and food, and costumes.” In short, Gori was arguing shrewdly that sending him to China was the only way that the superior general could save his soul.
China was rooted in the hearts of many Jesuits like Gori, but the Qing empire could be requested (like in the case of the Philippines) also as a temporary destination, in order to pass to another even more attractive—and impossible—one: Japan. For instance, in 1704 Francesco Corsetti implored the general to send him to China, “to then immediately move on, to Japan, as soon as the Holy Grace will let the Holy Faith enter it again.”12 The Sicilian Antonio Trigonas proclaimed in 1717 an indifference about the location of his missionary assignment but at the same time wrote to his general, “I must sincerely show to Your Paternity where I always felt a sort of inclination to go: the islands of Japan, if we are allowed to access them again.”13
The Japanese mission was unreachable for a Jesuit in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. With the issuing of edicts about the exclusion and expulsion of all foreigners (from 1623 to 1650), the empire refused any further evangelization. Nevertheless, almost a century later Jesuits still kept asking to be sent there: in particular, during the years studied in this book, in several Southern Italian colleges some optimistic rumors may have spread about an imminent reopening of Japan to foreigners—and also missionaries. At the turn of the eighteenth century, when the only possible outcome of an expedition to Japan would have been “martyrdom” (as seen by the Catholic Church, or execution for breaking the law as seen by the Japanese), Jesuits seemed to insist on this decision with that main aim in mind.
Such was the context for the risky (and, in the end, suicidal) adventure of Giovanni Battista Sidotti (1668–1715), a Sicilian who reached Japan to die there as a martyr.14 He was not a Jesuit but a secular priest, even if very famous among Jesuit petitioners for the East Indies. Sidotti took advantage of an expedition leaving from Italy to the East in 1702, which had onboard the papal legate Charles Maillard de Tournon (1668–1710). Once arrived in Asia, Sidotti embarked by himself from Manila to southern Japan. As soon as Sidotti disembarked at Yakushima (1708), in fact, he was captured and taken to Edo (current Tōkyō), where he was interrogated by the scholar Arai Hakuseki (1657–1715). In the years of Sidotti’s adventure, several indipetae mentioned his name, or more vaguely alluded to his enterprise.
Hakuseki, an open-minded Neo-Confucian, tried to discuss with Sidotti and to gain from him as much information as possible about Europe. He met him at the “Kirishitan yashiki” of Koishikawa (where Christians were locked up) on three occasions, in 1709–10. After a few years of detention, Sidotti died in 1715. Before, however, Hakuseki took note of their discussions—even if linguistic difficulties did not help their mutual comprehension. Before landing in his beloved archipelago, Sidotti had tried to study some Japanese, and he had a Latin-Portuguese dictionary with him. On the other side, Hakuseki was assisted by two Dutch interpreters.15 Sidotti did not achieve the desired results, nor regain Japans’ former sympathies to Christianity. As Aldo Tollini noticed, Sidotti had nonetheless the merit to “close an era of contacts and exchanges between two deeply different cultures […] symbolically representing the conclusion of over a century of contacts, but also of clashes and misunderstandings.”16 His adventure was known to some of the Italian petitioners of that time: in these cases, the role of Sidotti was just symbolic but concretely very important, because he was able to rekindle in them a desire for Japan.17
In 1689, while Sidotti was still planning his journey, the Sicilian Antonino Finocchio described himself to the general as “being invited by God to sail to Japan.”18 Since Finocchio was aware that that “vineyard” was “impenetrable,” he planned to stop in Macau before, and from there to stay “ready for that journey, as soon as the Supreme Monarch will break the closed doors of that vast Empire with the blood of the Lamb.” After consulting with a superior, Finocchio acknowledged how this desire was proper and deserved to be shared with the general ultimately. The Southern Italian environment seemed a fertile ground for the dream of a reopening of the Japanese empire. Seven years after Finocchio’s letter, the twenty-four-year-old Tomaso Macchia implored the general to send him there. According to the information he had received, Japan had recently “opened its door, already long closed, to the true Faith, and the Emperor of that kingdom asked our missionaries for the conversion of those people.”19 Macchia would have loved to share “the unfortunate fate of those happy destined to go converting the Japanese peoples.” Macchia wrote in 1705, three years after Sidotti left Sicily, and therefore this news could be related to him. However, another event could have influenced his petitions: Kangxi’s tolerance edict, issued in 1692. Although Macchia explicitly named Japan, he may have confused it with China, also because Japan had always been formally ruled by an emperor, but this figure had no political importance at the time, and the Jesuits never communicated with him. In the same year and from the same city (Salerno), Casimiro Muscento proclaimed himself ready to sail for Japan “if it is true the news we received here, about its opening.”20 It is likely that Muscento and the previous Jesuit knew each other and had the same source—even if it is not easy to determine which it was. Muscento had no greater fortune than his confrere, and died in Naples in 1725.
Sidotti’s name does not disappear from the indipetae letters after his death, in 1715. A year later, the Sicilian Martino d’Andrea exulted because of “the news we received here, that Our Lord Sidotti entered Japan with two of our Frenchmen, and they have obtained the license to spread the gospel to those peoples.”21 One of the “Frenchmen” could be the already mentioned pontifical legate Tournon, but a Jesuit would have hardly named him one of “ours.” Tournon was, on the contrary, an irreducible opponent of the Society of Jesus in the Rites controversy. Sidotti however is explicitly mentioned and called “Our Lord:” in this case, it is improbable that d’Andrea confused Japan with China. It could just be that, in the absence of certain information from Sidotti (who had been incarcerated in Japan from 1709 to 1715), some optimistic news spread in the Jesuit residences.
In the same years as d’Andrea’s letter, Salvatore Saverio Marino compulsively wrote to the general (sixteen indipetae in just two years) about his vocation for the East. In one of his letters, the Sicilian asked to be sent to the Philippines, whose procurator was in Italy looking for new recruits. Marino’s most intimate hope, however, was Japan: if the general had wanted to send him there, he proclaimed himself ready to go “at every slightest sign […] even by swimming.”22 Notwithstanding the impracticality of the Japanese missions, the Roman secretary took note of this preference on the verso of the letter. Perhaps in those years in Rome, and not only in the more isolated colleges, Sidotti’s venture was seen as a possible step to the restoration of the Christian faith in Japan. A last mention of this alleged Japanese opening can be found a dozen years later, in Giuseppe Saverio Alagna’s indipetae. A Sicilian as well, he felt destined “especially for Philippines and China in view for Japan, to whom I have affection as well.”23 He asked himself: “who knows, if it is near the time to fulfill the revelation of the holy mercy, as I heard, on those islands?”
According to the chronological and topographical concentration of these pious illusions, rumors supporting the hypothesis of a reopening of Japan may have spread in Southern Italy at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Although it is not easy to understand where these ideas originated, they are significant for two reasons. First of all, they testify to the enduring fascination with Japan a century after its total closure to foreigners. Secondly, these “echoing voices” also help demonstrate the petitioners’ network, because they well show how the Jesuits of a close geographical area benefitted from the same (whether oral or written) sources.
4.2 “Unsuccessful” Candidates
4.2.1 Carlo Sarti (1706–?)
The following pages analyze, through their litterae indipetae, motivations, tactics, and destiny of four petitioners for the East Indies: on one side two “unsuccessful” Jesuits, and on the other two “successful” ones. The “success” of this definition was for these Jesuits to reach their goal and to be sent to China or Japan. Despite the tendencies to generally and vaguely express a desired location to fulfill their missionary vocation, some candidates showed in fact a remarkable insistence on the East Indies, and approached this preference in different ways—achieving different results. What “strategy” seemed to pay off, and why?
Carlo Sarti was a temporal coadjutor based in northern Italy. In 1728, the twenty-two-year-old novice wrote from Cremona the first of his three indipetae. Their number is not exceptional, but the tenor was particularly fiery—as the Roman secretaries noted on their verso, with words like “requests the Indies very fervently.”24 Sarti’s first plea began in medias res, with the novice confessing that he had been nourishing his “enflamed […] desires” for the Indies for three years. He did not lose time in describing this longing, because he was “certainly not able to do it, with words expressive enough to explain what I really feel in my heart.”25 His vocation was born when the departure of other Jesuits for the Indies left him with “such a fire inside” that he started being “so taken and carried away, that this fire never cooled down.” His superior confirmed the veracity of this desire, assuring him with the following words: “I know, and can touch with my hand, that Digitus Dei est hic.” Sarti’s calling received a further impulse when some other German Jesuits, leaving for Paraguay, arrived in Cremona: “Oh, how much did my fervors increase!” When the provincial asked him if he would have left with them, Sarti burst into tears with joy, throwing himself “at his feet, begging such grace from him.” The provincial could not fulfill his desire at the time, and advised him to have patience. The mission was for Sarti “one of the most powerful stimuli, which pushed me to become a true son of the Society of Jesus.”
A few months later, in 1729, Sarti wrote his second petition, revealing new personal details. First of all, his family wanted him to be a missionary, and not generically in the Indies but specifically in China. His parents wanted him to follow the footsteps of his homonymous uncle, who they claimed arrived with Tournon at the gates of the Celestial Empire without being able to enter it.26 In addition to this encouragement (not so common among the petitioners’ families),27 Sarti’s vocation for the Society of Jesus grew by reading his uncle’s letters preserved at home, written during the journey from Europe to China: “they inflamed me a lot.”28 Because of this fervor for the mission, Sarti often cried “out of pure consolation, for God granting me such a grace […] Oh, how often have I cried before the altar of my dear saint Francis Xavier, with how many sighs have I asked him for such grace!” Sarti also remembered the general of the vow to go to the Indies made during his novitiate, in the day of the “Holy Japanese Martyrs,” after being caught by “unusual fervor” and without even asking permission.
