Alessandro Valignano

Born: 1539
Died: 1606

Padre (Father) Alessando Valignano was visitor (chief supervisor) overseeing all Society of Jesus (Jesuit) operations in South, Southeast, and East Asia beginning in 1573.

After being appointed Visitor of "India Province" (i.e. the entire South, Southeast, and East Asia region) by Rome in 1573, Valignano arrived in Japan in July 1579. He arranged to make shore first in the territory of Arima Harunobu, granting Arima food and supplies, and winning him over to convert to Christianity the following year. Ômura Sumitada transferred the port of Nagasaki into Jesuit control that same year (1580), and Valignano took a chief role in overseeing the development of the Jesuit base there, including its defenses.

Valignano is known to have written positively of the Japanese, describing them as "white, courteous, and highly civilized," and writing otherwise of their dignity, cleanliness, rationality, and a host of other positive traits.^[1]

He departed Japan in February 1582.

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References

William Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur Tiedemann (eds.), Sources of Japanese Tradition, Second Edition, vol 2, Columbia University Press (2005), 147-148.

↑ Conrad Schirokauer, David Lurie, and Suzanne Gay, A Brief History of Japanese Civilization, Wadsworth Cengage (2013), 123.

[1] Conrad Schirokauer, David Lurie, and Suzanne Gay, A Brief History of Japanese Civilization, Wadsworth Cengage (2013), 123.

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