Abstract
A rare manuscript kept in Torre do Tombo (Lisbon, Portugal) preserves the memory of several celebrations of the beatification of Ignatius of Loyola, which took place around the realms of the Spanish Habsburgs in 1609–11. Among these, there is the account of those organized in Goa in 1610, whose narrative reveals the cultural hybridization of European and Indian influences, in a nod to the local population to make readable the Jesuit message to a wider audience. Such Indian influences also reflected the origin of the craftsmen employed in constructing vehicles, decorations, and machines, whose cultural background conditioned the final result. The Jesuit narrative, however, depicted Indians either as props (used in procession for their exoticism) or as bystanders (as no one is individualized in the narrative, except key official figures invited by the Society to participate in the celebration).
We owe to the pen of Pietro della Valle (1586–1652) a succinct description celebrating the double canonization of Ignatius of Loyola (c.1491–1556) and Francis Xavier (1506–52), which took place in Goa in 1624.1 Della Valle probably saw the parade from a balcony in the King of the Islands house on São Paulo Street, where he witnessed another religious festival one year earlier,2 being simultaneously a spectator and a participant in a festivity staged by the Jesuits. Della Valle’s narrative is one of the three known contemporary documents about this feast, the other two being authored by Jesuits: an annual letter written by Sebastião Barreto (1568–1625),3 and a small anonymous imprint entitled Traça da pompa triunfal … (Description of the triumphal pomp …), printed at the College of São Paulo.4
Barreto and della Valle provide different dates for the festivity, with the Portuguese Jesuit putting its start on January 21,5 while the Roman traveler gave February 10 as its inception.6 Both men highlighted the most important events, culminating in the great procession ending the celebrations on February 19. Unfortunately, we lack accounts made by foreign travelers for a similar ceremony that occurred in 1610, the beatification of Ignatius of Loyola, since François Pyrard de Laval (1578–1621) and Jean Mocquet (1575–1616) had left Goa for Europe on January of that year,7 leaving us only with a report made by an unknown Jesuit, which must have been written in 1610 or 1611. Paradoxically, other Jesuit letters relating actions of those years in India fail to mention this festivity, and our dependence on a single source to analyze it raises questions regarding its objectivity, particularly since it was composed by an interested party in the celebration.
The anonymous account of Goa’s celebrations is part of a miscellaneous codex with Jesuit-related documents kept in Torre do Tombo, Portugal’s national archive. Most of the materials of this codex are connected with the festivities of the beatification of Ignatius of Loyola taking place in the Spanish Habsburg’s realms in Europe (Portugal, Spain, and the Spanish Low Countries) and their empire in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.8 Only one narrative, that of Seville, is printed,9 as all the other accounts are kept in manuscript form. Another text on Ignatius of Loyola, a biography printed in Madrid in 1601,10 is kept at the beginning of the codex, hinting at a possible rough draft for a volume dedicated to the Ignatian beatification celebrations in the Habsburg realms in 1609–11 by an unknown compiler who never managed to publish the material collected by him.11 Except for the festivities in Buenos Aires, authored by Juan de Humanes (1581–1660), all the other accounts have no names attached to them, including Goa’s. Every text was written either in Portuguese or Castilian, with some accounts in Spain being in Portuguese, like those of Madrid, Valladolid, Medina del Campo, and Segovia, among other places. Latin was only used for maxims, hymns, and emblems, hinting that the anonymous author tried to reach a larger audience using vernacular languages.