Sarti’s third letter arrived in Rome a few months later, after Tamburini had replied to his earlier petition. The Jesuit thanked the general for the “pleasure, with which you liked my fervent vocation to the Indies.”29 Yet, no action was undertaken after this communication, neither from one side nor from the other. After his last petition, Sarti lived a few years as a Jesuit in the Milanese province, and finally left the Society aged thirty-six.30 Sarti’s indipetae were fervent and passionate like few others. He became a Jesuit, it seems, primarily to reach China and fulfill his uncle’s destiny—as his family encouraged him to do in many ways, first of all giving him the same name. Was the Sarti family more interested in the Eastern missions than Carlo himself? The young man may have been at first fascinated by the idea of emulating and completing his uncle’s adventure. Sarti’s main sources apparently were his uncle’s accounts, which described exotic Asian scenarios in a compelling way. However, it is also possible that his passion was fueled by other kinds of readings, like travelogs, collections of letters and news sheets. Unfortunately, as most with his confreres, he did not share more information on his family library, nor the one in the Jesuit residence he was living in.31 Over time, Sarti may have understood that being a Jesuit was not what he wanted, especially if he had to stay in Italy. The fact that he was a temporal coadjutor may have influenced the general’s secretariat not to send him to China, and it may be that his disappointment about the missions led him to leave the order after a few years.32
4.2.2 Giovanni Berlendis (1664–1745)
Born in 1664 in Bari, in the Kingdom of Naples, Giovanni Berlendis entered the Society of Jesus at the age of twenty. After ten years in the order, he wrote three suggestive indipetae. He had studied Philosophy for three years as a lay person, thereafter attending and teaching classes in Jesuit schools. His nature was described by his superiors as “melancholic,” and he showed a remarkable talent for preaching.33
At the time of his first petition for the Indies Berlendis was thirty, and had felt the desire to become a missionary for half of his life. He had always desisted from writing, however, for “being for every part immature, both in the spirit and in the letters,” and also for a “suspicion” he had. Was “such a desire given freely by God,” or had it arisen in his soul “otherwise?”34 Berlendis was, in fact, not interested in the Indies in general but only in “my dear Japan.” In particular, he wanted to become a martyr there: “When will I be torn apart and die in my Japan, when, my God, when will you console me!” Since he was a child, everything in his daily life had been an occasion for him to think about Japan. He explained: “if I ever stopped to enjoy the stars in the clear sky, if I ever heard any instrument playing, if I ever saw a picture of our martyrs,” then he felt immediately “enchanted with all my thoughts and affection towards Japan.” Berlendis’ description was very vivid and intensely involved all the senses, including sight and hearing: imagining himself immersed in the new realities was certainly related to the Ignatian practice of the compositio loci.35 What is sensed through touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste can be important not only as what is read or taught, but even more. Moreover, written sources—in the case of Jesuit petitioners, books, sermons, and lectures—could have a fundamental role in fostering a vocation for the Indies, but most of these media’s fruition happened through the senses, because books were read aloud, sermons were publicly played, and lectures were listened to as well.
For his part, Berlendis felt ashamed for his lazy and soft lifestyle in Italy, especially knowing that, on the other side of the world, many Jesuits “suffered for God in such unknown and barbarous countries!” In those reflections, he was caught by such a strong feeling that he had to flee, “not to cry […] in front of everybody.” Even in his later years, he used his imagination to think about “the various kinds of tortures that I could have endured.”36 During common choral moments, he imagined himself “vividly, already dying on a scaffold, but singing those songs.” Even before going to sleep, when he was “already in bed or also after, in the middle of the night,” he woke up and remembered “with great pleasure these images.” Every time he could not stop indulging in them, he stayed awake and lost “all the remaining sleep.” He knew that “the gates of Japan” had been closed for so many years, and humility prevented him from believing that he would be the one succeeding in overcoming them. His intention, in fact, was not “to force those doors, closed with such jealousy. It is not wanted by God, nor reason, nor prudence.” Berlendis planned just to approach Japan and then stay there, waiting. It was unthinkable that God wanted that country to remain closed forever to his message: “will the Devil be more astute than God wise? Japan will open, sooner or later it will open, and it will open to a man, not to an Angel.” This humble instrument of God would be, in the end, him.
A few months later, Berlendis wrote another petition. In the meantime, the general had replied to him in a vague way, leaving him struggling between ambivalent emotions: “consolation on the one hand,” and “so much […] sadness on the other.”37 His name had been added to the list of candidates to the missions, but there was no fixed date for his departure yet. Berlendis was not surprised at learning the obstacles to the mission as listed by the general’s reply. He answered him: “what can I do? if he [God] certainly wants me for Japan, can I resist him? Can I ask anything else? I am annoying, this is true, but forgive me: there is someone forcing me to be like this.” Berlendis even offered to confer face to face with the general in order to convince him. In the meantime, he explained his preferences and expectations: “I like to meet obstacles; I like to suffer to overcome them […] let the difficulties grow […] I will sigh before Your Paternity, and I will cry and multiply my penances so much that you will send me […] the license to become an Apostle of Japan.”
Berlendis’ last petition, dated at the beginning of the following year (1695), shows—if possible—an even greater urgency and anxiety to leave. In particular, the Jesuit was concerned about his age: he was over thirty years old and did not want to waste the best and most active years of his life in Italy. Berlendis indicated that he understood that insisting on Japan could get him nowhere. He therefore changed his strategy, claiming to be ready to go to other countries as well: England as the second choice, and Far East in general as the third. As for the first option, England was considered “Europe’s Japan,” also according to Bartoli’s definition.38 Concerning the second, Berlendis practically thought that, “being closed the doors of Japan,” he could have, “as long as God opens it, fatigued in China and the nearby, somewhere in those Indies.”39 The letter ended with a certain despair, and the renewed wish to meet the general in person: “I would like […] to be with you, because I would throw myself at your feet and cry and sigh abundantly.” Despite Berlendis’ fervor and determination to leave for a classic martyrdom mission (he did not even contemplate the option of “our Indies,” in continental Europe), he never left for “his” Japan. Even if his indipetae did not seem very balanced, his characters and skills were appreciated by his superiors, who underlined his inclination to spirituality and his refusal to avoid hard work. He studied theology in the college of Cosenza, and then put into practice his talent for “sermons and all the ministries of the Society of Jesus,” dying in Naples at an advanced age.40
4.3 “Successful” Candidates
4.3.1 Agostino Cappelli (1679–1715)
During the generalates of González de Santalla and Tamburini (in office 1687–1705 and 1706–1730), about thirty Italian Jesuits left for the Chinese Empire. Among them, several never arrived because they died during the journey or, more frequently, were reassigned to other Asian missions.41 Almost every one of these missionaries wrote one or more litterae indipetae before leaving for the East.42 This section focuses on the lives and petitions of two Italians the general sent to China together, only to have very different destinies and personal attitudes.
The first Jesuit is Agostino Cappelli. Born in Ascoli (in the Papal state and in the Jesuit Roman Province), he joined the Society in 1695, at the age of sixteen. Cappelli’s first plea, rather sober and concise, is dated March 1699. Since the previous November, God had “inspired” him to “devote myself to the Missions of India”—which could mean actual India, but also the generic Indies.43 These repeated callings motivated Cappelli to be “ready for any mission” the general considered appropriate for him. He was not concerned with “all the travails of the journey and the seasons, even if they will be deadly to me.” If he died, he would have “the joy of corresponding to God’s voice.” In any case, he insisted on being sent “as soon as possible:” more important than the destination was an immediate departure. At that moment, Cappelli was in the College of Viterbo (close to Rome), studying rhetoric and philosophy and teaching grammar. Every judgment about him was positive, and he was described as suitable to teach humanities.44
A twenty-five-years-old Cappelli wrote the next letter, this time from Rome. Five years had passed from his previous application. His missionary “desire” had not only remained the same but had rather “increased so much that I would have repeated the same plea several times already, if my spiritual Fathers had not advised me otherwise.”45 Regarding the destination, he just hoped it would be the “most arduous and most fatiguing Mission.” A few months later, Cappelli felt compelled to write again because “God’s Infinite Goodness does not cease to call me to the missions every day, more and more […] with constant inspirations.”46 He was “always ready to obey Your Paternity’s every sign, and run everywhere, especially where God seemingly wants me”—not specifying any particular place.
In the same year Cappelli wrote a fourth letter, to “testify to Your Paternity the ardent desire […] to spread […] all the sweat, blood and Life for the one who died on the Cross for me.”47 For the first time he mentioned a geographic preference: this was caused by the arrival in Rome of the procurator Kaspar Kastner (1665–1709), who was passing through Rome and about to leave for China.48 This circumstance led Cappelli to clearly ask the general to be Kastner’s “companion in this journey.” Cappelli would have been glad to be sent to “to the Missions of China, which Kastner returned to,” but he claimed that he remained indifferent to go “to other Indies” as well, as long as they were “the most laborious and in need of workers.”
A few months later, with Kastner’s expedition not yet sailed, Cappelli could not resist a palpable eagerness to reiterate his pleas. Every day that passed seemed to him “so long,” because of his “great desire to receive the happy news that I was destined too for the lucky journey to the Indies.”49 Some of his companions were receiving this communication, and Cappelli feared being excluded. His Roman superiors apparently did not want him to leave. Cappelli complained that “the provincial has no inclination to send me, although I have so often petitioned to him as well.” Frustrated, he was even “ashamed that this province arises so many difficulties for a person so mean and inane like me.” He could not understand it, because “many other provinces are happy to lose so many Jesuits, and so much more qualified than me.” He was referring to Ludovico Gonzaga from the Provincia Veneta, who would soon become his travel companion and almost an “enemy” once in Asia. Cappelli wanted the “longed-for consolation to be destined to Tonkin [Vietnam], as a companion of Father Castner from Lisbon to the Indies, and of Father Gonzaga from Rome to Portugal.” He also concluded theatrically that his letter was entirely written in blood.50 It is not possible to know whether this element was the key to unlock the impasse in which Cappelli seemed to be, but it is certain that after this letter he embarked for the East Indies. He arrived in China, and a few years later moved to Malabar.51
Through his correspondence, it is possible to trace Cappelli after his arrival in Asia as well as his views of the dramatic events that unfolded there. Almost thirty years old, Cappelli wrote for the first time about the situation in Macau. These times were particularly hard for the Society of Jesus because of the Chinese rites controversy. Propaganda Fide was undermining the Jesuits’ autonomy, and other religious orders had deprived them of the Catholic monopoly in the Qing empire.52 In these very delicate circumstances, Cappelli wrote in 1708 to his confrere Ludovico Gonzaga, lamenting the situation in which the Jesuits were operating, no longer understanding whom to obey and asking for precise orders. He hoped for a prompt resolution of a situation full of “disorders that always go further, on a precipice without any hope of remedy.”53 Cappelli had learned that Tournon had been appointed Cardinal of Santa Sabina: he saw this as “a tacit approval by the pope of his Eminence’s work.”54 Cappelli therefore thought that Tournon was legitimate in ordering the Jesuits how to proceed on the Rites controversy, thus his order’s members had better come to terms with him as soon as possible. The Jesuits in China did not have “any other escape, than to reconcile with him before it is too late, while waiting for further answers from Rome.” Cappelli may personally have continued to hope that, in some way, the Jesuit endeavor in China would have obtained another official approval (and not definitive condemnation) from the pope. In such hard times, however, it was better not to antagonize a key figure like Tournon. In the course of time, however, Cappelli did not take too long to distance himself from the Society’s policies of accommodatio, and rather entertained a close relationship with the ambiguous (from the point of view of the Portuguese Jesuits) Tournon—being criticized by other Jesuits.
