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The article analyzes the “botany” section of Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s *Itinerario* (1596), discussing, on the one hand, its internal organization (chapters 49 to 87) and, on the other, the nature and provenance of the materials mobilized by the author and his collaborator, Bernardus Paludanus, who was responsible for annotating most of the chapters. It is argued that the designation “botany” is partially problematic, since the collection also includes medicinal substances, minerals, and other elements that exceed the strict category of plants, but, at the structural level of the book, constitutes a relatively autonomous block, subdivided in a more or less systematic manner. Methodologically, the study articulates the reading of macrostructures with the identification of the editorial intentions underlying the use of diverse sources, emphasizing how the selection and ordering of content respond to the objective of producing practical knowledge for sedentary readers and potential travelers. It concludes that the textual architecture of the botanical segment results from an illustrated dissemination strategy oriented toward the market: besides satisfying readers’ “exotic” appetite, it instrumentalizes knowledge derived from the “Book of Nature” for pedagogical and commercial purposes in a context of European expansion.

The article analyzes the *Voyage à Goa* of Henry IV's physician, attributing to it value as a privileged source for understanding the circulation of natural, colonial, and medico-pharmaceutical knowledge between the Mediterranean/Europe and the Indian subcontinent in the early seventeenth century. The author argues that the journey of the apothecary-naturalist Jean Mocquet should not be read merely as an exotic account, but as a practice of observation and collecting oriented by the court, in which the ethnography of plants, medicaments, and "singularities" articulates with the political and cognitive needs of royal power. Methodologically, the text is anchored in a critical reading of the travel account and in available biographical information, reconstructing Mocquet's social position within Henry IV's entourage, as well as the manner in which the narrative transforms empirical experience into classifiable knowledge for European circulation. Among the principal results, the account's function as a mediation between natural/Islamic/Indo-Islamic worlds stands out, as does the tension between admiration of "nature" and utilitarian purposes (medicine and applied botany), and the relevance of the courtly framing in explaining descriptive choices, documentary priorities, and strategies of legitimization of the traveler. The conclusion reinforces that Goa operates as a determining node in this network of cultural and scientific transfer.

This article examines the figure of Paulinus a S. Bartholomaeo, a missionary and naturalist observer active between Kerala and Rome in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, interrogating the boundaries between "amateurism" and professionalization in the field of knowledge of the Asian world. The author argues that Paulinus embodies a process of transition in which empirical competencies and collecting practices—typical of traveler-experts—come to be legitimized, contested, and reconfigured by emerging academic criteria, particularly within the Roman circuit. Methodologically, the text mobilizes historical analysis and hermeneutics of writings and documentary practices attributed to the author, situating them within Catholic networks and European dispositifs for classifying the natural world. The reading articulates the epistemological problem of "understanding and reporting" with the material problem of "possessing, appropriating, and dominating" nature and populations, showing how collecting curiosity and descriptive routines are transformed into language and authority of a more "scientific" kind. It concludes that the difference between "amateur naturalist" and "professional orientalist" cannot be reduced to a fixed hierarchy of knowledge, but rather results from institutional negotiations and regimes of validation, in which local observational work is reconverted into global credentials.

The article investigates the relationship between trade, research, and "science" in the context of the presence of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in Asia, using as a narrative axis an episode of 1779 in West Borneo: scientists and traders associated with the VOC attempted to observe local nature and capture an orangutan, while the trade mission and collection routines revealed an immediate articulation between economic interests and knowledge production. Based on historical analysis of travel accounts, institutional documentation (especially the initiatives of the Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen founded in 1778), and historiographical discussion regarding the alleged "anti-scientific" character of the VOC, the author questions readings that describe the Company as indifferent to the arts and sciences and suggests that what seemed like an exception may reflect a more systematic practice of collection, description, and investigation. It concludes that the VOC's policy of secrecy aimed primarily at protecting commercial and cartographic information, not at hindering scientific activities; furthermore, the supposed continuous trajectory of decline in the eighteenth century is relativized. Thus, trade and research appear as complementary processes, capable of expanding both knowledge of the natural sciences and Asian ethnology, with lasting impacts on European collections and research agendas.

This article analyzes the circulation of botanical and pharmacological knowledge between Portugal, Renaissance Europe, and the Asian sphere, using as a comparative axis the work of Garcia da Orta and the mediation of Carolus Clusius. The author argues that, in the transition from medieval culture to more "modern" ways of observing nature, travelers and naturalists not only incorporated Asian species and products into collections and herbariums, but also reconfigured criteria for observation, description, and validation of knowledge, privileging "experiential knowledge" and empirical detail. Methodologically, the text articulates historiographical and textual analysis of botanical and medical sources, confronting passages concerning plants and spices with the way Clusius reinterprets, classifies, and integrates them into the European intellectual landscape. As results, the dual dynamic of revelation and translation is evidenced: Asian species function simultaneously as objects of scientific curiosity and as research resources, stimulating cultivation practices, correspondence networks, and encyclopedic strategies. The conclusion is that Europe does not merely "discover" new plants; it learns to reorganize the natural world based on them, consolidating a regime of knowledge in which experience becomes central to the emerging science.

