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The article by António Rodrigues Baptista reconstructs, within the framework of the "spiritual conquest" of the Far East between Francis Xavier and Alessandro Valignano, the missionary action of Father António Vaz. Arguing that Vaz's figure has often been distorted by later critical readings, the author proposes a rigorous study based on the triangulation of Jesuit and historiographical sources, with particular attention to the correspondence and accounts of his trajectories in Goa, Hormuz, Malacca, and above all, in the Moluccas. The methodology combines documentary analysis with the contextual critique of disciplinary practices, internal tensions within the Society, and difficulties arising from adverse cultural and sanitary environments, which may explain misunderstandings, suspicions, and contradictory judgments. It concludes that Vaz, despite moments of vocational hesitation and conflicts with confreres in contexts of high complexity, was a key agent in the consolidation of pastoral work, standing out in preaching, spiritual direction, and missions with a diplomatic dimension. The article further maintains that disparaging descriptions—present in part of the historiographical tradition—do not exhaust the evidence, and it is necessary to re-inscribe Vaz as a "learned and virtuous man," in continuity with the guidelines that, during the period, culminated in the formulation and operationalization of missionary policies associated with Valignano.

The article analyzes, based on the work of Alessandro Valignano *Historia del principio y progresso de la Compañía de Jesús en las Indias Orientales*, the way in which Jesuit missionaries grounded an interpretation of Chinese “terrain,” “customs,” and “rites” as a condition for the efficacy of spiritual conquest. Starting from a reading of Valignano's historiographical synthesis and engaging critically with Fan Fan's interpretation of the genesis and development of the Society in the East, the author argues that the Jesuit narrative is not limited to describing cultural practices: it operationalizes ethnographic and geographic knowledge to guide pedagogical, administrative, and strategic decisions. Methodologically, the study combines textual and contextual analysis of the chronicle with a comparative reading of missionary discourses of the period, observing how the “writing of experience” converts multiple pieces of local information into coherent categories for European audiences and for the Order itself. The article concludes that the representation of the Chinese universe—including religion, etiquette, and social mobility—is constructed in a balance between pragmatic recognition and theological framing, whose purpose is to sustain selective cultural adaptation while simultaneously preserving Jesuit interpretive authority.

The article reinterprets the activities of St. Francis Xavier in Southeast Asia, challenging a teleological reading that organizes his "spiritual conquest" as a linear sequence of missions leading to China. Instead, the author proposes starting from the narrative "end"—Xavier's death on Sanchoão (1552)—to highlight how evangelization, solitude, and practices of mercy intersect with the social and economic dynamics of Portuguese enclaves. Through a historical-critical analysis of sources and historiography, the text examines the relative scarcity of Catholic conversions beyond Luso-Asian settlement circuits, emphasizing that, in his movements between ports and routes of the "Estado da Índia," Xavier's action tends to reach more easily young and female audiences, as well as Catholic minorities. The investigation also underscores tensions between moral preaching and commercial structures: many Portuguese merchants, associated with Asian networks and both formal and private enterprises, feared ethical interference in their established trade orders. It concludes that Xavier's discreet death is not merely a biographical detail but an indication of his marginal position relative to local economic elites and a model of apostleship sustained by isolation and charitable compassion, rather than by immediate and mass conversion results.

This article examines the corpus of letters attributed to Saint Francis Xavier during his final maritime itinerary (1552), with particular focus on "The China Letters" (1552) as a privileged source for understanding the "spiritual conquest" in the Far East. The author argues that the epistolary narratives, articulated between miraculous experiences, missionary frustrations, and strategic decisions, function simultaneously as devotional testimony and as an instrument of spiritual and political orientation for Jesuit action, in dialogue with the stage culminating in the formulation of directives by Valignano. Methodologically, the analysis combines a historiographical reading of the letters with contextualization using coeval accounts (including documentation employed in the canonization process), confronting episodes such as the transformation of "sea water" and the recovery of a child during the voyage. The letters are further situated within the specific context of the stopover at Sanchoão, a point of commercial contact between the Portuguese and Chinese junks, where missionary presence occurs under settlement restrictions and amid tensions among merchants. The conclusion holds that Xavier mobilizes the language of the prodigy to legitimize the mission and sustain the continuity of the project, while simultaneously rendering visible the structural uncertainty of access to the Chinese interior and the necessity of phased planning.

