DESIDERI, IPPOLITO. - Jesuit, missionary, and explorer, b. at Pistoia on 21 Dec. 1684, d. at Rome on 14 Aug. 1733. Invited to India to restore the mission in Tibet, already begun by Fr. A. de Andrade (1624), he left Delhi on 24 Sept. 1714 and, after a long journey through the cities of Kashmir and Lhasa, reached Lhasa on 18 May 1716, where he was well received by the king and the Dalai Lama.
Having obtained permission to reside in order to study Lamaist religion and preach the Gospel, he devoted himself to the language and to reading numerous volumes containing Tibetan religious doctrines, succeeding in composing apologetic works that met with considerable favor. The invasion of the Tartars (1717) and the massacre of the royal family forced him to withdraw to Takpo-khier, near the Capuchins, where he remained to complete his works until 1721, when, by decree of Propaganda Fide, which assigned Tibet to the Capuchins, he was ordered to return to India. From there, in 1727, he set out again for Rome.
Besides several letters and four works in Tibetan, still unpublished, he wrote: *Notizie storiche del Thibet e memorie dei viaggi e missioni ivi fatte dal p. I. D. d. C. d. G. Dal medesimo scritte e dedicate, 1712-23*, also unpublished, which make him one of the best explorers and describers of Tibet (S. Hedin, *Southern Tibet*, I [Stockholm 1915], pp. 278-79).