Non sufficit orbis
This text is grouped with other narratives describing Ignatian celebrations held by the Jesuits in the Iberian world. We have no clue as to the name behind this compilation. Still, he reflected a wider cultural frame in Portugal and in the Society of Jesus regarding the role country, empire, faith, and its agents played on a planetary scale.12 This idea matured during Portuguese imperial expansion in the sixteenth century, coming to fruition with the merging of Portugal and Spain under Philip ii (r.1556–98) in 1580, creating in the Spanish monarchy a discourse with global implications with known written examples in the 1590s,13 and iconographic ones even earlier, as seen in a medal struck in Lisbon in 1583 celebrating Philip as a global monarch with the motto: Non sufficit orbis (The world is not enough).14 Jesuits were not alien to this global trend,15 as they started publicizing their missionary activity in the Portuguese empire since 1549,16 attaining its apex at the beginning of the seventeenth century with the works of Fernão Guerreiro (1550–1617). Guerreiro compiled all activities carried out by Jesuits working in Asia, Africa, and the Americas from 1600 to 1609, with the volume printed in 1605 revealing the global scope of the Society’s endeavor in its title.17 Guerreiro was well aware of the difficulties of synchronizing a single volume of activities carried out in the same year in various parts of the world, as information was relayed at different speed according to the place of origin, with letters from missions closer at home (Africa and the Americas) arriving before those coming from Asia (particularly those from Japan, China or Maluku).18
Likewise, the unknown Jesuit compiler of 1611 faced similar problems, as Goa’s narrative probably arrived later than the texts describing festivities taking place in Iberian towns closer to Lisbon, with the usual delays for descriptions coming from both sides of the South Atlantic, like Luanda in Africa,19 or Bahia and Buenos Aires in South America.20 This is hardly surprising, as the news of Ignatius’s beatification also took time to arrive at the different destinations where he was celebrated in the realms of Philip iii (1578–1621; r.1598–1621). In India, news of his beatification arrived with the annual fleet of 1610, whose commander, Luís Mendes de Vasconcelos (1543–1623), took part in Goa’s festivities with his son.21
As his contemporary Fernão Guerreiro, our unknown compiler of 1611, had in mind editing the celebrations of Ignatius beatification taking place all over major urban centers in the Spanish monarchy in Europe, the Americas, and Asia from 1609 to 1611 (See Map 1). Curiously, if festivals in Spanish towns represent the biggest nucleus of his compilation (38.2 percent), vice–regal capitals in America like Lima or Mexico are conspicuously absent, as only a secondary American town like Buenos Aires made it into this collection. Its inclusion can be ascribed to the informal connection linking the River Plate to Brazil, since the only known authorship of a relation, that of Buenos Aires written by Juan de Humanes, had left Lisbon for South America in February 1610, arriving at his destination after a rough journey.22 Our unknown compiler of 1611 started collecting narratives of these festivities sent to Lisbon by fellow Jesuits, like the unidentified author of Valladolid’s report who wrote, “These are the festivities that Don Hernando de Córdoba organized in Valladolid, another day those of Madrid will be sent to you, so that Your Reverence does not complain about my lack of communication.”23 Valladolid is one of eight urban centers with more than one text describing the Ignatian celebrations like Burgos, Faro, Braganza, Portalegre, Angra, and Funchal (which have three different descriptions). In Pernambuco, for instance, the second account narrates the festivities made in 1611 to an image of Ignatius of Loyola sent from Lisbon, which made a hazardous journey aboard a caravel, including having problems with pirates en route to Brazil.24
Ultimately, the anonymous compiler never printed the forty-nine assembled texts, either because the excess of materials overpowered his ability to create a coherent narrative or for the lack of a patron to finance it, or, still, in virtue of Ignatius of Loyola had a smaller impact in Portugal and its empire than that of Francis Xavier, despite being the founder of the Society of Jesus. Furthermore, as several narratives of celebrations had been published in Spain, it also curtailed an eventual Iberian audience for our compiler’s work.
