GASPARRE DELLA CROCE. - Portuguese Dominican missionary and traveler of the 16th century: b. at Evora, d. at Setúbal (c. 1570). With a group of confreres led by Fr. Bermudes, he reached India in 1548.

He is credited with the founding of the convent of Malacca. Having gone on to Cambodia, around 1555 he penetrated into China, as his memoirs attest. He must therefore be recognized as the first missionary to have crossed the borders of China in that century, so as to earn the title of "apostle of the Chinese." After some time he had to leave China; he then went to the island of Hormuz. Finally (1569) he returned to his homeland, where he attended to the publication of the Tratado en que se contan muito por estenso as causas da China, con sus particularidades, e así do reyno d'Ormuz... (Evora 1569; 2nd ed. Lisbon 1829). For his generous self-sacrifice among the afflicted of Setúbal, which was the cause of his death, he was proposed by the King for the bishopric of Malacca, which he declined.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: L. de Sousa, Historia de S. Domingo particular do Reino e conquistas de Portugal, parte 2ª, Lisbona 1678, pp. 323-325; G. M. Cavalieri, Galleria de' Sommi Pontifici, II, Benevento 1696, pp. 38-40; A. Touron, Histoire des hommes illustres de l'Orde de St Dominique, VI, Parigi 1749, pp. 729-32; T. Gentili, Memoria di un missionario domenicano nella Cina, I, Roma 1887, pp. 83-84.

Abele Redigonda

@incollection{ec5_gaspare_della_croce, author = {Redigonda, Abele}, title = {Gaspare della Croce}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {1953}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/gaspare-della-croce} }

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Gasparre della Croce

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