Cappelli wrote then from Macau, having therefore first-hand news on Tournon’s “house arrest.” A group of Jesuits had convinced the local (Portuguese) political authorities to watch Tournon with not too severe “guards.”55 Cappelli expressed satisfaction about it: “although we have not achieved everything, the guards are now not as many as before, nor too strict.” They needed to patrol Tournon’s residence “because people in this city are all afraid of the Chinese.” In the long term, according to Cappelli, the best solution would have been to guarantee complete personal freedom for Tournon—it was impossible otherwise to convince him of any “peaceful agreement.” Cappelli had already sent to his confrere Gonzaga a letter with “the last decree of which his Eminence [Tournon] is the bearer, wishing that Your Reverence will not get confused.” The situation was delicate but Cappelli claimed to act only for the “great desire I have […] of the Society of Jesus’s wellbeing, and the common good—which must always be preferred to the particular.” If he had not done his best “in such grave danger […] in such extreme misery,” he would not have even been worthy of the title of “son of the Society of Jesus.” Cappelli was aware that his “apology” of Tournon could be seen as a “betrayal.” He insisted he was concerned only with the Society of Jesus’ interests, not even thinking about his personal situation.
Cappelli’s attempts to soften conflicts could be due to his character, but also to the fact that he was more forward-looking than other Jesuits. Probably also because of his proximity to Tournon, he understood that new winds were blowing from Europe, and that it was not possible to take refuge in the past Jesuit glories. Cappelli’s Asian letters are colorful gazettes from the Far East. He recounted for his general in Rome interesting and curious facts about the Jesuit fortunes and misfortunes on the other side of the world. These documents are a precious inside source for understanding divisions, strategies, and open problems in such a delicate historical period. One month later and always from Macau, Cappelli was again describing Tournon’s imprisonment. He added further details about the efforts he made, together with a few confreres, to congratulate him as soon as they received the news of his appointment as cardinal of Santa Sabina. Cappelli had also tried to convince the Captain of Macau to publicly apologize with Tournon for the treatment he inflicted on him. After two hours of meeting Cappelli convinced the Captain to write to Tournon inviting him to forget the past. This would have happened only at the condition that Tournon “would have answered with at least two lines, in which he said he never had the intention to question the Ius patronatus of the King of Portugal.”56 The guards would then have been permanently removed from Tournon’s residence.
Excited about this result, Cappelli and two confreres went to Tournon, who did not even accept to meet them. Tired and disconsolate, Cappelli and his brothers tried another pacification strategy. They went to beg all the religious superiors of the city, asking them to go all together to the Captain of Macau, to ask him to remove the guards from Tournon’s mansion. Cappelli himself gave a speech defending Tournon’s “ecclesiastical freedom.” He always admittedly took the cardinal’s side, also in front of the Captain of Macau, who promised to do what they asked if all the aforementioned superiors had agreed on the issue. The religious power sided with Tournon as Cappelli wished. However, as soon as the Captain of Macau decided to dismiss the guards from the cardinal’s house, “the whole city protested against it, saying that it was enough that the guards were respectful and available to his Eminence’s needs.” Tournon was not happy with this result. To have “respectful” guards was not enough for him: he did not “want to see such soldiers at his house” at all. Notwithstanding Cappelli’s efforts, all the parties involved were embittered. Tournon refused to meet anybody, even his supporters. The tension remained, with the city council on one side and Tournon on the other, apparently irreconcilable. Cappelli saw this outcome as a “great disgrace, especially for the Society of Jesus, because we would have benefitted from an appeasement more than anybody else.”
In the following letter (1709), Cappelli reappears in a very distant location: São Tomé de Meliapor, in India. He enjoyed the company of the abbot Ignazio Giampè, one of the authors of the papal bull issued in 1715 which condemned the Jesuit policy of accommodatio.57 Cappelli described Giampè and himself as “being exiled for the Confucian rites.”58 Spending time together and having “familiar conversations” with Giampè, Cappelli realized that the abbot had “some documents against the Society of Jesus, written after what happened in China with the Cardinal of Tournon.” A Jesuit intermediator, Claude de Visdelou (1656–1737), had received those letters by his confreres and was meant to forward them directly to the superior general in Rome.59 Instead, Visdelou had given them to Giampè, who intended to show them to the anti-Jesuit faction in Rome, where they would have been “able to negatively prejudice us [Jesuits].” Visdelou was a Jesuit, but also a detractor of the Chinese rites, taking position against his order’s policies. After some time spent in the Qing empire rejecting the Jesuit way of seeing the Chinese rites, Visdelou did the same with the Malabar rites after moving to India in 1709. Nonetheless, he always refused to leave the Society of Jesus.
Cappelli was in India after having left Macau “with the Cardinal [Tournon] fully pleased with it,” but he was not sure he could “say the same of the Father Provincial.”60 The latter had given Cappelli a written authorization, but he did not know a detail that Cappelli confessed in this letter. It had been Tournon himself who had invited Cappelli to move from Macau to Madurai. Cappelli admitted that he had intentionally left the provincial unaware of this, because he feared “that he would have become suspicious of it, and would not have given me the license to leave.” Moreover, Cappelli supposed that some bad comments about him had reached the general in Rome. While in Macau, Cappelli had been criticized because he had “negotiated with the Lord Cardinal’s and the people of Propaganda Fide.” He reassured the general: “it was not much as they tell,” and in any case it always was “for the greater good of our order.” Cappelli seemed not to have a very clear conscience, given his tight relationships with the Society’s “enemies.” He was probably afraid of being accused of betrayal.
From Madurai, Cappelli wrote three other letters. In the first one, he described himself as very happy with his missionary life.61 He was thirty-two years old, and expressed the wish to die there. The local situation was heartbreaking to him: a previously rich mission was suffering from so many problems, the first one being poverty. The missionaries and their assistants had barely food for themselves, and the hardships were the same in the whole Madurensis province. That mission was in fact in constant need and, even if quite vast, had less than a dozen Jesuits administering its branches. Two years later, Cappelli contacted the general to know if he could access the money he left to the Society of Jesus as he entered it. Since this fund had not been touched yet, he probably wanted to employ it for the survival of this poverty-stricken mission.62 His last and long extant letter is dated the year before his death. Cappelli informed the general about the local religious customs, like the one of giving a squared particle instead of a round one, asking if it was admissible.63 A few months later, in the summer of 1715, Cappelli died in the town of Kalugumalai, where a funerary monument was erected in his honor and became an object of pilgrimage. The missionary who took his place at the Marava station was another Italian, Giuseppe Beschi (1680–1747).64
4.3.2 Ludovico Gonzaga (1673–1718)
Ludovico Gonzaga was one of Agostino Cappelli´s companions in the journey to the East. After their paths split, they stayed in contact, but often criticized each other. Born in Mantua in 1673, Gonzaga joined the Society of Jesus when he was seventeen years old. Before leaving as a missionary for the Chinese empire, Gonzaga wrote at least four indipetae. From the Asian missions, he sent about fifteen long and often very intimate letters to the general. He died at forty-five years of age in Macau—as he wrote, the worries related to the distressful situation of the Chinese rites undermined his mental and physical health.65
After becoming a Jesuit, Gonzaga studied in the college of the order in Bologna. His teachers had only good words for him.66 Gonzaga waited a dozen years before writing his first petition at the age of twenty-six, from Ferrara. He never doubted about the destination he wanted: the “missions of the East Indies, and in particular the Chinese one.”67 He was sure of his calling for this important missionary appointment: first of all, it was for this that he had miraculously recovered from a deathly disease. Secondly, some episodes in his life showed him how God wanted him there, like this one he narrated to the general. Before having made known his desire to anyone, one day after lunch Gonzaga was summoned by a classmate. Gonzaga was wondering about the reasons for this meeting because the two were not even close: “I had for him just that general affection that a Jesuit has for his confreres, but we did not share any particular confidence.” Abruptly, his classmate asked him if he wanted to leave for China. Having ascertained it, he urged him to nourish this not yet confessed desire “with such an effective reasoning, that I was finally persuaded by someone who did not know a thing about what I was bearing in my soul.” Gonzaga was “inflamed after hearing all this, thinking it was God’s way to show me what he wanted from me.”
Surer about his vocation, Gonzaga requested a meeting with a superior Jesuit who barely knew him. For this reason, Gonzaga feared that the latter would have accused him of “recklessness, or even of little wisdom.”68 Not only did this not happen, but the superior assured him that “even without thinking about it, he found himself thinking: I must exhort […] Gonzaga to go to China.” These words stayed in his mind all day long. The next morning, after seeing Gonzaga, the superior understood the reasons for this thought and both were amazed about this sign. Another superior (the school rector) approved Gonzaga’s intentions and urged him to speak to the provincial. To him, Gonzaga revealed “the most arcane secrets of my soul.” The provincial urged Gonzaga with the following words: “keep alive your Vocation, so that God will not say: I have called you and you refused me, thus I will laugh for your calamities.”69 After these consultations, Gonzaga’s intentions were strengthened, and he felt ready to resist every obstacle.
Gonzaga was a resourceful petitioner because, also before turning to the general, he took every chance he could to ease his departure. For instance, when the procurator of China spent some time at his college, Gonzaga ran “into his room […] offering myself to him.”70 Moreover, after a year he contacted the procurator again via letter. He also wrote to the provincial, who replied kindly but quite discouraged any complaints on Gonzaga’s part where he was not selected because “things are in such a deplorable state, that neither Italians nor Portuguese can be accepted […] because of the unfortunate state of those [Chinese] missions.” Complications and obstacles, however, not only did not frighten Gonzaga, but made the Chinese empire more and more desirable to him. Gonzaga also contacted the father assistant of Portugal (Emmanuel Correa in those years), with two other letters. He was told to wait for better times.