The things that happen in these times of ours are of such edification and glory of God Our Lord, and so similar to those of the Primitive Church, and can also be seen in the New and Primitive one, which God is founding in these Oriental parts of India, China and Japan, taking as His instrument (in addition to many other religious people from other sacred orders) those [missionaries] of this minimal Society of Jesus, to whom, because of its Institute and vocation, this endeavor particularly belongs.25
Perception of such a role could be found earlier, as in a play performed at the Goan College of St. Paul in 1565, where twenty-seven characters represented figuratively all Jesuit missions from Mozambique to Japan, with its cortege of successes, misfortunes, martyrs, and saints, whose actions could be staged as part of a world theatre. Sebastião Gonçalves (1533–c.1600) tried to convey to his brethren in Coimbra, through that performance, an image of “[…], in which I intended to make you [Fr. Lourenço Mexia (1539–99)] understand all the places where there are or were Christians, and part of the fruit that is produced in them.”26 As we can see, theatre was a relevant pedagogical tool for the Jesuits to use worldwide in their colleges, but also in public (for instance, aboard ships of the Carreira da Índia), as a way to convey a multilayered message about them and their missionary activities as performers in a play.
Staging the Celebrations
The notion of everyone being simultaneously a spectator and an actor on a global level was the motto for the festivities organized in Goa in 1610.27 These took place for twelve days, from Friday, November 12, to Tuesday, November 23. Except for four days, from November 16 to November 19, when Goa’s municipality paraded its military, and there was direct popular participation in the celebrations (namely a traditional entertainment taking place on November 19), all the remaining ceremonies occurred in or around Jesuit buildings. Most festivities were performed at the Bom Jesus Church (the Professed House), taking advantage of its centrality in Goa’s closely-knit urban fabric. Still, those that included machines, fireworks, and processional vehicles took place in the peripheral square before the College of Saint Paul, which was considered safer in case of accidents, which happened anyway.
Public religious festivals were influenced by the Catholic Reformation, when Tridentine resolutions tried to avoid mixing religious and profane elements in sacred dramas, to control the theological content of what was performed, particularly during processions, while renewing the missionary spirit of the primitive church in a very Ignatian outlook.28 This progress led to a separation between street celebrations of a religious nature like processions or festivals, and sacred dramas represented at churches or theaters, but control remained in place for both genres.29
Ecclesiastical authorities, however, were well aware that the public wanted “profane” elements in religious processions and provided such interludes to amuse them. The 1610 beatification celebrations in Goa were no exception, as a vehicle depicting the boat of Charon (Hades’s ferryman) was paraded every day to “entertain and please the people.”30 Despite its pagan subject, the Jesuits managed to convey a multilayered Christian message on its decoration (not only the damned souls condemned to hell), by setting devils against a background decorated with Salcete’s Hindu temples (duly identified), which they had destroyed, while converting Indians to Christianity.31 Their intent was double, on the one hand, to portray Goa as a Catholic city (equated to Heaven) contrasting with the neighboring Hindu territories with their temples (likened to hell); and on the other hand, to let know how effective the Jesuits had been on converting Indians to Christianity before Ignatius of Loyola beatification, and that they would be even more efficient in the future so that the pope would canonize him.32
Catholic control over religious public festivals prevailed in and outside Europe, and Goa was no exception. Goa’s five diocesan councils held between 1567 and 1606 tried to enforce Tridentine reform in the Estado da Índia with relative success. As Indian converts were the majority of the population in Goa, Portuguese ecclesial authorities tried to extirpate Hindu contamination of Catholic rituals. They enforced European habits and dress on local Christians. Processions, mystery plays, and other public religious festivals fell under conciliar resolutions in order to keep decorum and avoid introducing Indian elements. To no avail, as successive conciliar prohibitions showed that older religious and cultural practices continued to surface time and again. In 1606, for instance, orders were issued to forbid the performance of some stations of the cross, as when Jesus is descended from the cross, but della Valle witnessed these same stations being represented again in 1624.33 Jesuits did their best to circumvent such prohibitions, as seen in the festivities of 1610, not only because a hybrid style of decoration appealed more and conveyed better the Society’s message to its audience, but also due to the Indian artists employed, whose craftsmanship was imbued on the surrounding Hindu world. Accommodation ruled.34
