CRUZ, Gaspare de. — The first Dominican missionary to arrive in China. Born in Évora (date unknown), he was part of the first expedition of twelve Japanese Christians who set out for India (1548). He also reached Cambodia and touched China (1556), but returned the following year and died in 1570. He wrote a *Trattato delle cose di Cina* [Treatise on Chinese Affairs], published in Évora in 1569 and later republished in a second edition in 1829.
BIBL.: Streit, *Bibl.*, IV, p. 518.