Furthermore, Gonzaga tried to tailor his studies to the mission he was asking for. Committing to mathematics seemed a good way to be sent to China, as Gonzaga explained to the general: “I learned the first 12 books of Euclid, though not everything of the tenth—which I am focusing now on […] I have sufficient knowledge of Arithmetic […] I know the principles of Algebra […] trigonometry and the sphere.” In a short time, he could have acquired a very good knowledge of these subjects. His application to a scientific curriculum was clear, and he proudly shared it with the general. He also volunteered to start studying Chinese before leaving for Asia, as soon as arrived in Lisbon.
Gonzaga was a concrete man, also concerned about the material repercussions of his vocation and, as many petitioners, wished to prevent unexpected obstacles. He wanted to contribute financially to his departure and offered the money he inherited from his dead father. He was afraid that his remaining family members might object to his desires, but at the same time he did not seem too worried about their intervention. Other complications could have come from “Ours:” Gonzaga was afraid that his superiors had for him too much “affection,” “esteem” and “goodness”—completely unmotivated according to him.71 He therefore advised the general to organize everything “most secretly,” spreading the news only after having put Gonzaga on a ship. At the end of the letter, finally, he asked the general to address his reply to a trusted Jesuit and not to him directly (supposing that his superiors would have read it before, or not forwarded it to him).
A few months later, Gonzaga wrote another petition because he doubted his previous ones had been received, seeing no answer from the Portuguese assistant or from the general. He verbosely recounted to the general the story of his vocation, the miraculous signs he kept receiving, the diseases he was healed from—described in even more morbid and tragic terms. He also recalled a communication sent by the general to all Jesuits, “which minutely accounted us on the most happy situation in China, and gave us hopes that that vast empire was ready to subject to us, together with its emperor […] and invited us to reap the already ripe crops of the fertile harvest.”72 Gonzaga had not really left any strategy untried, applying to all the Jesuit offices, from the lowest to the highest in a hierarchical ladder. No one was kept uninformed of his vocation.
At the end of the same year, Gonzaga wrote a new petition for “the Mission of China” but also declaring himself available to be sent “wherever you like in the Indies.” He announced that, from then on, he would contact the general “at least once a year” to reiterate his plea.73 He wrote on the day of Marcello Mastrilli’s death, October 17th. Mastrilli landed in Japan with the goal of finding Cristóvão Ferreira (1580–1650), a Portuguese Jesuit whose traces were lost in 1633. Ferreira apparently apostatized, even if it is not clear whether he embraced Catholicism again before his death. The Neapolitan Mastrilli was, together with the Virgin and Luigi Gonzaga, Gonzaga’s patron for the missions.74 He asked for the general’s permission regarding his theological studies. First, he wanted to begin them early, in order to be prepared to leave for the Indies, and to pursue them not at his college: “somewhere in Spain or Portugal, but far from Italy, so that I could rush as soon as I would be appointed to any mission.” His urge to get away from Italy was even more strong and explicit than in the previous letters. It was linked to the problem of the “too benevolent” superiors and relatives, but it also depended on the advantages of studying foreign languages the sooner he could, while he still had the “memory and skills necessary to learn them more easily.” Gonzaga was one of the very few petitioners concerned with this aspect of accommodatio. Almost no one seemed to consider linguistic adaptation something to worry about, at least not in the litterae indipetae. Few Jesuits mentioned their willingness to learn a language as soon as possible, during their stay in the Portuguese residences or while navigating to the East. The general’s secretaries seemed interested in Gonzaga’s worry, and took note of it.75
In 1704, Gonzaga submitted his last and very long application. Although he knew that the general was already minutely informed, he wanted to summarize everything again, to help him make the right decision. Once again he added new pieces to his account, for instance the fact that in his feverish crisis he was delirious but always thinking of the Indies, imagining himself already there. For the first time he also mentioned the “fervor” born in him after “reading the letters from those countries.”76 He always remembered the general’s letter to all the Jesuits celebrating all “the favor and good inclination of the Emperor of China to the faith of Christ and the spread of the Holy Law.” In this letter, the general invited his flock to “move to that great harvest, whose ripeness God is showing us.” Gonzaga was “not able to express how much I felt everything in me going in flames after reading that account […] I was like in a great boil of spirit.” He may have thought that, for once, showing himself more passionate than usual could have helped his candidacy, convincing the general of the authenticity of his vocation. Gonzaga also confirmed how his superiors always saw him working well in the East. He had internal affirmations of his desire as well. While celebrating mass as an assistant, he had asked Xavier to help him “understand God’s will.” So it happened, because “throughout the entire Mass, […] I felt perhaps the greatest devotion I ever had, which pervaded me and assured me of what God wanted from me.”
Gonzaga recalled again the passage in Bologna of the procurator of China, Miguel do Amaral (1657–1730), but adding something new. As soon as Amaral left, Gonzaga fell into “a dangerous and long infirmity.”77 The doctors visited him but were not able to find any disease, until God finally “enlightened” them: it was smallpox. The second sign of supernatural support came when the doctor changed their minds about the therapy. At the beginning, they were treating Gonzaga with “blood extractions,” but then realized (and publicly admitted) that, if they had continued with the leeches, they would have killed him. The third sign was the fact that, despite Gonzaga’s rather advanced age to contract smallpox (twenty-three years), he not once doubted that he would recover, for the unquestionable reason that God wanted him in the Indies.
Gonzaga then methodically analyzed all the potential “obstacles” that could have prevented his selection, arising “from myself, from others, from Italy where I am, and from China where I desire to be.”78 As for himself, Gonzaga would face any difficulty. As for the “others,” he thought that any “noise” coming from his relatives could be easily silenced. Meanwhile, the classic opposition within the Society to petitioners (“I would be more helpful here”) made no sense to Gonzaga and, even if it was true, “among so many of us who joined our order, why should India [the Indies] not have at least one of us?” God had a very specific plan for everyone: even if someone tried to hinder it, it did not change. Regarding the requested destination (China), Gonzaga knew that someone could object that he was “not well informed,” that there were “some defects there [in the Far East] too,” and that he would “live there with less struggle and more comforts.” Were these sentences a Leitmotiv for the aspiring missionaries in the East—and the reason for some of them to prefer this destination? Gonzaga asked to be sent to China, but from there he wanted to reach “Japan, my first and foremost desire, as soon as God opens its door again.”
After that letter, Gonzaga succeeded in his aim. The reasons could have been many, and among them: his own numerous pleas to different offices (the local superior, the rector, the provincial, the assistant, the procurator, and finally the general), the network supporting him, his mathematical skills, his family’s inclination to “let him go,” and the right historical conjunction. He left Rome and stayed for a while in Lisbon, waiting for the Portuguese ships to depart. From there, he congratulated Michelangelo Tamburini for his appointment as the new general of the Society of Jesus, at the beginning of 1706.79 Gonzaga gave him an account on the pious death of a confrere he was close to, Ferdinando Calini (1675–1706), who passed away on a ship destined to Brazil.80 Gonzaga also informed the new general that the procurator of China Kastner had received the authorization to sail directly to Macau, and was hoping for an imminent departure. The most favorable period to travel from a climatic point of view were March and April. Missing these months, it was usually necessary to wait until the following year. The Jesuit ships would have been patrolled by four Dutch vessels. François Noël, the other procurator of China, had also arrived in Lisbon and had been welcomed with joy by all the ten Jesuits waiting for the right moment to leave.81
Gonzaga sailed as planned, together with his Roman confrere Agostino Cappelli. After landing in Goa at the end of the same year (1706), Gonzaga updated the general. Then, he continued with his journey to the “longed-for destination of China.”82 If on one side litterae indipetae expressed all the writers’ anxiety of being chosen for the Indies and getting there, always worrying about unexpected and last-minute obstacles, in their first letters from the missions the ex-petitioners often described with joy and enthusiasm all the news of the unknown country and their daily activities. Gonzaga, for example, enjoyed excellent health, and his stay was even more pleasant because of the “love” and “partiality” he “found in all the Fathers who are here.” He was happy also because of the chance to admire Xavier’s “glorious body” exposed in Goa, which had struck him for the excellent state of preservation of face, hands and feet (“very fresh”). Although Gonzaga was confident of a forthcoming departure, he did not hide from the general the “very unpleasant circumstances here,” and the fact that the Society of Jesus ran “the great risk of losing the Mission, with all of us being expelled from China.” If that was the case, Gonzaga was not the type to be discouraged: he could have pursued martyrdom. He was planning, together with an unnamed confrere, “to try to enter Japan, my only desire […] to spread again in that unhappy country no less, but even more copious mercy than it had before.” Gonzaga closed the letter asking for the text of the last General Congregation and some data on the celebration of masses in China.
In May, Gonzaga left as planned for Macau. At the end of the same year (1707) he was sent to Beijing, where he arrived in 1708 and pronounced his final vows as a Jesuit.83 In July of the next year, he asked the general for precise instructions on the policy of the Society of Jesus in China.84 At the end of 1710, Gonzaga gave direct testimony of Kastner’s death, which occurred a year before. He was apparently annoyed when criticizing his confrere Cappelli, whose point of view was the focus of the previous section of this chapter. Gonzaga thought that Cappelli was simply “benefitting from the actual circumstances, so unfavorable to us in these lands.”85 Cappelli had decided without many scruples “to go to the Madurai Missions, where he finds himself very happy with his fate.” Gonzaga felt betrayed by the turnaround of a brother who was so close to him. They had left Italy together, and had spent many months living in the same place, in Lisbon before and on the ship after. Gonzaga thought that Cappelli had chosen to abandon a thorny situation like the one in China, only to live more relaxed and in a quieter environment like it was, in his view, India.
Reading Cappelli’s letters, Gonzaga’s suspicions seem partially founded: Cappelli may have acted like Gonzaga explained—and Gonzaga probably did not even know that Cappelli moved to Madurai at Tournon’s explicit invitation. Tournon was (almost) unanimously seen by the Jesuits as an enemy of the Society, a threat to the (until then) successful accommodatio policy in China. Gonzaga imagined Cappelli living happily and peacefully in India, while his confreres were sadly facing all the “troubles of this unhappy Mission,” in a constant situation of “danger […] of getting lost, without any remedy but a miracle.” Gonzaga described his heart being in the middle of “storms, drowned by so many persecutions and distresses,” that his only consolation was “to sigh, trusting God.”