Worldwide Jesuit activity manifested itself in the decoration of vehicles, machines, and players. Strangely absent from the Goan festivities of 1610, more tuned with representing India, this idea was visible on the iconography shown in Lisbon that same year,35 and would appear in the canonization celebrations held at Goa in 1624, whose seventh vehicle depicted the triumph of Faith over Idolatry on the four corners of the world.36
Accordingly, this was also a way where the macro (world) intersected the micro (local), and vice-versa, reflecting both plans in the celebrations, as seen, for example, in Braganza in 1610. A remote town in northeastern Portugal, Braganza lacked basic things to celebrate Ignatius’s beatification when the news arrived in 1609, forcing the Jesuits to postpone the festival for the following year.37 The celebrations were first scheduled for Easter of 1610, but the absence of resources compelled them to adjourn these to July, when festivities started little by little. Even then, the Jesuits had “send fetch someone in Porto, who knew how to make fire inventions, as those from Braganza were not enough, but they helped him for a month and a half.”38 Significantly, the first day of celebrations started with the local, a vehicle carrying Braganza personified with a program of the festivities, which went from the college to the main town square.39 Soon the macro (world) made its irruption when the celebrations attained their zenith in the last week of July, when Jesuit presence in Europe and the globe made its appearance, though connected with Portugal’s empire, as the baptism of the Monomotapa by Gonçalo da Silveira (1526–1561), or the caravel carrying aboard all the main places where the Society of Jesus had colleges, with Goa at its head.40
“Come, All the World, Give Obedience to Blessed Ignatius”
News of Ignatius of Loyola’s beatification arrived at Goa on October 4, 1610, with the armada commanded by Vasconcelos. A little more than a month lapsed until the first day of celebrations, November 11, giving the Jesuits limited time to prepare them, contrasting with the eight months of preparation employed to organize the canonization festivities in 1624. Public ceremonies in India had to be performed outside the monsoon, which affected the liturgical calendar established according to a European pattern.41 Time of preparation impacted the religious ceremonies. This can be seen in the double canonization celebration of 1624, which was more dazzling if we believe in the treatise printed at São Paulo College than the beatification festival made in 1610. This had to do with the figure honored in 1610, Ignatius of Loyola, secondary to that of Francis Xavier in the missionary strategy developed by the Society of Jesus for Asia.
Before Xavier’s beatification (1619) and canonization (1622), there was already a cult to him in Jesuit houses in Asia and around his body in Goa, and a wish to make him a saint, for which a list of miracles was being compiled to speed the process of canonization. Sebastião Gonçalves (c.1555–1619), in his history of the Society of Jesus in Asia, completed (1614) before the beatification, already called Xavier “Great Father,” “Blessed Father,” “Apostle of Japan, second of India,” and “second Apostle of the East.”42
The Jesuits also looked forward to canonizing their founder, Ignatius of Loyola, as witnessed during the festivities. On the fourth day, November 15, a portal was erected in the square facing São Paulo-o-Velho college with two arches, in the middle of one, there was a sign with “San[c]ti Ignatius” written on it, indicating their desire to canonize him. If further proof is needed, a list of miracles in India attributed to Ignatius’s intercession, or the use of his relics, was attached at the end of Goa’s relation to speed the canonization process.43
According to the extant narrative, the beatification festivities in 1610 made little use of Ignatian iconography. This is strange if we take into account the treatise describing the canonization celebrations of 1624, when images and the cycle of Ignatius and Xavier’s lives were depicted in the vehicles built for that occasion. This lack of interest in Ignatius’s iconography is understandable in Asia, where Xavier took center stage, contrasting with Portugal, where nine scenes depicting key moments of his life were painted on the ceiling of the sacristy in the Jesuit church of the Espírito Santo in Évora in 1599.44 This fresco cycle predates in a decade the seminal iconography printed in Ignatius’s biography of Pedro de Ribadeneira (1526–1611) published in 1609, with drawings attributed to Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) engraved by Cornelis Galle (1576–1650) and Jean Baptiste Barbé (1578–1649).45 If there is little mention of images or paintings of Ignatius of Loyola in Goa’s celebrations, his life was staged in a theatre performed in the crossing of Saint Paul’s College church on Monday, November 15.46