The article examines the Life of Father Francis Xavier and of What the Most Religious of the Society of Jesus Did in India, by João de Lucena, discussing how hagiographic writing articulates devotion, confessional propaganda, and identity construction in the context of the Counter-Reformation. It is argued that Xavier's biography, published in Portuguese in an edition of considerable reach, functions simultaneously as an edifying "chronicle" of Jesuit expansion and as a device for the production of sanctity, grounded in the cult of relics and in the exemplary authority of the saints, as promoted by Trent. The analysis combines a critical reading of the text with a historical-literary framework, comparing Lucena's project with earlier models, especially the biographies of Manuel Teixeira and Horácio Torsellino, and identifying continuities and reformulations in the manner of narrating Xavier's predestination and his symbolic connection to the Portuguese imperial design. As results, the article shows that Lucena reconfigures the life of the "Apostle of the Indies" to confer spiritual primacy upon the Society of Jesus, integrating the religious mission into an imaginary of continuity among discovery, commerce, and evangelization. It concludes that the work contributed to consolidating a "national" sanctity and to reinforcing, through narrative, the cultural and political legitimacy of Catholic territories in the East.

The article analyzes the hagiographic construction of St. Francis Xavier as an ideological device in the configuration of the “spiritual conquest” of Asia, linking the narrative production about the saint to Portuguese missionary work at different moments. Through a critical reading of hagiographic sources and texts produced within the horizon of missionary policy, the author argues that the sanctification and stabilization of an exemplary model of holiness functioned as a cultural mediation between overseas expansion and the legitimation of the colonial project: conversion is treated not only as a doctrinal change but as a reorientation of identity and a reorganization of social practices, allowing an understanding of how faith was turned into a foundation of Portugueseness. Methodologically, the study articulates a theoretical framework on conversion and negotiation between sociological readings and theological-normative prescriptions, together with a historical analysis of the role played by authors and missionary programs in extending the political meaning of the evangelizing enterprise. It concludes that, especially in articulation subsequent to the Estado Novo, Xavier’s case was mobilized to sustain a harmonizing vision between Christianization and imperial expansion, reinforcing surveillance against Christian alternatives and promoting an apologetic and instrumental historical writing capable of conferring priority and specificity upon Portuguese colonialism in Asia, between cultural adaptation and indoctrination.

José Manuel Garcia’s article examines the Portuguese historiography produced on St. Francis Xavier, and in particular the theme of the arrival and reception of his body in Goa on 16 March 1554. The central hypothesis is that the memory of the translation—often presented as an exemplary devotional event—was reconfigured over time by narrative strategies and by disputes over authority in the writing of the saint’s “holy memory.” The author proposes a historical-hermeneutic approach, examining the conditions of enunciation of the accounts, the circulation of testimonies, and the manner in which certain elements (welcoming rituals, description of the bodily state, mediation by colonial and Jesuit authorities) were mobilised to sustain competing visions of the mission. Based on a critical reading of historiographical texts connected to Xavier’s universe and to later phases of the Society, the study highlights continuities and inflections between models of sanctity and needs for institutional legitimation, culminating in a growing elaboration of the episode as part of a broader narrative of spiritual conquest. It concludes that the “body in transit” in Goa functions less as a simple repository of facticity and more as a cultural construction, where devotion, missionary policy, and historiographical work are articulated to produce a normatively desirable memory.

The article analyzes the work of St. Francis Xavier and, above all, the manner in which the Society of Jesus structured the "spiritual conquest" in Indian contexts between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The author argues that Portuguese evangelization in Asia cannot be understood in isolation, as it resulted from the recurrent articulation of commercial, military, and religious motivations, frequently accompanied by forms of cultural violence, as evidenced in the paradigmatic case of Goa. Methodologically, the research frames the Jesuit experience within a critical examination of chronicles and missionary strategies, underscoring the absence of a single program for India and proposing a typology of the different modalities of apostolic activity. It concludes that, after Xavier's arrival in Goa (1542), the difficulties stemmed simultaneously from European religious crises and from the insufficient preparation of the orders for cultural diversity and for the complex insertion of Christian projects into local sociopolitical structures. Thus, the Jesuit mission was compelled to develop plural strategies of adaptation, mobilization, and circulation of the "Word," operating across different types of missions—from service to European settlers and conversion under Portuguese rule, to the evangelization of territories under Islamic influence and the model of cultural accommodation associated with initiatives such as that of Roberto de Nobili in Madurai.

