ANDRADE, ANTONIO de. — Portuguese Jesuit, missionary and explorer, born at Oleiros (province of Beira Baixa) in 1580, died at Goa on 19 March 1634. In 1600 he departed for the Indian missions; after being ordained a priest, he was rector at Rachol and Goa and was then sent to the mission of the Great Mogul as superior. Reports spread by merchants concerning Tibet induced him to travel to that unknown region. Departing from Agra with only one lay brother on 30 March 1624, he was the first European to cross the Himalayas and reached the small city of Tsaparang, in the upper valley of the Sutlej, where he was well received by the local sovereign, who granted him permission to preach the Gospel. Returning to Agra, on 17 June 1625 he set out again for Tibet, and on 28 August established the seat of the new Tibetan mission at Tsaparang, where five other Portuguese Jesuits and one French Jesuit worked. However, thrown into turmoil by revolutions and wars, the mission survived the A.’s departure by only a few years. Indeed, he had been summoned to Goa as superior of that province, which numbered approximately 300 missionaries scattered from the Himalayas to the borders of Malabar and Persia and along the eastern coasts of Africa. After completing his provincialate (1630–33), he was appointed rector of the college of St Paul in Goa. He was preparing for a new attempt in Tibet when he died, apparently poisoned by an apostate Christian.
The A. wrote two accounts of both his journeys, much sought after in Europe and 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..., Rome 1627, were published. Other writings of his, published and unpublished, are listed by Streit, Bibl., V, pp. 101, 105–18, 146, 151.