Despite time contingencies, the twelve days of celebrations taking place in Goa from November 12 to November 23 did not tarnish the efforts made by the Jesuits to organize them. But one may suspect that given the short preparation, the Jesuits resorted to a pre-existing repertoire, namely cavalcades by their students dressed as Moors mounted on Arabian horses through the streets of Goa.47 These were common, as seen in the descriptions left by travelers of the time, such as della Valle, who also participated in one of such cavalcades and dressed for the occasion as an Arab in one of such mascharade organized to celebrate the canonization of St. Teresa of Ávila (1515–82) in 1622.48 There were other recurring typologies, such as the processional giants (gigantones) provided by Goa’s municipality,49 or the parade of corps of moradores,50 soldiers, and students, who also took part in the celebrations of Ignatius of Loyola beatification.51 Similar typologies were used by Jesuits elsewhere, as in Lisbon, where students from Santo Antão College dressed like Moors rode through the city streets, and its principal ordered “a shivaree […] with many young men with arquebuses in army order, and in their midst some musicians with their instruments, playing in parts and making noises on other situations, after which they fired the weapons, and more people cheered the Saint.”52
Symbolism was important throughout the festivities, as these began with the Jesuits delimiting Goa’s topography where processions would take place, to establish an itinerary that included its main centers of political and ecclesiastical power, thus associating these with the Society of Jesus (See Map 2). The choice of this path was obvious, as most religious and civic corteges in Goa traditionally traversed the same squares and streets. The chosen spaces, however, were symbolically captured by the Society with five images of Blessed Ignatius of Loyola put in carefully selected buildings: three in Jesuit houses (São Paulo-o-Velho, Bom Jesus, and São Paulo-o-Novo), a fourth in Goa’s cathedral, thus linking the Society with the center of ecclesiastic power in India (always a fraught relation); and a fifth in the square facing the viceregal palace, connecting them with the representant of Portuguese power in Asia, who was also the protector of the Padroado where they worked.53
Goa’s main religious, civic, and political buildings were located along this route, as the Society wanted to get the association and sanction of these institutions with the feast celebrating the beatification of their founder to obtain prestige and recognition for their missionary labor in the Padroado. Such acquiescence was never a given fact, particularly in the conservative milieu of the Padroado, as relations between the Society, other religious orders, and the archdiocese of Goa could be tense at times. If celebrations in 1610 went smoothly, those of the double canonization in 1622, for instance, faced a boycott of all religious orders, Franciscans excepted, in the wake of the papal approval of Roberto de Nobili’s (1577–1656) accommodation in Madurai.54
Celebrations of Ignatius’s beatification took place on an urban triangle comprised of the Professed House (Bom Jesus), the square facing the viceroy’s palace (near the river), and, finally, São Paulo-o-Velho college, in whose yard most of the multitudinous ceremonies were performed. São Paulo College, with a vast square on its front and a relatively peripheral situation in the face of Goa’s dense urban area near the river, made it the right choice where events involving bulky machines and fire could evolve safely. But it was almost impossible to avoid accidents, such as the one occurring on the night of November 16, when a machine set fire to the flags and pennants adorning a structure erected on São Paulo’s yard by order of Dom Felipe, king of the Islands.55
This desire to control only sometimes went according to plan, leading to last-minute decisions by those guiding the celebrations to prevent disasters. On November 15, for example, sixty-two horses should escort the five triumphal vehicles, but as some animals became too agitated, threatening to throw their riders down, Nicolau Pimenta (1546–1614) suspended their departure, and the cars left São Paulo without them.56 Animals were always a liability, as they could run amuck in the procession and cause problems, as a horse that trotted uncontrollably, leading its rider to launch fireworks so low that people were scared by the pyrotechnics.57
