BENAVENTE, ÁLVARO DE

ÁLVARO DE BENAVENTE. — Augustinian missionary in China. In 1646 at Salamanca, he entered the Order of Augustinians in 1663 and departed for the Philippines in 1668. He was, together with Fr. Giovanni Nicola de Ribera, the founder of the Augustinian missions in China, whence in 1680 he was sent to Rome to deal with the affairs of this mission. Returning from Rome, he worked for about nine years, from 1690 to 1699, in the Philippines, whence he went again to China as Apostolic Vicar of Kiangsi, with episcopal dignity. He died at Macao in 1709, after forty years of apostolate. He left unpublished several works, memoirs, reports, etc. on the missions of China, besides a Chinese dictionary and a natural history of China, translated from the Chinese.