| The Jesuits in reconnaissance and discovery
The Society of Jesus was created to defend the catholic religion in 1540. It had and still has strong characteristics with emphasis on learning, knowledge of local conditions and power structure and a military inspired organisation. Its founder, Ignacio de Loyola, became a renowned person in history and his spiritual exercises a milestone in the development of ideas (PMM). There is a well bound biography of Ignacio in the collection (Ribadineira, 1590) and an illustrated Prague edition of his Exercises (1680). Early Jesuits like Saint Franciscus Xaverius, the missionary of Japan, Francisco Borga and Pedro de Ribadineira are still renowned for their work and their writings. The collection includes a biography of Borga (or Borgia, the third general of the Jesuits) by Ribadineira (in Italian, 1600). Where the Jesuits have often aligned themselves with those in power, they have also chosen the other side as in Latin America (theology of liberation).
Other books under de Jesuitica of this collection include a Moretum imprint of Emblemata, printed on the occasion of 100 years of Jesuits (Antwerp, 1640), as well as a general history of the Jesuits (Barcelona, 1853, 6 volumes) and some anti-Jesuit books.
In this exposition I will limit myself to the role of the Jesuits in the early years of reconnaissance, conquest and colonization of Asia and the Americas (their role in Africa was limited).
Around 1540 the initial boom in discovery had finished. Most of the Asian coasts and harbours were now known to the Europeans (though Japan had still to be located in 1542 and Australia had to wait till 1606 and New Zealand till 1642 to be visited and mapped). The Caribbean, Terra Firme (South American continent) and the East coast of North America had been explored and mapped. Magellan had circumnavigated the world (1519-1522) and (among other) the Mercator globe (1541) put most of the world parts in its proper place.
Jesuit missionary activity started with Franciscus Xaverius in Goa in 1542. There is a nice Plantin edition of his collected letters (52 letters between1542-1552) in the collection. He reaches Japan in August 1549 and dies, trying to enter China in December 1552. His letters from Japan and the very first Jesuit letter from Japan (Paulo Papao 03/12/1548) are in Acosta’s Historia rerum Societate Iesu (Paris 1572), an other book in the collection. There is also an early (Cordier thinks first) edition of Francisco de la Torre’s biography of the Saint (Lisbon 1674) a very rare (not in Sommervogel) text: Indiae gloriae, printed in Dillingen (Germany) in 1660. Moreover, an unrecorded Xaveriana: Hilf in der Noth (Munster, Germany 1737), a series of texts and prayers by Xaverius to console “all who suffer”.
Jesuits included maps in their annual letters. Famous examples are the map Marquette S.J. made of the upper Mississippi in 1673 or the one Kino made (1702) of the Northern [part of the Gulf of California, proving Lower California to be a peninsula, not an island. Important maps are known from Taiwan (Formosa) and the Philippine islands. Two famous Jesuit maps are presented here.
The Jesuit letters, whether from India, China and Japan or from Canada, the USA and Latin America, was an annual obligation of the missionaries and an important early source of knowledge in the countries recently discovered. These letters were sometimes printed and bound together like that is the case in the letters on Japan, or per period or year (letterae...) and later still in extensive collections (cartes edifiantes). There must have been many manuscript maps that accompanied these early letters and some of them were later printed and are still well known.
Go and see to our bookstore, category "JESUITICA" for books and maps.
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