Concerning the Rites controversy, that went on “among so many debates and disputes,”86 Gonzaga was sure that the situation could be judged only by the Jesuits, because the other religious orders had neither the skills nor the honesty necessary to do it. He complained: “those who accuse us so much and oppose our policies, are not the most learned nor virtuous people, they are not the most experienced in China, they do not know the Chinese Letters and customs—something we do, instead, and have done for more than a century.” What caused the Chinese “admiration” for Christianity were exactly the Jesuit choices facing accusation in those months.
On one side, Cappelli juggled among opposite fires, trying not to have anybody as an enemy: neither the powerful Tournon, nor the Captain of Macau, nor the general or the other religious orders in Rome. On the other side, Gonzaga firmly believed in the righteousness of the Jesuit practices until then, and was proudly sure that no one could understand as much as his brothers in China what was the best to do, to keep the emperor’s favor—especially with the intervention of people like Tournon and Maigrot, who did not know the local culture at all. Jesuits were for Gonzaga the only competent judges of these issues, and he was sorry because he knew that “many slanders […] and incredible things” were said against them. These critics were so harsh that “I would not have believed them myself, nor could I have been persuaded of such things, if I would not have bumped into them myself here, now, where I see them with my eyes and touch them with my hands.” He was genuinely upset and did not understand how it was possible that “some people, with so little conscience, would make so much effort to defame us, without any regard to the harm they do to such a worthy mission, being interested only in satisfying themselves and their interest.” Gonzaga was sure of the dishonesty, falseness and destructive spirit of the detractors of the Society of Jesus. This way however they were damaging not only the order of St. Ignatius, but the whole of Chinese Christianity.
Gonzaga was sure he was on the right side, but what could he do? He could but wait and try not to lend any ear to this gossip, especially because its propagators were people who “do not love reason nor fairness.”87 According to him, it was not just ignorance of Chinese civilization, but a wider envy and resentment towards the Society of Jesus. These people’s final goal was to steal the Jesuits’ place at court. Gonzaga tried to keep calm looking at the “objects […] in themselves directly and with almost speculative judgment, trying to see things for what they really are.” Beyond his personal beliefs, anyway, Gonzaga would have followed any order received from the general. He was “a son of obedience,” always considering “infallible” every word coming from the general’s mouth. Like Cappelli, Gonzaga foresaw hard times for the Society of Jesus in China, but “if the decrees against the usual policies will arrive and be issued here, I will not but lower my head in humble subjection, not to risk any censure or excommunication, nor my spirit’s restlessness.” In other words, if the Jesuits in China had received the original document of the papal decree (and not its abbreviation by Tournon, whom they could continue pretending not to trust), Gonzaga’s conscience would have forced him to obey, even knowing it was not the right choice. However, he also added prophetically: “if these decrees are issued here, this Mission is infallibly lost.” Gonzaga saw that on one side the Chinese ruler was “very busy preserving his empire’s rites,” but on the other side the Jesuit missionaries could not live longer with all “these perturbations and perplexities of our soul.”
Two years later, Gonzaga wrote to Tamburini about the development of the Jesuit mission in the imperial capital, asking for liturgic clarifications.88 The next year, he updated again the general on the rites controversy and the dangerous position assumed by Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730) and Jean François Foucquet (1665–1741). Both Jesuits had explained their figurist theories to the emperor: according to their opinion, Chinese literature and history showed a closeness with Christianity and in some way preluded it. Gonzaga saw these theories as not beneficial to the Society’s public image. In his letter, he also mentioned the presence at court of two Italians, Teodorico Pedrini (1671–1746), music teacher of some of Kangxi’s sons, and Matteo Ripa (1682–1746), the founder of the Collegio dei Cinesi in Naples.89 A year later (1714), Gonzaga seemed optimistic about the establishment of Christianity not only in the Chinese Tartaria, but also in Korea and Japan, because people seemed to cry out for missionaries from all those places.90
In 1716, Gonzaga had to leave Beijing for health reasons. He moved to the south, to Nanjing, from where he wrote two other letters to Tamburini. In October, he still complained about Bouvet’s interpretation of Chinese history. Bouvet defended his ideas and saw them as a good way to convert the emperor, while for Gonzaga they promised “big damage for the whole Christian religion.”91 He had tried to convince his fellow Jesuit not to divulge his theories, but Bouvet “turned a deaf ear, insisting more and more with his phantasies.” Gonzaga begged the general to put an end to Bouvet’s delusions, since he would not listen to any superior in China. Similarly, Gonzaga was afraid of Foucquet’s arguments. His re-writing of Chinese chronologies, astronomy, and history were a “big detriment” not only to the Jesuit situation in the empire, but more generally “to European doctrines.” He also complained about the arguments between the French Jesuits and their local superior, François-Xavier Dentrecolles (1664–1741), a subject he dealt with in his following letter as well.92 Gonzaga concluded beseeching Tamburini’s blessing for the Chinese mission, which he saw put at risk more because of the internal conflicts between Jesuits, than for the Rites controversy itself.
In 1716, Gonzaga shared with the general a certified copy of a letter he previously sent to Dentrecolles.93 Gonzaga had been very polite in addressing the French superior. First of all, he apologized himself for the delay of his correspondence caused by health problems. He added that all the “confusions and quarrels between us” (meaning the Jesuits from different factions: the Portuguese versus the French Jesuits) were causing him “maximum pain.”94 There was a real “schism among us,” and nothing could be “worse for the ruin of the Chinese mission,” if the news he had received were true. All those “quarrels before the emperor” and the “scandals arisen among the neophytes” was really bad publicity not only for the Society of Jesus, but for Christianity in general. Gonzaga’s hopes of a reconciliation of the Jesuit front in China were disillusioned. The change of air and the transfer to Macau did not have the expected effect: he died there in 1718, aged forty-four.
Conclusions
This chapter briefly accounted for the preference of litterae indipetae for Asian destinations. It then followed the stories of a few Italian Jesuits longing for the East and their concrete outcomes, as seen through their indipetae and other documents. These four Jesuits employed different strategies to apply for the Asian missions, sometimes also changing them underway. Petitioners highlighted some aspects instead of others, broadened the list of destinations to which they were available instead of insisting on just one (especially if impossible, like in the case of Japan), committed to the study of the disciplines considered more useful in China (like mathematics), and wrote more or less inflamed pleas.
On the one hand, Sarti and Berlendis’ attitude towards Japan could have been what prevented them from leaving. The Roman curia may have seen as too morbid and obsessive their desire for the tortures and the martyrdom they wanted to reach in Japan. The generals’ answers had two specular results: while Sarti left the order, Berlendis peacefully lived for another fifty years in it. On the other hand, Cappelli and Gonzaga could have looked to the Roman secretaries as more educated, talented, and balanced than other companions. What stood out in these latter cases was that both contacted not only (and not always for first) the general in Rome, but the procurator of China Kaspar Kastner. Luckily for them, in those years Kastner was in Italy recruiting Jesuits for his missions, and that certainly made the difference. Cappelli and Gonzaga had the chance to personally interact and talk to him, who may have put a good word with the general. Beside the reasons why some were chosen and others not, this chapter showed one of the many ways indipetae can be used: not to write History, but to recount histories.
Appendix 1: Asian Preference in the indipetae from the Italian Assistancy (1687–1730)
Appendix 2: Indipetae Sent from the Italian Assistancy (1687–1730)
Appendix 3: Origin of the indipetae Written from the Italian Assistancy (1687–1730)
Appendix 4: Indipetae from the Italian Assistancy according to the Jesuit Province (1687–1730)
They are preserved in the Fondo Gesuitico 749, 750, and 751. This book only partially considers the petitions preserved outside Fondo Gesuitico, for instance the ones sent from the Provincia Veneta (there were only thirty-five indipetae written during Santalla’s and Tamburini’s generalates preserved there, thus the statistical data still stand). Concerning Italian indipetae written in those years (specifically, between 1676 and 1770), see also Anna Rita Capoccia, Pierre-Antoine Fabre, and Bernard Vincent, eds., “Le destin des Indipetae au-delà du XVI siècle,” in Missions Religieuses Modernes: “Notre lieu est le monde” (Rome: École française de Rome, 2007), 89–110.
See also the graphics in the Appendix. This statistic is based on petitions, not on petitioners: the same Jesuit could ask for the same destination in different letters, or change his mind during time.
In detail, the Filipino preference varied as follows: six requests in 1704, two in 1705, four in 1706, one in 1707, six in 1717, and then none until 1725 (one petition). In 1727, 1728, and 1729 there were respectively one, ten, and eight petitions aimed at that destination.
“M’importa grandemente per ottenere la mia bramata Missione del Giappone, ô Cina il chiarire di nuovo più distintamente Vostra Paternità come la mia Vocatione all’Indie sia sempre stata per il Giappone, ô Cina, e non per l’altre parti […] si crepa di Melanconìa […] Esco matto in pensare che il Signore m’habbia mortificato in farmi offerire le filippine, per le quali m’hò dichiarato non havere vocatione […] hò dimandato explicitè il Giappone, ô Cina,” ARSI, FG 743, fol. 334 (Caltanissetta, February 7, 1642).
Such a statistic will be possible as the uploads on the Digital Indipetae Database progress.
“qualche angolo dell’Oriente,” ARSI, FG 749, fol. 445v (Palermo, January 6, 1692). Paternò wrote nine indipetae between 1685 and 1693, but died in his native Sicily in 1726 (Joseph Fejér, Defuncti secundi saeculi Societatis Jesu: 1641–1740. Rome: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 1985, 85).
“missioni orientali, per andar alle quali io entrai nella Religione, et in essa vivendo sempre più mi sono sentito eccitato ad esse,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 294 (Rome, July 19, 1714).
See Anna Rita Capoccia, “Gori, Giulio,” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani 58 (2002), http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giulio-gori_(Dizionario-Biografico))/ and “Modernità e ortodossia: Strategie di conciliazione e dissidenza nell’insegnamento della filosofia nei collegi gesuitici del primo Settecento,” Les Dossiers du Grihl 2 (2009): 1–37. On Gori, see also Elisa Frei, “Signed in Blood: Negotiating with the Superior General about the Overseas Mission (18th Century),” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 51, no. 4 (2019): 1–34, here 17–18.
“Il mondo suole ingannare, et adescare con tre sole cose, Ricchezze, Onori e Piaceri,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 89.
