Carlo Spinola and His Attempts to Get to the Índias
- Format:
- Journal Article
- Year:
- 2013
- Journal Title:
- Review of Culture
- Volume:
- n/a
- Issue:
- 44
- Language:
- Abstract:
The present article aims to give a detailed and historically contextualized account of the two sea travels from Lisbon to Macao that took place between 1596 and 1600 and saw as protagonist the Italian Jesuit Carlo Spinola. In order to follow Spinola’s displacements, we are going to use the thorough description he wrote himself to the Father General of the Society of Jesus, although we shall use other coeval manuscript and printed sources, as well. The voyages of the Carreira da Índia are a fascinating topic within the Portuguese expansion and it gets ever more interesting when it has to do with shipwrecks and castaways. Carlo Spinola’s voyage aboard the Carreira’s ship São Francisco started as of usual from Lisbon during the spring of 1596. However, due to unpredictable and unresolvable mishaps, the Italian Jesuit was not able to reach Goa by the end of the year, as he wished. Before setting foot in the Portuguese India, in fact, which happened only in 1599, he was forced to visit Brazil, Puerto Rico and England.We are going to see how travels and misadventures at sea were both the inspirations for a literary genre and the occasion for a missionary to implement his vocation within foreign territories. Moreover, through Spinola’s activities we get the chances to survey at once the Christian missions in the Portuguese and Spanish Indies, as well as the status quo of the Christianity in England by the end of the 16th century.
- Who (Jesuits):
- What (Subjects):
- Where (Locations):
- When (Centuries):
- Publisher URL:
- Other link:
- Page Range:
- 88–109
- ISSN:
- 1682-1106