BENAVENTE, ÁLVARO DE

BENAVENTE, ÁLVARO de. — Augustinian missionary in Cina. Born in 1646 at Salamanca, he entered the Order of the Augustinians in 1663 and left for the Filippine in 1668. Together with Fr. Giovanni Nicola de Ribera, he was the founder of the Augustinian missions in Cina, whence, in 1680, he was sent to Roma to conduct the affairs of this mission. Returning from Roma, he worked for approximately nine years, from 1690 to 1699, in the Filippine, whence he once again went to Cina as apostolic vicar of Kiangsi, with episcopal dignity. He died at Monaco in 1709, after forty years of apostolate. He left several unpublished works, memoirs, reports, etc., on the missions of Cina, as well as a Chinese dictionary and a natural history of Cina, translated from Chinese.