This is an allusion to the Meditation on the Two Standards (Spiritual Exercises 136–48). Riches, honor, and pleasures, as the petitioner Giulio Gori noted, were weapons that Lucifer used to mislead Jesuits who did not have a true vocation. See Adriano Prosperi, “The Two Standards: The Origins and Development of a Celebrated Ignatian Meditation,” Journal of Jesuit Studies 2 (2015): 361–86.
The original quotation of the paragraph sounds as follows: “navigatione assai humiliante, sempre con ciurmaglia, che continuamente caricano di ingiurie, strapazzi e villanie, e bisogna per questo istesso servirli, e far lo schiavo a tutti […] molto tempo in casa, e per non starvi otioso, scopare, fare il quoco, et altre cose simili, che l’uomo mondano non reputa per onore […] grandissima inclinatione alla speculatione […] più tosto allettativo d’onore […] privarsi delle molte ricreazioni lecite, ed honeste, che qui si godono in Domino nella Compagnia, perdere qualche agio, e commodità […] non gusta gran cosa né degli incommodi, patimenti sommi della navigazione, né di quelli molto maggiori, che portan seco un clima diverso, diversi cibi, et il doversi assuefare a diversi costumi,” ARSI, FG 750, fols. 89, 89a, 89b, 89bv, 89c, 89d, 89e, 89ev (Rome, December 2, 1704).
“per poi subito passarmene al Giappone, quando Sua Divina Maestà si degnerà di farvi penetrare la Santa Fede,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 174 (Rome, August 15, 1704).
“sinceramente manifestarle di aver avuto un non so che d’inclinazione a portar la fede nelle Isole del Giappone, se pur ivi è permesso l’entrarvi,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 452 (Palermo, March 5, 1717).
There is no complete bibliography on Sidotti: see http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovanni-battista-sidotti/] His name is mentioned in Maillard de Tournon’s biography of the same online source: Giacomo Di Fiore, http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/maillard-de-tournon-carlo-tommaso_(Dizionario-Biografico)/). Sidotti left Rome in July 1702 with a group of papal emissaries which included Maillard de Tournon and other religious people. They were meant to announce the decree against the Chinese rites in the Empire, while bringing precious gifts to Kangxi. For the conversations between Sidotti and Hakuseki, see Aldo Tollini, “L’ultimo missionario in Giappone: Giovanni Battista Sidotti,” in Italia-Giappone. 450 anni, by Adolfo Tamburello, vol. 1 (Rome–Naples: Ca’ Foscari, 2003), 66–73. See also the short mentions of Sidotti in John A. Tucker, “Arai Hakuseki (1657–1725),” in Japanese Philosophy: A Sourcebook, ed. James Heisig and Thomas P. Maraldos (Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 2011), 387–92; Adriana Boscaro, Ventura e sventura dei gesuiti in Giappone (1549–1639) (Venice: Cafoscarina, 2008), 17; Andrew C. Ross, A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542–1742 (New York: Orbis Books, 1994), 109–10.
On the challenging cultural and linguistic exchanges of the early modern age, see Peter Burke, “Cultures of Translation in Early Modern Europe,” in Cultural Translation in Early Modern Europe, ed. Peter Burke and Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 7–38. On misunderstandings between Europeans and Japanese, both linguistic and cultural, see the three essays by Urs App: “St. Francis Xavier’s Discovery of Japanese Buddhism: A Chapter in the European Discovery of Buddhism,” The Eastern Buddhist. New Series 30, no. 1 (1997): 53–78; 30, no. 2 (1997): 214–44; 31, no. 1 (1998): 40–71.
“chiudere un’epoca di contatti e di scambi, tra due culture profondamente diverse […] egli anche simbolicamente rappresenta la conclusione di oltre un secolo di contatti, ma anche di scontri e incomprensioni” (Tollini, “L’ultimo missionario in Giappone,” 72).
It is not clear where petitioners received this information from. Since the common Sicilian origins both from Sidotti and the petitioners mentioning it, it is likewise it was an oral news. Sidotti was not a Jesuit, and his enterprise was not claimed nor planned by the Society of Jesus: his was mainly a solitary adventure.
“a navigar al Giappone […] quella vigna […] impenetrabile […] pronto al viaggio, per quando si compiacesse il Supremo Monarca rompere col sangue dell’Agnello le chiuse porte diamantine di quel vastissimo Imperio,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 41 (Messina, January 23, 1698). Finocchio was never sent to the East Indies, nor his name appear among the defuncti of the Society of Jesus.
“aperta la porta, già da tanto tempo chiusa, alla vera Fede, e l’Imperatore di quel regno ha chiesto nostri missionarii per la Conversione di quelle genti […] l’avventurata sorte d’essere annoverato nel numero felicissimo di quelli che dovranno passare alla Conversione di quei popoli Giapponesi,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 223 (Salerno, October 9, 1705).
“quando sia vera la nuova qui giunta esservi apertura,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 225 (Salerno, October 14, 1705). His name is alternatively reported as Muscento, Muscattulo or Muscettulo, and his death is registered in Fejér, Defuncti secundi saeculi, 350.
“capitata qui notitia d’esser già entrato nel Giappone Nostro Signor Sidoti con due nostri francesi, e che habbiano ivi ottenuta licenza di spargere il seme evangelico a quelle genti,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 399 (Modica, October 20, 1716).
“minimo segno […] a nuoto,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 422 (Palermo, January 8, 1717).
“specialmente per le Filippine e Cina, in veduta al Giappone ove mi sento pure affezzionato […] chi sa se è vicino il tempo da compirsi le misericordie divine rivelate, come ho udito, a sensi suoi, su quelle Isole?” ARSI, FG 751, fol. 371 (Palermo, February 10, 1729).
“chiede con molto fervore le Indie” (ARSI, FG 751, fol. 367v). Sarti’s name appears in the Milanese catalogues of a decade, 1726–37 (ARSI, Med. 64 and 65). For basic biographical information, see also Schedario unificato Lamalle, sub nomine.
“infocate […] brame […] certo di non poterlo fare con formole sì espressive, che corrispondano al cuore […] un cotal fuoco […] così preso e infervorato, che mai […] mi son ponto lasciato intiepidire […] conosco e tocco con mano che Digitus Dei est hic […] oh, quanto vie più mi si accesero i miei fervori! […] a’ piedi chiedendogli una tal grazia […] uno de’ stimoli più possenti, che mi spingono a portarmi da vero figlio della Compagnia,” ARSI, FG 751, fol. 367 (Cremona, December 13, 1728).
It was not possible to find any data about his uncle Carlo Sarti in the main Jesuit repertoires of sources.
See chapter 2.2.1. of this book.
“m’infiammavano non poco […] ho pianto di pura consolazione in vedere che Iddio mi facea grazia sì grande […] Oh, quante volte ho pianto inanzi l’altare del mio gran Santo San Francesco Saverio, con quanti sospiri gli ho chiesta tal grazia […] Santi Martiri Giapponesi […] insolito fervore,” ARSI, FG 751, fol. 379 (Milan, May 3, 1729). He referred to the Nagasaki martyrs (twenty-six Christians, of whom three Japanese Jesuits) of 5 February 1597.
“distinzione, con cui ha gradito i miei fervori circa la mia vocazione dell’Indie,” ARSI, FG 751, fol. 396 (Milan, August 24, 1729).
ARSI, Med. 66, fol. 241.
See Chapter 2 of this book.
ARSI, Med. 65, fol. 38v.
ARSI, Neap. 88, fol. 100 for the Catalogus Primus and fol. 85 for the Secundus. For basic biographical information on Berlendis, see Schedario unificato Lamalle, sub nomine.
“l’essere per ogni parte immaturo, or sia nello spirito or nelle lettere […] il sospettar […] se fossemi un tal desiderio […] donato liberalmente da Dio o sorto comunque altrimenti […] il caro mio Giappone […] Quando sarà che squarciato io muoio nel mio Giappone, quando sarà Dio mio, quando! […] quando consolaveris me! […] Se mai io mi fermava a goder delle stelle in Ciel Sereno, se mai mi avveniva udir istrumenti da suono […] imagine de tanti martiri ch’ha la Compagnia […] rapito col pensiero e con l’affetto al mio Giappone […] pativan per Dio in paesi ignoti e barbari! […] per non esser costretto a […] piangere a vista d’altri,” ARSI, FG 749, fols. 595–96 (Naples, February 27, 1694).
On the compositio loci, see Nicolas Standaert, “The Composition of Place: Creating Space for an Encounter,” The Way 46, no. I (2007): 7–20. Berlendis’ letter is a precious source for the history of the senses, an interdisciplinary area of cultural studies whose main goal is to find documentation mentioning sensory experiences. On the recent ‘sensory turn’ in cultural studies, see Herman Roodenburg, ed., A Cultural History of the Senses in the Renaissance (New York–London: Bloomsbury, 2014); Mark M. Smith, Sensing the Past: Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); Constance Classen, Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures (London: Routledge, 1993). On discernment, see Marina Massimi and Mauro Brunello, “Indipetae e conoscenza di sé: Discernimento ignaziano e psicologia moderna nel XX secolo,” Ricerche di storia sociale e religiosa 45, no. 88 (2016): 119–52.
“varii generi di tormenti, quasi che tutti mi si applicassero […] l’immaginarmi vivamente esser io constretto già a morire su d’un patibolo, però cantar quelle preci […] già in letto, o svegliatomi tra notte […] a delitiarsi in tali immaginationi […]il rimanente del ristoro […] le porte del Giappone […] far forza a quelle porte, chiuse con tanta gelosia. No ‘l vuole Iddio; non la raggione, non la prudenza […] sarà il dimonio più astuto in guardarlo, che Iddio savio in deludere le sue astutie? Si aprirà, si aprirà una volta, e si aprirà ad un huomo, non già ad un Angelo,” ARSI, FG 749, fols. 595–96 (Naples, February 27, 1694).
“consolatione per una parte […], tanto dall’altra […] tristezza […] Che posso far io? s’egli [Dio] mi vuol senz’altro per il Giapone, posso resistergli, posso chiedere altro? Sono importuno, è vero, ma mi perdoni: ci ha chi mi forza ad esserlo […] Mi piace dunque incontrar ostacoli; mi piace patir, per superargli […] Creschino le difficoltà […] Sospirerò avanti a lui tanto, e tanto piangerò e moltiplicherò le penitenze, finché per mezzo di Vostra Paternità si compiaccia di spedirmi […] le patenti di Apostolo al mio Giappone,” ARSI, FG 749, fol. 597 (Naples, March 22, 1694).
