Through Daniello Bartoli’s Eyes: Francis Xavier in Asia (1653)

Abstract The first four (out of eight) books Daniello Bartoli’s (1608–85) officially commissioned Istoria della Compagnia di Gesù , dedicated to Asia were devoted recounting the miraculous deeds Francis Xavier (1506–52). A century after his death, and thirty years canonization, was still an influential role model for all Jesuits (especially those who desired become missionaries in “Indies”). Bartoli a supreme stylist (Giacomo Leopardi later called him “the Dante baroque prose”), talents stretched their limits by imperative celebrate Xavier’s miracles ways that accorded with instructive genre history. This article examines how deployed sources, which included not only previous biographies saint João de Lucena Orazio Torsellini, but unpublished letters and, most significantly, report prepared canonization (the Relatio Rotae ).