GASPARE della CROCE. - Portuguese Dominican missionary and traveller of the sixteenth century: born at Evora, died at Setúbal (c. 1570). With a group of fellow friars, led by Fr. Bermudes, he reached India in 1548.
He is credited with the foundation of the convent of Malacca. Having gone to Cambodia, around 1555 he entered China, as his memoirs attest. He must therefore be acknowledged as the first missionary to cross the borders of China in that century, so as to deserve the appellation “apostle of the Chinese.” After some time he was obliged to leave China; he then went to the Island of Ormuz. Finally (1569) he returned to his native country, where he undertook 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 care of the afflicted people of Setúbal, which caused his death, he was proposed by the King for the bishopric of Malacca, which he declined.