This chapter considers the long shadow of failure on the 1716–1721 mission to Tibet by Italian Jesuit Ippolito Desideri (1684–1733). Analysing Desideri’s letters, his missionary manual, and his Notizie historiche del Thibet, it focuses on the historical actors’ perceptions of missionary failure, and on the expectations and biases these perceptions created, to expose otherwise neglected aspects of this intercultural encounter. It investigates the impact that these perceptions had on the tensions extant in the Jesuit Province of Goa, on Desideri’s description of the populations of the so-called “Three Tibets” (Baltistan, Ladakh and Tibet), and on the missionary policy he proposed for creating a Catholic Christendom that could spread globally.
Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-5640-6988
Chapter Title
Representations of Tibet and Responses to Missionary Failure in Ippolito Desideri’s Italian Writings
Authors
Linda Zampol D'Ortia
Language
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0242-8.04
Peer Reviewed
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Book Title
East and West Entangled (17th-21st Centuries)
Editors
Rolando Minuti, Giovanni Tarantino
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
228
Publication Year
2023
Copyright Information
© 2023 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0242-8
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0241-1
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0242-8
eISBN (epub)
979-12-215-0243-5
Series Title
Connessioni. Studies in Transcultural History
Series ISSN
2975-0393
Series E-ISSN
2975-0261