Relaçam geral do estado da Christandade de Ethiopia; reduçam dos Scismaticos; entrada, & recebimento do Patriarcha Dom Affonso Mendes; obediencia dada polo Emperador Seltan Segued com toda sua Corte à Igreja Romana; & do que de nouo socedeo no descobrimento do Thybet, a que chamam, gram Catayo. Composta, e copiada das cartas que os Padres da Companhia de Iesu, escreueram da India Oriental dos annos de 624. 625. & 626.

Lisbon, Por Mattheus Pinheiro, 1628.. FIRST EDITION. 4°, contemporary limp vellum (small defects to spine), yapped edges (some fraying). Typographical headpieces and elegant large woodcut initials on leaves 1, 57, and 103. Old repair to upper blank margin of title page, never affecting text. Leaves 1 and 2 browned. Occasional light browning elsewhere. In good to very good condition. Small, round light-blue on red ticket of the Livraria Antiga e Moderna (Antiquaria) de Caldas Cordeiro, 16 Rua Nova da Almada, Lisboa, tipped on to upper outer corner of front pastedown endleaf. (2), 124 ll. Leaf 26 wrongly numbered 29; leaf 72 wrongly numbered 67. *** FIRST EDITION of one of the earliest European accounts of Tibet, together with an account of Jesuit activities in Ethiopia at a critical time for Catholic missionary efforts there. There appears to be no other edition, although Barbosa Machado mentions a manuscript copy of a Spanish translation. The title translates as: "A general account of the state of Christianity in Ethiopia; Reduction of schismatics; Entrance and reception of the Patriarch Dom Affonso Mendes; Allegiance of the Emperor Seltan Segued and all of his court to the Church of Rome; and Fresh events in the discovery of Tibet, which they call Great Cathay. Compiled and copied from the letters which the Jesuit Fathers wrote from India during the years 1624, 5, and 6 by Father Manoel da Veiga, of the Society of Jesus, native of Villa Viçosa." The first two books of this work discuss in considerable detail the activities of the Jesuits in Ethiopia. Book I (ff. 1-56) is an overview of Ethiopia from a Catholic, and particularly Jesuit, point of view, including who favors Catholicism; rituals that are in dispute; the ransom of Jesuits captured by the Moors; prominent Jesuits (including letters from three of them); and a dozen or so Jesuit foundations (including reliquaries and miracles that have occurred there).Book II (ff. 57-102) recounts the voyage of D. Afonso Mendes from Lisbon to replace Pedro Páez (who had died in 1622) as patriarch of Ethiopia. After leaving Lisbon in March, 1623, D. Afonso arrived at Moçambique in September, at Goa in May 1624, and at the Red Sea port of Beilul in May 1625, whence he crossed the desert into the Ethiopian highlands, reaching Fremona in June 1625 (ff. 57-73 describe the journey). At Fremona, the base of Jesuit missionary efforts, he was received by Emperor Susenyos (r. 1606-1632, throne name Malak Sagad III), who vowed obedience to the pope. D. Afonso issued some orders and celebrated Holy Week. Book II concludes with a description of improvements in Ethiopia since Catholicism was made the official religion, and the defeat of several groups who had rebelled against the new religion. This is a brief episode in the ongoing effort of the Church to bring Coptic Christians into the Catholic fold. Jesuit missionaries had arrived by 1554. The Jesuit Pedro Páez (1561-1622), who arrived in 1603, was so energetic and zealous a missionary that he was known as "the second apostle of Ethiopia." But it was in 1626, while D. Afonso Mendes was patriarch of Ethiopia, that Susenyos declared (for the first and only time in the nation's history) that Roman Catholicism was the official religion of Ethiopia. However, D. Afonso Mendes was a rigidly uncompromising prelate who insisted on suppressing local practices. A series of revolts followed, during which Susenyos and his supporters became considerably less tolerant of the demands of Catholicism. In June 1632 - only four years after this Relaçam geral was published - Susenyos declared that any of his subjects who wished might follow the Catholic religion, but that no one else would be required to do so. The Jesuits were expelled from Ethiopia in 1633. Ethiopia remained isolated from the Catholic Church until the late nineteenth century.Book III (ff. 103-24) of the Relaçam geral is entitled "Das Covsas do Reyno do Gram Thybet, a que chamam Catayo, que de nono socederam nos Annos de 625. & 626." It recounts the travels and travails of Fr. Antonio Andrade, who entered Tibet from India in 1624 - the first European to do so since the Franciscan Odoric of Pordenone (d. 1331). Included are comments on the quality of the land, the kingdoms established there, the ignorance of the lamas (ff. 113-19), and the construction of the first Catholic Church there (ff. 122-25). Transcriptions of several of Fr. Antonio's letters are included.Geographically and politically inaccessible, Tibet had been for many centuries a mystery to European explorers, the subject of myth and legend. Rumors persisted that beyond the Himalayan mountains lay secluded Christian communities, the remnants of early evangelizing missions. Andrade and his companion Manuel Marques began their long and arduous journey from Agra in the company of pilgrims in March of 1624. At Delhi, they donned Hindu disguises and traveled through the valley of Ganges to Hardwar ("the Gate of Vishnu"), Srinagar in Garhwal, Badrinath, and finally through the perilous Mana Pass to Tsaparang in August. Although rumors of Christian communities turned out to be untrue, the missionaries were treated kindly by the people and by the king and queen of Guge, who gave Fr. Antonio a passport, or letter of privilege, granting him safe passage to Agra, and permission to recruit fellow Jesuits for a mission in Tsaparang. The permanent mission, headed by Fr. Antonio, arrived in Tibet in August 1625. Fr. Antonio was eventually recalled to Goa, where he died of poisoning shortly before the permanent mission at Tsaparang failed in 1635. Manoel da Veiga, a native of Villa-Viçosa, became a Jesuit at age 16 or 17. His home was in Lisbon, where he died peacefully at age 80, in 1647. Veiga wrote a number of biographies of his peripatetic fellow Jesuits. This work, compiled from the Jesuit annual letters with hagiographical and propagandist intent, is nonetheless an important historical document: it provides for the European audience an account of the Jesuits’ contretemps and public disputations with the lamas, and reports some of the first ethnographic data on the native Tibetan religion.*** Arouca V90. Innocêncio VI, 121. Pinto de Mattos (1970) pp. 613-4: "raro e estimado." Cordier, Sinica 2901. Barbosa Machado III, 400-1. Backer-Sommervogel VIII, 530-1. Bibliografia cronológica da literatura de espiritualidade em Portugal 1060. Palau 356759. Palha 2565. Monteverde 5501. Azevedo-Samodães 3467. Avila Perez 7907.