Other times, the wish to impress could go wrong, as vehicles and machines were sometimes too big for gates or streets. In Goa, the five triumphal cars built in São Paulo’s courtyard, for instance, exceeded the size of its gate so that “the jamb of its archway and porch roof were torn-down, so that these could exit to the street.”58 Something similar happened in Lisbon, where it was necessary to “pierce the city-wall [next to Saint Catherine’s gate] wide enough to allow the vehicles to pass,” with the anonymous author adding in a scathing tone, “those who knew history would say this was an omen of what would happen at Troy.”59
Festivities lasted for eleven days, beginning publicly on November 12, and ending privately on November 23, with its peak being reached on the fourth day, when five triumphal vehicles built expressly for the occasion were paraded through Goa.60 It is worth adding that even when celebrations were performed privately, a selected exterior audience was always present besides the Jesuits. Included among these were Estado da Índia top officials, such as Viceroy Rui Lourenço de Távora (1556–1616), Archbishop Aleixo de Meneses (1559–1617), clerics, aristocrats, municipal councilors, members of other religious orders, and inquisitors.61 The wish to associate Estado da Índia top political and religious echelons with the beatification ceremonies was felt from start to end, except for the penultimate day, November 22, when students of Santa Fé College were its sole participants.62
In Lisbon, for instance, there was a divide between the festivities organized by the Professed House (São Roque), more outward-facing with processions and other public ceremonies, and those made at Santo Antão College, more inward-looking for its residents and special invitees, though plays in its outer yards, as well as street performances, were offered to a wider audience, and sometimes festivities began privately and ended publicly. On February 14, 1610, for example, the students’ quadrangle was set with a canopy, under which three chairs were put for Luís de Ataíde, earl of Atouguia (c.1570–1639), Lord Chancellor Damião de Aguiar (1535–1618), and the prefect, to judge poetry honoring Blessed Ignatius of Loyola. Poems were recited accompanied by music played by a brass orchestra (charamela), and a biography of Ignatius was awarded to the best compositions written in Italian, Castilian, and Portuguese (witnessing the cosmopolitan origin of the students). Once finished the recital, students bearing banners and equipped with arquebuses entered the quadrangle and drilled under the watch of a “colonel” on horseback before leaving to the street to parade on Rossio (Lisbon’s second largest square), to the delight of its inhabitants.63
Parades, as mentioned above, were recurrent in religious festivals during the early modern age, and those held in Goa in November of 1610 were no exception. Its municipality, for instance, held three parades on different days: one composed of Indian converts, another recruited among Tiswadi’s thirty villages, and a third incorporating local students.64 Besides showing military might, parades also celebrated the notion of ecclesia militans (militant church), connected with Robert Bellarmine’s (1542–1621) theology,65 and the Society’s stance on missionary activity. The author of Santo Antão’s relation, for example, revealed that many in the audience, after witnessing Jesuit students drill perfectly, “said they were more trained in arms, than in religious schools.”66
Let us return to Goa with its troupe of extras, spectators, and actors in a play staged by the Jesuits in November of 1610. Noticeably, in terms of cast, our anonymous author omitted most names, including superiors of religious orders active in Goa at the time, excepting those who he considered protagonists: people like Viceroy Távora, Archbishop Meneses, Bishop Domingos Torrado (c.1560–1612), Vasconcelos, and Manuel de Gouveia Coutinho (fl. c.1550–1625). But not all protagonists were keen attendants, as Archbishop Meneses, who participated reluctantly and only agreed to deliver the closing sermon after much insistence by Pimenta.67
Our author failed to reveal the names of four Greek monks from the monastery of Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai who were present at the ceremonies, one of whom was the archbishop of Rhodes.68 Here, it is appropriate to mention the importance these Greek monks had in the festivities, not as an ecumenical overture by the Jesuits,69 but due to the symbolic connection intended to be established between Sinai, where Moses received the Tablets of the Law, Saint Catherine, who had given her name to the monastery, and Goa, whose patron saint she was.70 The link to a martyr of the primitive church and the most important figure of the Old Testament was a prestigious endorsement for the newly blessed Ignatius and for the Jesuits.