This article analyzes Alessandro Valignano’s *Apologia* (1597–1598) as a strategic document that, beyond refuting Franciscan accusations against the Jesuits in Japan and China, reinterprets the foundations of the *Padroado* and the “rights” of the Portuguese Crown in East Asia. Framed within the conflict between Valignano and the Franciscans of Manila (particularly Friar Martín de la Ascensión and Friar Jerónimo de Jesus), the study argues that the *Apologia* reveals two rival conceptions of evangelization: one centered on the legitimation and exclusive Jesuit prerogatives associated with the Portuguese *Padroado*, and the other grounded in the defense of the Castilian Crown’s capacity to legislate on religious matters in Japan. Methodologically, the article undertakes a contextual and comparative reading of the apologetic theses and interpretations of papal briefs (especially Gregory XIII’s *Ex pastoralis officio*, Sixtus V’s *Dum ad uberes fructus*, and Clement VIII’s *Onerosa pastoralis*), connecting them with the rivalry between the two Iberian systems of missionary patronage. It concludes that the *Apologia* operates simultaneously as a doctrinal response and as a political-legal intervention, helping to frame the contest of the *Padroados* until their partial resolution in 1608, when Paul V removed restrictions on religious entries into Japan.

The article analyzes the Jesuit mission in Ambon and the Lease Islands between 1546 and 1580, proposing that the “spiritual conquest” there resulted from a particular combination of political, religious, and socio-spatial conditions. Starting from the observation that the distribution of Christian and Muslim villages on the islands exhibits remarkable continuities into the Dutch period, the author asks why such a configuration consolidated in Ambon–Lease but was not replicated in North Maluku, despite greater Portuguese investment in trade, fleets, and politics. The methodology combines a critical reading of correspondence, reports, and information produced by Portuguese missionaries (with emphasis on the work of Francis Xavier and the institutional continuity of the Jesuits) with a historical-political contextualization of local dynamics among the powers of Ternate, Hitu, and the Portuguese settlements. The sources allow the reconstruction of the moments of missionary entry and expansion, shifts in alliances, and cycles of conflict (raids, sieges, and attacks), highlighting that, despite recurring violence, the mission field in Ambon generated a relatively stable communal space. It concludes that the Jesuit success in Ambon was not merely the result of religious initiative, but emerged from specific arrangements between the interests of Portuguese expansion and local realities, which favored the establishment of Christian communities in defined areas.

The article examines the role of the Jesuit missionary Alessandro Valignano in the construction and circulation of a Christian “press kit” for the Japanese archipelago, articulated under the designation Kirishitan Bunko (“Christian library”). Departing from the propaganda project conceived by Valignano after his first visit to Japan—including the celebrated Japanese embassy to Rome and to the court of Philip II—the text argues that the Jesuit strategy was not limited to recruitment and diplomacy, but involved the deliberate management of editorial circulation, translation, and cultural mediation. Methodologically, the study combines a historical-institutional analysis of Jesuit plans and chronologies with a contextual reading of textual production and the effects of European reception, observing how the accounts and materials sent reverberated in Europe. The main conclusions maintain that, despite the political-religious deterioration in Japan after 1587 (centralization of power and the first anti-Christian edict), the embassy functioned as a catalyst: it increased the visibility of the Jesuit mission in Europe, stimulated vocations and patronage, and generated a rapid growth of publications on Japan. Thus, Kirishitan Bunko emerges as an expression of a spiritual conquest founded on the press, curation, and the capacity to reframe images and knowledge across continents.

The article analyzes the 1726 letter from François-Xavier D’Entrecolles, S.J., to Jean Baptiste Du Halde, taking it as a Jesuit intervention in the French controversy over smallpox inoculation. The author argues that the text constitutes not merely an ethnographic account of “how” the technique was practiced in China, but a deliberative exercise that simultaneously articulates medical, philosophical, and religious dimensions. Methodologically, the research conducts a contextualized reading of the epistolary corpus, confronting the theological framework of the Catholic stance of the Society of Jesus with the arguments debated in French scientific periodicals and within the clash between medical currents, especially the opposition between institutional conservatism and the reception of foreign innovations. It concludes that D’Entrecolles, while informed by the European intellectual environment, defends inoculation by resorting to comparison with Chinese procedures and to the idea that local medical theories could enrich European knowledge. The article also highlights how the controversy in France involved three fronts—physicians, *philosophes*, and the Church—and how Jesuit authority allowed missionary observation to be converted into argumentative legitimacy within debates on prevention, risk, and “divine plans.”