Michael Pearson's article examines the relationships between Portuguese and Indian medical systems in the early modern period, arguing that the interaction did not produce a uniform transfer of knowledge: in some domains, commonality and the possibility of mutual exchange are observed; in others, early signs of European advantage emerge, though initially limited. The methodology consists of a historical and comparative reconstruction of the Eurasian medical environment before the sixteenth century, followed by a progressive focus on India, and in particular on Goa, assessing the main health risks and associated healing practices. Pearson contrasts the epidemiological profile of Portugal and Europe—marked by plague, smallpox, and syphilis, in addition to endemic diseases and nutritional fragilities—with European perceptions and classifications of illnesses considered “specific” to certain regions, including interpretations of differences between Indian and European pathologies. He concludes that, although neither Europe, nor the Muslim world, nor India held a general medical “superiority” at that time, the identification of geographically localized diseases and the persistent circulation of ideas and practices paved the way for European advantage to expand over the following centuries. This process would culminate, in the nineteenth century, in the victory of Western medicine over Asian medical knowledge and practices.

This article investigates the circulation and medicinal use of Radix Chinae (“China root,” tu fu ling), a rhizome of the Smilacaceae family, within the context of Euro-Asian interactions between approximately 1535 and 1800. It argues that “China root” was not a mere botanical curiosity: it constituted a product of steady demand, often profitable for mercantile networks and pharmaceutical intermediaries, whose relevance derived both from therapeutic expectations and from the constant reconfiguration of names and identities attributed to the material (variations in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Arabic/Persian terminology, as well as confusions with galangal, ginseng, and ginger). Methodologically, the study articulates a historical-philological analysis of early modern European medical sources and glossaries (treatises, lexicons, and therapeutic recipes) with a reading of botanical descriptions and commercial circuits referenced by travelers and authors of pan-European circulation. The results show that, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts, Radix Chinae was used above all for dermatological afflictions, infectious processes, and pain, with internal administration prescribed as a sudorific, in addition to applications associated with hepatosplenic conditions and symptoms related to syphilis. It concludes that the product’s trajectory, until its decline in the early nineteenth century, evidences the coevolution of commerce, natural knowledge, and therapeutic classification on a Euro-Asian scale.

This article proposes a critical framework for the editorial program “European travelers and the Asian natural world,” highlighting that the systematic contacts between the Portuguese (and, soon after, other Europeans) and the Asian world from the late fifteenth century onward produced enduring impacts across multiple domains. It argues that the intensification of travel and direct observation—though conditioned by initial linguistic mediations—allowed Europeans to reorganize knowledge about landscapes, cultural practices, climatic regularities, artisanal productions, and, above all, the natural world. The analysis maintains that the deepening of knowledge about Eastern nature was reflected in processes of revision and reconfiguration of traditional European knowledge, particularly in botany and medicine, also generating dynamics of imitation and “symbiosis” in therapeutic practices. Methodologically, the text functions as a programmatic introduction: it synthesizes the objectives of the dossier and announces diversified approaches centered on authors, textual corpora, and editorial mediations. As results, it notes the variety of studies gathered across two issues, which mobilize travel literature and scientific treatises to highlight mechanisms of circulation, translation, and reformulation of Asian natural knowledge within the European space.

The article analyzes how Cristóvão da Costa constructs, in his *Tractado de las drogas y medicinas de las Indias Orientales*, images of the “Asian natural world,” interrogating the relationship between travel experience, medical-natural knowledge, and visual culture. Starting from the hypothesis that iconography functions not merely as illustration but as a device for credibilization and translation of the distant for European audiences, the author mobilizes a comparative reading between textual descriptions and the engravings inserted in the work. The methodology thus relies on iconographic analysis and philological contextualization of passages in which the author claims direct contact with plants and practices (for example, tamarind, cinnamon, “sad tree,” stops in Goa, Cochin, and Malabar), confronting them with cases in which pictorial fidelity seems more problematic. The study suggests that, while certain species exhibit greater proximity to what was observed, others—originating from distant regions for which there is no evidence of personal testimony—may reveal mediation by sources, circulation of models, and limits of observation. It concludes that the images of nature in Costa articulate empirical authority, encyclopedic pedagogy, and mechanisms of cultural imagination, revealing an ecology of knowledge constructed between travel, printing, and knowledge networks.

This issue of *Revista de Cultura* proposes, in editorial format, a reading of continuity between Francis Xavier and Alessandro Valignano within the framework of the "spiritual conquest" of East Asia. Starting from Xavier’s death on Sanchoão (December 1552) and Macau’s role as a strategic platform from 1557 onward, the text reconstructs how Jesuit projects were articulated with maritime dynamics and the fragile balances of Luso-Chinese circuits. It argues that, although Xavier’s death went largely unnoticed by Portuguese merchants fearful of trade disruptions, the Society of Jesus later succeeded in transforming the missionary’s memory into a powerful devotional and institutional engine. Methodologically, the editorial is organized as a historiographical synthesis: it establishes chronologies, contextualizes places and networks (Goa, Malacca, China, Japan), and relates the circulation of knowledge to the circulation of people. As results, the "religious cartography" produced by Xavier through his voyages stands out, along with the establishment of priority objectives for missionization in China and Japan. The decisive turn is attributed to the 1570s, when Valignano promoted adaptationist methods, including language learning, the decoding of Chinese civilizational practices, and integration into daily life in Japan, contributing to Catholic expansion and the Jesuit opening in China (Zhaoqing, 1583), with a direct impact on Matteo Ricci’s later mission.

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.