Most actors and extras disappear into a nameless crowd, whether their participation was staged or welcomed and controlled by the Jesuits. As was the case of the pilgrimage of more than five thousand people from Salcete, who paraded unexpectedly through Goa on November 18, precipitating its inhabitants into the streets to see them pass and hang bedspreads on balconies. Organized and financed by the local Jesuit college, this was perhaps the more “Indian style” participation during the festivities due to its music, dances, and “actors,” and for the “exoticism” of the bird’s nests dress worn by Assolna’s children. The procession took five hours to cross Goa, and when it finally reached São Paulo, a child closed the pilgrimage, dedicating it to Blessed Ignatius in Konkani.71 This was the only time non-European languages were mentioned in Ignatius’s beatification ceremonies in Goa, as Latin and Portuguese were omnipresent throughout the ceremonies. This was a paradox given the investment Jesuits made in learning Asian languages. Indians were unnamed extras used in the festivities to provide an exotic flavor (used in the procession with their “native” garb), and as a background against which the Jesuits built a narrative of their missionary successes in India. But local Indians went off script on November 17, when “the Christianity of Salsete celebrated this night on the hills over Nossa Senhora da Luz to the sound of their instruments, launching many fireworks at the city.”72
As mentioned above, Salcete played an important role in the history of the Society of Jesus in India, as the destruction of its Hindu temples was a leitmotiv in Jesuit texts, and this was used to decorate vehicles and machines. Exoticism played its part as a European fabrication, with repetitive motifs and themes, of which the most usually seem to be people disguised as Moors riding on horseback,73 which survived in Iberian processions to this day. This was a hint to its past forged in the fight against Islam, and though “Moors” had been expelled to North Africa, the Spanish monarchy was still battling other Muslims, the Ottomans, in Europe and Asia. Their presence could be seen as a way to exorcise a looming fear, which in Goa was represented by the neighboring Sultanate of Bijapur, whose rulers threatened the city occasionally. The ever-attentive della Valle mentioned Goa’s innumerable churches and excessive religiosity as a catharsis to fend off its anxiety about being surrounded by enemies.74
In addition to instruments usually played in feasts, processional giants and figures of wild beasts came, which in India usually take part in famous processions, and because this festival was held at night, two orders of painted lanterns were raised in front of Saint Ignatius banner, which was accompanied by royal trumpets and a brass orchestra.76
Textual descriptions like this hint at a hybrid style, and though the five triumphal cars used on the fourth day were classical in its theme and decoration,77 there were two machines, Charon’s boat and the giant Briareus, paraded during eight days, that made the difference. Its distinctiveness did not come from what they represented, both were European myths, but rather due to its decoration and associated symbolism. If we have discussed the décor and symbology of Charon’s boat, the giant Briareus presented obvious connotations with Hinduism. Briareus, a mythological character equipped with a hundred hands and fifty heads, could easily be compared with Hindu gods who had multiple arms and heads. Therefore, when it was set on fire on November 20,78 it was a powerful metaphor for the destruction of Hinduism conveyed by the Jesuits to an Indian audience.
