DEUS, Jacinto de.

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Vergel de plantas, e flores da provincia da Madre de Deos dos Capuchos Reformados. First edition, rare institutionally and in commerce, of one of the few sources on Franciscan missionary efforts in China, India, and South East Asia during the 16th and 17th centuries. The politically motivated chronicle stresses the leading role of the order, rather than the Jesuits, in spearheading the expansion of Portuguese religious and political influence in the region. WorldCat records copies in seven locations only, none of which are in Asia."Jacinto de Deus is an important author, given the limited number of works printed by the Franciscans in the East" ("Brachilogia"). Born in Macao in 1612 to a Portuguese father and Chinese mother (Cecília da Cunha), he was ordained as a Franciscan in 1630 and served for the next five decades in Madre de Deus province, Goa. Vergel de plantas was completed in 1679 but only published after his death at Goa in 1681. It narrates the history of the order after its first representatives arrived in Goa in 1540 and describes the controversies surrounding the creation of Madre de Deus, in particular the absorption of Franciscan custodies in Macao and Malacca into the new province's administrative and governing purview. A lengthy section, representing pages 115 to 271, addresses interactions in China, beginning with the abortive mission of Pedro de Alfaro to Canton in 1579, which unsuccessfully tried to challenge the Jesuit monopoly over dealings with China an

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