The article analyzes the contribution of Qiu Xi (邱熺, 1774–1851) to the introduction and consolidation of smallpox vaccination in China, with a particular focus on the text *Yin Dou Ti Yong* (引痘体用, “Odes on Guiding Smallpox Out”), which records, in literary form, Chinese modes of understanding and integrating a foreign biomedical technique. The research situates Qiu Xi within the context of the transnational events that marked the arrival of the vaccination method in Macau and Canton Province—following the successful inoculation associated with Huet (1805) and the subsequent circulation of lymph and instructions—arguing that historiographical narratives emphasizing individual rivalries (Huet, Pearson, Balmis, and Chinese physicians/merchants) obscure the cultural and interpretive processes through which the practice became socially legible. Methodologically, the study proceeds with a comparative interpretive reading of Chinese and Western sources, reconstructing Qiu Xi’s trajectory and extracting from his poem the attitudes, expectations, and moral/epistemic frameworks concerning vaccination. It concludes that, beyond acting as a key practitioner and propagator, Qiu Xi offered a discursive model for negotiating the authority of “foreign” medicine and promoting its acceptance in the local milieu, revealing multiple forms of cultural appropriation of vaccination in early nineteenth-century China.

This article analyzes the Mambai culture in Timor (Timor-Leste), proposing an integrated reading of language, social organization, and religious beliefs associated with esoteric practices and initiation rituals. Based on the observation that Mambai is one of the main Austronesian languages of the territory, with Malay influences and a marked geographical distribution (especially in the mountainous interior districts), the author articulates the identity-related dimension of the language with values considered central to local culture, such as the valorization of strength and of military and religious hierarchy. Methodologically, the text is based on the author’s personal collection and field notes, articulated with references to the results of United Nations surveys (2001) on the use of Mambai, and with a comparison to missionary production in other Timorese languages published in Macao. The main conclusions show that the Mambai religious vocabulary preserves fundamental categories of the worldview (such as Sun, Moon, Star, Earth, and divinity), suggesting a cosmology centered on natural and divine forces and a spiritual conception that is not equivalent to body/soul dualisms. The article further highlights the importance of a system of names for divinities and ancestors, and the presence of interpretive difficulties faced by external observers.

The article analyzes the reception and implementation of smallpox vaccines in Macau under Portuguese rule, framing the historical process within the broader context of Asian variolation practices and the global-scale transition to immunization through vaccination. The author argues that the introduction of European technology cannot be understood solely as a biomedical transfer, but rather as the outcome of political, administrative, and cultural negotiations in a commercial port, as well as of specific relationships between medical knowledge and local perceptions of risk. Methodologically, the text combines a historiographical review with documentary reading of nineteenth-century references to sanitary measures, linking them to theoretical discussions on the incompleteness of Western understanding regarding the role of “non-Western peoples” in the constitution of science. By highlighting the dichotomy between vaccination and variolation in the relevant documentation from South China, the article shows that the Portuguese administration sought to align itself with “the latest developments” in European medicine, while effectiveness and acceptance depended on local dynamics, including beliefs, pre-existing practices, and public health strategies. It thus concludes that the history of the vaccine in Macau reveals a cultural and institutional encounter, rather than a simple imposition of European models.

The article analyzes the photographic collection of Manuel Paulo de Sousa Gentil, governor of Portuguese Timor between 1919 and 1920, interrogating it as a possible “portfolio of the colonial order”. Based on the preserved core of 46 photographs (with typed captions), the author reconstructs, using an inventory of existing pieces and historical contextualization of the post-Manufahi wars period, how the circulation of Navy officers based in Macau and the republican program of “fomento” materialized in visual records. The methodology combines iconographic reading and documentary analysis of captions and provenances, articulating landscape photographs, traditional work, human types, games and amusements with images of exhibitions and agricultural experiments, as well as visits by the governor himself. It concludes that, although the original album probably gathered hundreds of images and later dispersed, the remaining sample allows identifying a narrative ordering that traverses ethnographies and developments, organizing the territory according to colonial categories. The collection thus tends to function as a pedagogical and commemorative device: it not only documents but frames people and practices within the horizon of a sovereignty that intends to present itself as “natural” and civilizing, culminating in scenes such as the “Catholic family”.