For England as “Europe’s Japan” see Giuseppe Boero, ed., Lettere edite ed inedite del padre Daniello Bartoli, D. C. D. G. e di uomini illustri scritte al medesimo, letter 28, June 9, 1665 (Bologna: Alessandro Mareggiani, 1865), 32–33, quoted in Simon Ditchfield, “The ‘Making’ of Roman Catholicism as a ‘World Religion,’ ” in Multiple Reformations?: The Many Faces and Legacies of the Reformation, ed. Jan Stievermann and Randall C. Zachmann (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 189–204, here 202.
“chiusa la porta del Giappone […] finché Iddio l’aprisse, affaticarmi nella Cina o là intorno, in una parte di quelle Indie? […] Vorrei […] essergli presente, perché gittandomegli a’ piedi, tanto vorrei piangere e sospirare,” ARSI, FG 749, fol. 628 (Naples, January 18, 1695).
“ad concionandum, et ad omnia ministeria Societatis,” ARSI, Neap. 88, fol. 122 for the Catalogus Primus and fol. 59 for the Secundus. Berlendis died in 1745 (ARSI, Neap. 163, fol. 59).
Frederik Vermote, “Travellers Lost and Redirected: Jesuit Networks and the Limits of European Exploration in Asia,” Itinerario 41, no. 3 (2017): 484–506.
The Italian Jesuits of the period all went to China during Kangxi’s rulership (1662–1723); under his successor Yongcheng (1723–36), only members of the Portuguese and French assistancies were allowed to. In detail, during the timespan of this book (1687–1730), the following Italian Jesuits successfully reached China: in 1687, Filippo Felice Carrocci (sixteen indipetae); in 1690, Giuseppe Bressanelli (two), Giovanni Battista Pallavicini (one) and Carlo Giuseppe Pluro (one); in 1691, Isidoro Lucci (no petitions of his are preserved); in 1692, Pietro Belmonte (no petitions) and Francesco Capacci (three indipetae); in 1693, Alessandro Ceaglio (no indipetae); in 1694, Luca Adorno (eight), Carlo Amiani (two), Giuseppe Baudino (three), Antonio Faglia (two), Cristoforo Fiori (no indipetae) and Gianpaolo Gozani (three); in 1695, Antonio Provana (two); in 1697, Giandomenico Paramino (five); in 1698, Agostino Barelli (four) and Giovanni Laureati (two); in 1699, Giuseppe Candone (three); in 1701, Girolamo Franchi (two); in 1706, Agostino Cappelli (five; see infra); in 1707, Ludovico Gonzaga (four see infra); in 1709, Annibale Marchetti (no indipetae); in 1715, Giuseppe Castiglione (no indipetae), Giovanni Giuseppe Costa (no indipetae) and Niccolò Giampriamo (one); in 1718, Antonio Trigona (three); in 1719, Filippo Simonelli (one); in 1720, Antonio Morabito (three); in 1721, Francesco Folleri (no indipetae), Ferdinando Moggi (one) and Gianbattista Sanna (three). These names are listed in Joseph Dehergne, Répertoire des Jésuites de Chine de 1552 à 1800 (Rome-Paris: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu–Letouzey & Ané, 1973), 403, divided per year and native assistancy. To check whether they applied in written form, see the typewritten document Indipetae (732–759), available in ARSI, with all the petitions preserved in Fondo Gesuitico. However, letters could have been written, sent and received but not preserved.
“ispirato di dedicarsi alle Missioni dell’India […] pronto a qualunque missione […] tutti i travagli del Viaggio e delle staggioni, quantunque mi dovessero riuscire mortali […] goderò d’havere corrisposto alla sua Voce divina […] quanto prima sia possibile,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 68 (Viterbo, March 3, 1699).
ARSI, Rom. 67, fol. 87 for the Primus and also for the Secundus.
“desiderio […] talmente accresciuto che haverrei fatta di nuovo più volte l’istessa supplica, se non mi havessero consigliato altrimenti i miei Padri spirituali […] Missione più ardua e più fatigosa,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 169 (Rome, April 16, 1704).
“per sua Infinita Bontà non cessa ogni dì più […] con frequenti inspirazioni […] sempre pronto ad’ogni suo cenno a correre da per tutto, ma specialmente ove pare mi voglia Iddio messo,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 179 (Rome, August 30, 1704).
“testificargli l’ardente brama […] di spargere […] tutti i sudori, il sangue e la Vita per chi è morto in Croce per me […] compagno nel viaggio […] o mi mandi alle Missioni della Cina ove Egli torna, o pure ad altre dell’Indie […] le più fatigose e le più bisognose d’Operarii,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 194 (Rome, December 21, 1704).
On Kastner, see chapter 3.
“più lungo per il gran desiderio che ho di ricevere la felice nuova d’essere anch’Io destinato al fortunato viaggio per L’Indie […] il Padre Provinciale non ha inclinazione a mandarmi, benché più volte glien’habbia fatte efficacissime instanze […] mi vergogno che questa Provincia faccia tante difficoltà per un soggetto Vilissimo e da nulla, mentre Molte altre Provincie si contentano di perderne tanti, e tanti incomparabilmente più qualificati […] Consolazione desideratissima di destinarmi per il Tunchino, Compagno del Padre Castner da Lisbona all’Indie, e del Padre Gonzaga da Roma in Portogallo,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 201 (Rome, April 6, 1705).
As for the desire to spread blood and the use of real blood to obtain this aim, see chapter 2.1.3. of this book and the essay by the author “The Ardent Desire to Spread All My Sweat and Blood: Italian Litterae Indipetae between 1690 and 1730,” in Narratives of Suffering, Persecution and Disappointment in the Early Modern Period: Giving Birth to New Martyrs, ed. Leonardo Cohen (Lisbon: Universidade Católica Portuguesa–Centro de Estudos de História Religiosa, 2020), 101–26.
Although theoretically sent to Japan (Josef Wicki, “Liste der Jesuiten-Indienfahrer 1541–1758,” Aufsätze zur Portugiesischen Kulturgeschichte 7 (1967): 252–450, here 315), Cappelli was redirected to southern China before and Malabar after because, as Dehergne states, “Tournon did not want him to enter China” (“puisque le Patriarche [de Tournon] ne veut pas qu’il entre en Chine,” Dehergne, Répertoire, 43). Even if not explaining the reasons why, in his letters Cappelli confirms that it was at Tournon’s invitation that he left for Malabar, after several years spent in China and Macau.
ARSI, Jap-Sin. 172, fol. 378 (Macau, November 22, 1708). For a brief account on the Chinese Rites controversy, see the Introduction of this book.
“disordini che sempre vanno in maggiore precipizio, senza alcuna speranza di rimedio […] tacita approvazione, che il Papa fa dell’operato di sua Eminenza […] altro scampo, che conciliarci la sua benevolenza per tempo, ancora che vengono risposte da Roma,” ARSI, Jap-Sin. 172, fol. 378 (Macau, November 22, 1708).
Tournon was appointed patriarch of Antiochia in 1701, before leaving for the East. In 1707 he also became Cardinal of Santa Sabina.
“guardie […] benché non l’habbiam ottenuto in tutto, adesso però le guardie non sono come prima, né tanto rigorose […] per il timor che hanno de’ Cinesi questi della Città […] accordo di pace […] l’ultimo decreto di sua Eminenza, per il desiderio che anche Vostra Reverenza non s’imbrogliasse […] gran desiderio che ho […] del bene della Compagnia e del bene publico, che sempre si deve preferire al particolare […] in sì estrema miseria […] degno figlio della Compagnia,” ARSI, Jap-Sin. 172, fol. 378 (Macau, November 22, 1708).
“due righe, nelle quali significasse che mai hebbe intentione di pregiudicare all’Ius patronato del Re di Portogallo […] libertà Ecclesiastica […] tutta la Città in corpo protestò contro tale ordine, dicendo che bastava che le guardie fossero ossequiose e a disposizione di sua Eminenza […] ossequiose […] non voleva vedere alla sua Casa tali soldati […] grande disgrazia, specialmente della Compagnia, a cui certamente tornava conto che si riconciliassero,” ARSI, Jap-Sin. 172, fol. 389 (Macau, December 23, 1708).
Ignazio Giampè was one of the writers of the bull Ex illa die (March 19, 1715), together with Giovan Francesco Nicolai, Charles Maigrot, Giovan Giacomo Fatinelli, Giovanni Donato Mezzafalce and Nicolas Charmot. See Michela Catto, http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/giovan-francesco-nicolai_(Dizionario-Biografico)/.
“esiliato per li riti di Confusio […] discorrere familiare con Lui […] alcune Massime contro la Compagnia, per le cose succedute nella Cina contro il Signore Cardinale di Tournon […] temo che ci potrà pregiudicare in Roma al bene della Compagnia,” ARSI, Jap-Sin. 173, fol. 89 (São Tomé de Meliapor, August 13, 1709).
Claude de Visdelou, considered one of the first “sinologists,” lived in the Chinese empire for decades (1685–1709). Even if he never left the Society of Jesus, he openly criticized it as well explained in Sabina Pavone, “Dentro e fuori la Compagnia di Gesù: Claude Visdelou tra riti cinesi e riti malabarici,” in Los jesuitas: Religión, política y educación (siglos XVI–XVIII), ed. José Martínez Millán, Hernan Pizarro Llorente, and Esther Jiménez Pablo (Madrid: Universidad Pontificia Comillas, 2012), 943–60, here 945 and 951. Visdelou also accepted the appointment as bishop of Claudiopolis in partibus infidelium, which was an office not compatible with the status of a Jesuit, thanks to a dispensation obtained from Tournon.
“con ottima sodisfazione del Signore Cardinale [Tournon]; non so se anche del Padre Provinciale […] che ne prendesse alcun sospetto, e mi difficoltasse la sua licenza […] trattato molto con quei del Signore Cardinale e di Propaganda; ma si assicuri che non fu molto […] con intenzione del maggiore bene della Compagnia,” ARSI, Jap-Sin. 173, fol. 89 (São Tomé, August 13, 1709).
ARSI, Goa 20, fol. 76 (Madurai, January 16, 1711).
ARSI, Goa 20, fol. 93 (Madurai, January 31, 1713).
