ACQUAVIVA, RODOLFO, Blessed. - Jesuit missionary and martyr, born at Atri on 2 Oct. 1550, son of Giangirolamo, Duke of Atri, and nephew of Claudio Acquaviva, fifth General of the Society of Jesus. He had to overcome family opposition to enter the novitiate in Rome in 1568, where he was a companion of St Stanislao Kostka. Having been assigned to the missions, he left Rome in 1577, was ordained priest at Lisbon, and landed at Goa in Nov. 1578. By the end of the following year he was placed at the head of the small mission sent to the court of the “Great Mogul” Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri. He remained there for three years, even after his companion Antonio Monserrate had returned to Goa; he learned the local language and, through the austerity of his life and his fervent conviction, won the goodwill of the sovereign, but could not overcome Muslim opposition nor achieve any conversions.
Watercolour – Deposition, from the – Via Crucis – by F. Overbeck. Rome, Chapel of the Lateran Palace.
His mission is also notable for introducing European art to the courts of Indian sultans (Italian paintings and Flemish engravings, which were imitated by court painters). Returning to Goa in Feb. 1583, Acquaviva was named superior of the mission on the island of Salcete, near Goa. But scarcely a week later he was killed at Cuncolim on 27 July 1583 together with his companions, the Spanish Father Alfonso Pacheco, the Swiss Father Pietro Berno from Ticino, and the Portuguese Antonio Francisco and Brother Francesco Aranha. He was beatified with them by Leo XIII in 1893.