Abstract
For aspiring missionaries "devotion and mimesis went hand in hand," and every aspiring missionary wanted to follow his footsteps,2 invoking him not only when aiming at the East Indies, but also at the Americas.Xavier died in 1552 on Shangchuan Island, waiting for a boat to bring him to the Ming empire.During his missionary life, he wrote many letters and accounts on the recently explored territories of Asia, most of all Japan.3He was particularly fond of the Japanese who were, according to him, "the best […] people ever discovered, and among the infidels it seems to me that you cannot find anyone better."4Until his very death, Xavier optimistically believed that, after the conversion of China, the Japanese empire would follow and Christianity would have finally conquered the entire Asian continent.Another Jesuit fundamental to the Asian missionary policies was Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606).5His attitude was more objective and less naïve than Xavier's.Appointed visitor of the Indies, he complained against the exaggerations present in some of the first Litterae annuae.Even if written by Jesuit missionaries and then revised and edited by the Society itself, some of their claims were not beneficial to the Jesuit cause.Embellishing the missionaries' accounts sent to Rome and often not verifying their contents could, as Valignano complained, cause very dangerous misunderstandings: for Jesuits, other religious orders, and their lay readers as well.These Asian accounts spread in Europe unrealistic and misleading stories, which could become the reason why "some Jesuits cool down after arriving here, when they see the situation personally."6Valignano sensed that "the Indies" attracted many European Jesuits because of overly-enthusiastic news spread about them by his confreres.Once these missionaries reached the East Indies, the harshness of the local environment