The vocation to the overseas missions of the Society of Jesus in the early modern period

Since it was founded in 1540, the Society of Jesus has been famous among Catholic religious orders for its devotion to education and apostolic ministries—that is, its overseas missions.

During the early modern period and until very recent times (20th century), thousands of Jesuits across Europe paused their work in churches and classrooms and drafted individual petitions directly to the superior general of the Society of Jesus. In Rome, the general received these requests for missionaryappointments overseas, which are known today as litterae Indipetae because their authors were Indias petentes, that is asking for the East and West Indies.

This presentation offers a general introduction to litterae indipetae of the early modern period, especially (but not only) focusing on the petitions written from the Italian peninsula and aimed at the Chinese and Japanese destinations. It concentrates on the qualitative and quantitative relevance of litterae indipetae, an extraordinary collection of ego-documents whose uniqueness is even more accentuated in the case of “unknown” and “unimportant” Jesuits—which are the majority among petitioners for the Indies.

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