Ivo Carneiro de Sousa’s article reconstructs and interprets the trajectories, memories, and intellectual projects of Father Francisco Maria Fernandes (1935–2005) as a privileged avenue for understanding the historical connections between Macau and Timor-Leste. The central thesis holds that the priest’s pastoral and political-community action—especially his coordination of refugees, mobilization of international solidarity, and institutional defense of the Timorese clergy and Catholic Church—also constitutes a form of historical knowledge production, later interrupted in “unfinished studies.” Methodologically, the author draws on direct testimonies and typewritten texts gathered from conversations held with Fernandes himself during visits to Macau, articulating them with contextual references to decisive events in Timor between 1974 and the independence process (culminating in 2001). The main conclusions highlight: (1) the shift from fragmentary youthful memory to a critical perspective on the Revolution of 25 April and its local repercussions; (2) the memorial focus on the escalation leading to the civil war between UDT and FRETILIN, including striking episodes such as the death of Maggiolo Gouveia; and (3) the centrality of exile and settlement in Ainaro, which required linguistic and cultural adaptations. The article thus underscores the patrimonial and historiographic value of these notes for future research on Timor and its diaspora.

The article reconstructs and interprets the historical links between Macau and the eastern part of Timor (from the 16th to the 20th century), arguing that, although historiography tends to privilege contemporary political contacts, these connections were sustained by maritime circulations, commercial networks, and information transfers that were insularly out of phase. The analysis articulates a contextual framework — including the reception of Timorese in Macau during the political-military crisis that postponed the refounding of independence (until 2001) — with a documentary investigation of a historical and cartographic nature. Along this path, the author highlights the manuscript attributed to Francisco Rodrigues, a pilot and cartographer who participated in the Portuguese reconnaissance voyages between Malacca and the Moluccas, arguing that the work combines nautical itineraries and a cartographic atlas that includes the first European representation of the island of Timor. By confronting the spatial drawing and the navigation route with the system of goods circulation, it concludes that Timor was not only known but also integrated into regional trade routes, with sandalwood identified as the axis of demand and economic valuation. The study therefore proposes a connective history in which cartography, luxury product, and maritime networks function as fundamental mediations between the two territories.

The article argues that the decade of 1512–1522 constitutes a formative moment in the establishment of historical and commercial relations between Portugal and Timor, even though this process remained poorly documented in the official chronicles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Proceeding from the scarcity of sources and the fragmentary nature of information on Timor, the author employs a historiographical approach based on the critical analysis of cartography and period texts associated with Portuguese navigations in Asia, with particular emphasis on the work of the pilot and cartographer Francisco Rodrigues and on the incorporation, in his manuscript (1515), of data already circulating among Asian navigators and merchants. The reading of cartographic images and legends allows for a discussion of the origin of representations of Timor, distinguishing between the possible diffusion of Eastern maps and potential elements of direct sighting during the route of the fleets to Malacca. Complementarily, the comparison with Tomé Pires's "Suma Oriental," begun in 1512 and completed in 1515, highlights how the island becomes integrated into the circulation networks of sandalwood — a key commodity of Southeast Asia — and how Portuguese economic categories were constructed from information gathered in Malacca. It is concluded that the Luso-Timorese connection was consolidated above all through documentary and commercial mediation, rather than through continuous presence, thereby preparing the organization of maritime strategies for the adjacent islands.

This paper analyzes the life memories of Timorese individuals residing (or in transit) in Macao, arguing that the diasporic experience tends to be shaped both by personal trajectories and by post-2001 historical and media transformations. The author grounds the research in a qualitative data collection effort based on interviews with informants diversified by age, gender, professional status, and sociocultural contexts, complemented by guided questionnaires. The narratives are organized into three thematic axes—childhood memories, perceptions of Timor’s political evolution, and existential positions in contemporaneity—enabling an understanding of patterns of circulation, forms of identification, and processes of integration within Macao’s social fabric. As main conclusions, the study highlights that the Timorese community in Macao faces difficulties in identity consolidation, marked by increasing fragmentation and dispersion. Simultaneously, settlement elsewhere and return to Timor gradually reduce community cohesion. The declining international interest in Timor-Leste’s resistance period and referendum contributes to weakening the sympathetic attention of the recent past, favoring the dilution of Timorese identity in Macao under the impact of economic development and interaction dynamics with other communities.