Valignano, Alessandro

VALIGNANO, ALESSANDRO. - Organizer and superior of the missions of the Middle and Far East, b. at Chieti in the first half of February 1539, d. at Macao on 20 January 1606.

He is said to have taken his degree in law at Padua around 1558. After spending some time in Rome in the hope of promotion, he returned to Padua to continue his studies there; he was there in November 1562 when he was accused of having wounded a young woman; imprisoned and tried, he was sentenced to a heavy fine and to banishment from Venetian territory for four years. On 29 May 1566 he entered the Society of Jesus in Rome, and then on 18 May of the following year he moved to the Roman College, where he studied philosophy (1567-69) and theology (1570-72). Ordained a priest at the Lateran on 25 March 1570, he became on 1 September 1572 rector of the College of Macerata. In August of the following year he was appointed by the general Mercurian visitor, that is, superior of all the Jesuit missions in Asia. Having made his profession on 8 and 11 September 1573, around the 20th of the same month he set out for Genoa and Labona, whence he sailed on 21 March of the following year, at the head of 41 Jesuits, and reached Goa on 6 September 1574. Having made a double visitation of the missions of southern and northern India, on 20 September 1577 he undertook a long journey that brought him for the first time to Macao on 6 September 1578. There he conceived the plan of opening China to the Gospel and for this purpose he immediately summoned Michele Ruggieri from India. Continuing his journey, he arrived for the first time in Japan on 25 July 1579. Having made the visitation of the mission and erected the vice-province of Japan, on 20 February 1582 he set out from there again in the company of four young Japanese noblemen whom, at the invitation of V., some already Christian Japanese «daimyo» or petty kings were sending as ambassadors to the Roman Pontiff. While he was at Macao (9 March - 31 December 1582) he summoned M. Ricci (v.) there from India for the mission of China. Having arrived at Goa on 10 November 1583, he laid down the office of visitor and became provincial of India until 1587 when, having been appointed the new visitor, on April 22, 1588 he undertook from Goa a second journey toward Japan, in the company of the Japanese ambassadors now returning from Rome. After a stay of almost two years at Macao (July 28, 1588-June 23, 1590) to encourage the incipient mission of China, on July 21, 1590 he arrived again in Japan and remained there more than two years, until Oct. 9, 1592. During the other two years that he spent at Macao (Oct. 24, 1592-Nov. 15 or 16, 1594) he approved the reforms in Ricci's method of apostolate and spurred him on to reach Peking. Having returned to Goa on March 4, 1595, on the following Sept. 24 he laid down the office of visitor of India in order to retain only that of visitor of China and Japan, and in this new capacity on Apr. 23, 1597 he definitively left India and arrived at Macao on July 20 of the same year. During this stay, he appointed Ricci superior of the Mission of China and again urged him to go to Peking. Having left Macao on July 16, 1598, he arrived for the third time in Japan on Aug. 5 of the same year and gave that mission an ever greater increase. Having departed from it on Jan. 15, 1603, he reached Macao on Feb. 10, and while he was preparing to visit the mission of China, he died there. About 400 letters of his are preserved, almost all unpublished.

In the face of difficulties, his watchword was: "Never retreat." In India he consolidated and organized Xavier's work. At his death he saw China opened to the Gospel through the work of Ricci and other confreres, five of whom were Chinese, and in Japan he left about 130 missionaries, almost half of them Japanese, assisted by the first priests of the country, being himself a courageous and tireless champion of the native clergy. He left moreover, besides the College of Macao, common to the two missions, two great Colleges established at Nagasaki and in Arima, an incipient one in Omura and a "Rectoral House" in the Capital, a novitiate and two seminaries for Japanese, some twenty residences and about 300 churches or chapels. The one who best characterized him was his contemporary Father Celso Confalonieri, when he wrote that V. was "vir plane insignis et ad omnis summa natus."

Pasquale M. D'Elia