CRIMINALI, ANTONIO. — Protomartyr of the Society of Jesus, b. at Sissa, near Parma, on Feb. 7, 1520; received into the Order by St. Ignatius himself in April 1542 and sent by him to Portugal. Ordained priest at Coimbra on Jan. 6, 1544, he embarked for India with Fr. Niccolò Lancellotti, arriving at Goa in September of the same year. St. Francis Xavier assigned him to the missions of the Cape Comorin on the Fishery Coast. Surprised by an invasion of the Badagi, C. was killed, probably about the middle of May 1549.
BIBL.: E. Massara, Del p. A. C., parmigiano, protomartire della Compagnia di Gesù, Parma 1899; G. Schurhammer, Leben und Briefe A. C.'s., des Erstlingsmärtyers der Gesellschaft Jesu, in Archivum histor. S. I., 5 (1936), pp. 231-67.
EDMOND LAMALLE