ARSI, Goa 20, fols. 104–5 (Madurai, September 10, 1714).
Fejér, Defuncti secundi saeculi, 211; Leon Besse, Father Beschi of the Society of Jesus: His Times & His Writings (Trichinopoly: St. Joseph’s Industrial School Press, 1918), 21 and 69. One of the most recent pilgrimages to his grave took place in 1988, according to the website of the Jesuit Madurai Province (https://gulabigirlshighschool.com/index.php/who-we-are/highlights-of-madurai-province).
His name is very common and research on him is thus quite complicated, as Dehergne already noticed in Répertoire, 114. Gonzaga does not mention any relation with the saint, and there are no clear indications about it.
ARSI, Ven. 49, fol. 11 for the Primus and the Secundus.
“missioni delle Indie Orientali, ed in particolare la Cinese […] quell’affetto generale che si ha con gli altri della Compagnia, ma non già confidenza veruna in particolare […] con tutta l’efficacia delle ragioni prende a persuadermi, che così debbo fare, senza però saper egli niente di quel, che fomentavo nell’animo […] m’infiamai a queste voci, pensandole da Dio inviatemi acciò capissi ciò che da me voleva,” ARSI, Ven. 99, fols. 161–62 (Ferrara, January 14, 1699).
“imprudente, o anche di poco senno […] senza pensare a ciò, era caduto a sé in pensiero di esortare […] Gonzaga ad andare alla Cina […] i più segreti arcani del mio interno […] Mantenete la Vocazione, acciò Dio non dica: Vocavi et renuisti, ego quoque in interitu tuo ridebo,” ARSI, Ven. 99, fols. 161–62 (Ferrara, January 14, 1699).
Proverbs 1, 24–26.
“in camera […] ad offerirmegli […] facendo instanze premurose […] le cose sono in uno stato così deplorabile, in cui né Italiani né Portoghesi si ponno accettare […] stato infelice di quella missione […] ho pigliata la congnizione de 12 primi libri d’Euclide, benché non di tutto il decimo, quale studio attualmente […] soficiente notizia dell’Aritmetica […] li principii dell’Algebra […] applicato alla trigonometria ed alla sfera,” ARSI, Ven. 99, fols. 161–62 (Ferrara, January 14, 1699).
“Nostri […] affetto […] stima […] bontà […] con un sommo segreto,” ARSI, Ven. 99, fols. 161–62 (Ferrara, January 14, 1699).
“minutamente ci narrava il felicissimo stato della Cina e ci recava speranze che, assieme col suo Imperatore, quell’ampio impero fosse per soggettarsi […] ed invitava in fine compagni a mietere le messi già mature della ferace ricolta,” ARSI, Ven. 99, fols. 164–65 (Ferrara, March 7, 1699).
“la Missione della Cina, o per dove altro più le piaccia nell’Indie […] almeno una volta per ciascun anno […] in qualche luogo di Spagna o Portogallo, lungi almeno dall’Italia per indi correre speditamente alle Missioni destinatemi […] troppo benevoli […] memoria […] habilità […] per apprendere con magior agio le lingue,” ARSI, Ven. 99, fol. 167 (Ferrara, October 17, 1699).
As for the indipetae’s role model Marcello Mastrilli (1603–37), see chapter 2.2 of this book, Ines G. Županov, “Passage to India: Jesuit Spiritual Economy between Martyrdom and Profit in the Seventeenth Century,” Journal of Early Modern History 16, no. 2 (2012): 1–39 and Liam Brockey, The Visitor: André Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). See also Hubert Cieslik, “The Case of Christovão Ferreira,” Monumenta Nipponica 29, no. 1 (1974): 1–54. The second person mentioned in the letter is the homonymous Luigi Gonzaga (1568–91), one of the most important Jesuit figures. He was beatified in 1605 but canonized only in 1726, after Gonzaga’s letter.
ARSI, Ven. 99, fol. 167v. On linguistic skills and their use in indipetae, see the first chapter of this book.
“fervore […] lettura di lettere che venivano da que’ paesi […] favore e buona inclinazione dell’Imperator della Cina alla fede di Cristo e alla pubblicazion della Santa Lege […] a quella gran messe, che Iddio già ci mostrava matura […] quanto mi sentissi tutto infiammare […] in gran bollore di spirito […] intendere un poco chiara la sua volontà […] In tutta la messa, […] forse la maggior divozione che sentissi mai, la quale penetrandomi tutto mi pervadeva che quello era il piacer di Dio,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 193 (Rome, December 9, 1704).
“in una pericolosa e lunga infermità […] Iddio l’illuminò […] cavar sangue,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 193 (Rome, December 9, 1704).
“difficoltà […] da me, da altri, dall’Italia in cui sono, e dalla Cina in cui bramo di essere […] strepito […] potrei qui essere più giovevole […] tra tanti di noi, che sono intrati nella Compagnia, L’India non deve averne né pur uno? […] non sono ben informato […] sono pur ivi i suoi difetti […] là vivrei con meno fatica e con più commodo […] Giapone, come mio primo e gran desiderio, quando Iddio ne aprisse l’ingresso,” ARSI, FG 750, fol. 193 (Rome, December 9, 1704).
ARSI, Jap-Sin. 169, fols. 79–80 (Lisbon, March 21, 1706).
Ferdinando Calini was an Italian Jesuit who died during the journey to the Indies, where Wicki listed him in 1705 (Liste der Jesuiten-Indienfahrer, 315).
Gonzaga left for China in 1706, together with Kastner and François Noël (Wicki, Liste der Jesuiten-Indienfahrer, 315). The latter, born in 1651, had already been in East Asia in the decades before. In 1708, Noël was sent by the Kangxi emperor to Europe as his emissary; once in Rome, the Jesuit never received permission to go back to China as he wanted (as his indipetae letters show), and died in Douai in 1729 (Dehergne, Répertoire, 185–86).
“bramato termine della Cina […] amore […] parzialità […] trovato in tutti questi Padri […] il glorioso corpo […] molto fresco […] circostanze assai malagevoli […] gran rischio di perdere la Missione, e d’essere tutti cacciati fuori della Cina […] l’ingresso nel Giappone, mio unico desiderio […] per spargere di nuovo su quell’infelice paese non meno e più copiosa misericordia di prima,” ARSI, Jap-Sin. 170, fol. 173 (Goa, May 14, 1707). The date of his departure is confirmed in Wicki, Liste der Jesuiten-Indienfahrer, 315. As for Xavier’s body and his magnificent burying as a pilgrimage destination, see the chapter “The Sacred Body: Francis Xavier, the Apostle, the Pilgrim, the Relic” in Ines G. Županov, Missionary Tropics: The Catholic Frontier in India (16th–17th Centuries) (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 35–86.
See the typewritten document Ultimi voti dei gesuiti, available in ARSI. In 1709, Gonzaga sent several letters to the general in Rome: ARSI, Jap-Sin. 173: fols. 16–19 (Beijing, February 16, 1709); fols. 154–61 (Beijing, October 24, 1709 and other dates); fols. 162–63 (Beijing, November 1, 1709).
ARSI, Jap-Sin. 173, fol. 61 (Tum Tam, July 31, 1709).
“attratto dalle circostanze de’ tempi, sì poco favorevoli a queste parti […] di passare alle Missioni del Maduré, dove ritruovasi ora contentissimo della sua sorte […] turbazioni di questa Mission infelice […] pericolo […] di perdersi, senza rimedio fuor d’un miracolo […] tempeste, affogato da tante persecuzioni e angustie […] confidando a Dio,” ARSI, Jap-Sin. 173, fols. 308–09 (Beijing, November 22, 1710).
“fra tanti dibattimenti e dispute […] quelli che ci accusano tanto e sono tanto contrarii a riti nostri, né sono i più dotti o in maggior credito di virtù, né sono i più esperti o pratichi nelle Lettere e costumanze della Cina di quel che l’ sieno quelli che seguivano da più d’un secolo le nostre prassi […] amirazione […] molte calunnie […] incredibili, né le avrei credute io stesso o m’avrei potuto persuadere di tal cosa se non mi truovassi qui presente dove il veggo co gli occhi e ‘l tocco colle mani mie […] alcuni di tanto poco coscienza e che facciano tanto sforzo d’infamarci senza riguardo alcuno al […] danno che arrecano a questa sì degna missione, purché soddisfacciano alla persona e impegni loro,” ARSI, Jap-Sin. 173, fols. 308–09 (Beijing, November 22, 1710).
“sì poco amano la ragione e l’equità […] oggetti rimirati in se stessi direttamente, e con giudizio quasi speculativo per quel che veramente son le cose […] figlio d’ubbidienza […] infallibile […] decreti contrarii alla prassi usata, e siano qui publicati, io non avrò ch’ad abbassare il capo per umile sogezzione, risoluto di non volermi espor a rischio di censure o scomunioni, né di tener inquieto il mio spirito […] se tali decreti siano qui publicati, questa Missione è infallibilmente perduta […] impegnatissimo a conservare i riti del suo Impero […] in queste perturbazioni e perplessità dell’animo loro,” ARSI, Jap-Sin. 173, fols. 308–09 (Beijing, November 22, 1710).
ARSI Jap-Sin. 174, fol. 253 (Beijing, October 10, 1712).
ARSI, Jap-Sin. 175, fols. 73–74 (Beijing, November 14, 1713).
ARSI, Jap-Sin. 176, fol. 90 (Beijing, October 16, 1714).
“magnum […] damnum infert Religioni Christianae […] ille tamen obdurescit auribus, et semper magis insistet ad suas phantasias producendas […] magnum detrimentum attulit doctrinae Europeorum,” ARSI, Jap-Sin. 177, fols. 112–13 (Nanjing, October 8, 1716).
François-Xavier Dentrecolles (also spelled as D’Entrecolles or d’Antrecole) was born in France in 1664, and left for East Asia in 1698. Between 1707 and 1719 he was superior of the French mission in China. In 1719 he arrived in Beijing, where he died in 1741 (Dehergne, Répertoire, 74).
“turbas et contentiones inter nos […] maximo dolori […] schisma inter nos […] nihil pejus ad ruinam Missionis […] litigia […] coram Imperatore […] scandala inter Neophytos exorta,” ARSI, Jap-Sin. 177, fol. 218 (Beijing, July 2, 1716).
Dehergne, Répertoire, 114; see also: ARSI, Jap-Sin. 177, fols. 224 (28a) and 472 (8).