ANDRADE, ANTONIO de. - Portuguese Jesuit, missionary and explorer, b. at Oleiros (province of Beira Baixa) in 1580, d. at Goa on 19 March 1634. In 1600 he set out for the Indian missions; ordained a priest, he was rector at Rachol and Goa and then sent to the mission of the Great Mogul as superior. The reports spread by merchants about Tibet induced him to go to that unknown region. Having set out from Agra with only one lay brother on 30 March 1624, he was the first European to cross the Himalayas and reached as far as the small town of Tsaparang, in the upper valley of the Sutlej, where he was well received by the local ruler, who gave him permission to preach the Gospel. Having returned to Agra, on 17 June 1625 he set out again for Tibet and on 28 August established at Tsaparang the seat of the new Tibetan mission, where five other Portuguese Jesuits and one Frenchman worked. However, shaken by revolutions and wars, the mission survived only a few years after the departure of A. In fact, he had been called to Goa as superior of that province, which counted about 300 missionaries scattered from the Himalayas to the borders of Malabar and Persia and along the eastern coasts of Africa. Having completed his provincialate (1630-33), he was made rector of the college of St. Paul in Goa. He was preparing for a new attempt in Tibet when he died, poisoned, it seems, by a perverted Christian.
Of both his journeys A. wrote two accounts, much sought after in Europe and which were translated into Spanish, French, Polish and Italian (Relatione del novo scoprimento del gran Cataio, ovvero regno del Tibet..., Rome 1628). His Lettere annue del Tibet del 1626... were published, Rome 1627. His other writings, published and unpublished, are listed by Streit, Bibl., V, pp. 101, 105-18, 146, 151.
Bibliography3 works
Edmondo Lamalle