Contained in:
Book Chapter

Representations of Tibet and Responses to Missionary Failure in Ippolito Desideri’s Italian Writings

  • Linda Zampol D'Ortia

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.

  • Keywords:
  • Tibet; Ippolito Desideri; Eighteenth Century; Jesuits,
+ Show More

Linda Zampol D'Ortia

Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-5640-6988

  1. Alden, Dauril. 1996. The Making of an Enterprise. The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire, and Beyond, 1540-1750. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
  2. App, Urs. 1997. “Francis Xavier’s Discovery of Japanese Buddhism. A Chapter in the European Discovery of Buddhism (Part 1: Before the Arrival in Japan, 1547-1549).” The Eastern Buddhist New Series 30, 1: 53-78.
  3. Bargiacchi, Enzo Gualtiero. 2008. A Bridge Across Two Cultures. Ippolito Desideri (1684-1733). A Brief Biography. Florence: Istituto Geografico Militare.
  4. Bruneau, Marie-Florine. 1998. Women Mystics Confront the Modern World: Marie de l’Incarnation (1599-1672) and Madame Guyon (1648-1717). Albany: SUNY Press.
  5. O’Neill, Charles E., and Joaquín María Domínguez, eds. 2001. Diccionario histórico de la Compañía de Jesús. Vols. 1-4. Madrid: Universidad Pontificia de Comillas; Roma: Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu.
  6. Colombo, Emanuele. 2009. “La Compagnia di Gesù e l’evangelizzazione dei musulmani nella Spagna del Seicento: il caso González.” Revue Mabillon 20: 203-27. DOI: 10.1484/J.RM.5.101149
  7. Colombo, Emanuele. 2019. “Jesuits and Islam in Early Modern Europe.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits, edited by Ines G. Županov, 349-78. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190639631.013.14 (last accessed 08/01/2023). DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190639631.013.14
  8. Didier, Hugues. 2000. Os Portugueses no Tibete: os primeiros relatos dos jesuítas (1624-1635). Lisboa: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses.
  9. Hertel, Ralf, and Michael Keevak, eds. 2017. Early Encounters Between East Asia and Europe. Telling Failures. London-New York: Routledge.
  10. Hosten, Henri. 1938, “Letters and other Papers of Fr. Ippolito Desideri, a Missionary in Tibet (1713-21).” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal IV, 4: 567-767.
  11. Lewis, Mark A. 2001. “I Gesuiti nel Seicento: Trionfi, ottimismo, disastro.” In Athanasius Kircher. Il Museo del Mondo, edited by Eugenio Lo Sardo, 21-23. Roma: De Luca.
  12. Lopez, Donald S., and Thupten Jinpa. 2017. Dispelling the Darkness. A Jesuit’s Quest for the Soul of Tibet. Cambridge, MA-London: Harvard University Press.
  13. Pagden, Anthony. 1993. European Encounters with the New World. New Haven-London: Yale University Press.
  14. Pavone, Sabina. 2019. “Anti-Jesuitism in a Global Perspective.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits, edited by Ines G. Županov, 833-54. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190639631.013.29 (last accessed 08/01/2023). DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190639631.013.29
  15. Petech, Luciano. 1952-1956. I missionari italiani nel Tibet e nel Nepal. Vols. 1-7. Roma: La Libreria dello Stato.
  16. Pomplun, Robert Trent. 2010. Jesuit on the Roof of the World. Ippolito Desideri’s Mission to Tibet. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377866.001.0001 (last accessed 08/01/2023). DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377866.001.0001
  17. Pomplun, Robert Trent. 2019. “Ippolito Desideri’s Tibetan Works and the Problem of ARSI Goa 74, fols. 47r-92v.” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 52: 193-216.
  18. Pomplun, Robert Trent. 2020. “Like No Other in the World: Ippolito Desideri on Tibetan Religion.” Journal of Early Modern History 24, 6: 537-57. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700658-12342660 (last accessed 08/01/2023). DOI: 10.1163/15700658-12342660
  19. Räisänen-Schröder, Päivi. 2020. “Jesuit Missionaries’ Suffering and Disappointment in the Neue Welt-Bott.” In Narratives and Representations of Suffering, Failure and Martyrdom, edited by Leonardo Cohen, 141-47. Porto: Universidade Católica Portuguesa. https://doi.org/10.34632/9789728361938 (last accessed 08/01/2023). DOI: 10.34632/9789728361938
  20. Ruiz-de-Medina, Juan, ed. 1990. Documentos del Japón. Vol. 1 (1547-1557). Rome: Instituto Histórico de la Compañía de Jesús.
  21. Schütte, Josef Franz. 1985. Valignano’s Mission Principles for Japan. Vol. 1: From His Appointment as Visitor Until His First Departure from Japan (1573-1582). Part 2: The Solution (1580-1582). St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources.
  22. Sweet, Michael J. 2006. “Desperately Seeking Capuchins: Manoel Freyre’s Report on the Tibets and their Routes (Tibetorum ac eorum Relatio Viarum) and the Desideri Mission to Tibet.” Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies 2, 2: 1-33.
  23. Sweet, Michael J., and Leonard Zwilling, eds. 2010. Mission to Tibet. The Extraordinary Eighteenth-century Account of Father Ippolito Desideri. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
  24. Sweet, Michael J., and Leonard Zwilling, eds. 2017. ‘More Than the Promised Land’: Letters and Relations from Tibet by the Jesuit Missionary António de Andrade (1580-1634). Boston: Institute of Jesuit Sources.
  25. Wessels, Cornelius. 1924. Early Jesuit Travellers in Central Asia 1202-1721. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
  26. Von Collani, Claudia. 2019. “The Jesuit Rites Controversy.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits, edited by Ines G. Županov, 891-917. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190639631.013.39 (last accessed 08/01/2023). DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190639631.013.39
  27. Zampol D’Ortia, Linda, Lucia Dolce, and Ana Pinto. 2021. “Saints, Sects, and (Holy) Sites: The Jesuit Mapping of Japanese Buddhism (Sixteenth Century).” In Interactions between rivals: the Christian mission and Buddhist sects in Japan (c.1549-c.1647), edited by Alexandra Curvelo, and Angelo Cattaneo, 67-106. Berlin: Peter Lang.
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Pages: 33-49
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2023 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2023 Author(s)

Chapter Information

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

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

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

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

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

200

Fulltext
downloads

655

Views

Export Citation

1,350

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

2,262

Book Chapters

3,844,147

Fulltext
downloads

4,424

Authors

from 925 Research Institutions

of 65 Nations

65

scientific boards

from 348 Research Institutions

of 43 Nations

1,248

Referees

from 380 Research Institutions

of 38 Nations