Goa’s celebrations of 1610 were also a gesamtkunstwerk, as art, music, dance, and technology were a holistic experience joining performers and audience on a public religious event. On November 15, for example, the car of Glory (a nod to Ecclesia triumphans), a two-tiered vehicle carrying St. Michael and angels, had singers and musicians aboard playing for youths, who were dancing around it dressed as angels and pilgrims to Santiago (with hat, staff, gourd, and shell of St. James), singing praises to “Saint Jacques” in French.79 Other machines appealed more to the technical side, as a four-wheeled crocodile with a galley on its back, which acted as a platform for pyrotechnics, whose effects dazzled the audience.80
Conclusion
In the entangled world between Asia and Europe revealed by the commemoration of Ignatius of Loyola’s beatification in Goa in 1610, some of its participants and themes emerged in other festivals. This was an intertwined history taking place around the world. Some of its 1610 protagonists appear on stage in other plays staged by the Society of Jesus elsewhere. Rui Lourenço de Távora’s daughter, Leonor Coutinho, countess of Vidigueira, lent Chinese draperies with the Távora’s coat-of-arms, which her father acquired in Goa, for the double canonization festivities of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier held in Lisbon in 1622.81 Távora’s son-in-law, Francisco da Gama, fourth count of Vidigueira, was viceroy of India (1622–28) when the canonization of Loyola and Xavier took place in Goa in 1624.82 Vasconcelos, present at the beatification festivities of Ignatius in Goa in 1610, sponsored those of Xavier held at Luanda in 1620.83 Felipe, the king of the Islands, who paid for street decorations in the 1610 beatification ceremonies, welcomed della Valle to his home in Goa in 1623 to watch the feast of St. John the Baptist and the double canonization parade of Ignatius and Francis Xavier in 1624.84
They were, however, major actors on a world stage, witnessing and participating in the circulation of a visual culture endorsed by the Jesuits. European in its outset, early modern public festivals had the plasticity to adapt to and incorporate local styles and themes, creating a cultural hybridization to better convey the Christian message the Jesuits wanted to impress in the minds of the converted populations. In Goa, Jesuits imported a European technical and visual tradition of public festivities but also dug into a pool of local artists to execute vehicles and machines. India had a rich heritage connected with processions and cars from which Goan craftsmen could draw inspiration, as the vāhana depicted in the Codex Casanatense from nearby Kanara.85 Besides art and technology, India’s music, dance, and drama influenced Catholic life in Goa, up to the point where its diocesan councils tried to extirpate from 1567 to 1606 this clout over religious processions and plays, while enforcing Tridentine reforms.
To no avail, as seen during the celebrations of the beatification of Ignatius of Loyola in 1610. On the one hand, the Jesuits incorporated Indian artists, decorations, and performers into their public festivals; Indians, on the other hand, took part as audience members and players with their dresses, dances, and music. But Jesuit accommodation had to live with ecclesiastic control in a borderline experience fraught with tension within the Padroado. Absent in the 1610 ceremonies, pressure was present in the double canonization celebrations of 1624, when almost all religious orders boycotted them.
The Jesuits, along with other Catholic religious orders, had to navigate a delicate balance in the methods used to convey Christian theological concepts in Goa, adapting European visual imagery to suit an Indian audience. The anonymous account referred to Charon’s boat and the giant Briareus, with its decoration alluding to the Society’s victory over Hinduism in Salcete, but failed to mention if the converted Goans had understood the message. Concepts dear to the Catholic Reformation and Jesuit theologians alluded to in vehicles and decorations went unnoticed to local Indians, like the many captions in Latin adorning the Sun triumphal car,86 since the majority was illiterate.
The audience of religious public festivals was varied, as varied as the message the Jesuits tried to transmit, aspiring to appeal to and to reach its many layers. The problem is the narrative itself, written by someone who knew the right theological and cultural codes and destined to be read by someone who could decipher them. As words can only uncover little of the immersive visual, auditive, and sensorial experience of living the beatification ceremonies of Ignatius of Loyola in Goa, much of it is lost to us. Furthermore, as there is no iconographic record of the eleven days of festivities, it is difficult to recreate its shapes and colors. But the power of the written word was enough for the echo of these festivities to triumph over a silence of four hundred years.
Location of the festivities for the beatification of Ignatius of Loyola based on the accounts in Manuscript 486 of the antt (Lisbon)
Citation: Journal of Jesuit Studies 11, 4 (2024) ; 10.1163/22141332-11040007
Demonstration of the itinerary taken during the festivities for the beatification of Ignatius of Loyola in Goa
Citation: Journal of Jesuit Studies 11, 4 (2024) ; 10.1163/22141332-11040007
adapted by the authors from a plan of goa by manuel godinho de herédiaThis research was supported by national funds through fct—Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under the “Norma Transitória”—[dl 57/2016/cp1453/ct0046].
Pietro della Valle, The Travels of Pietro della Valle in India: From the old English translation of 1664, ed. George Havers and Edward Grey, 2 vols. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1892), 1:178.
Annual Letter, Goa December 15, 1624, Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu [hereafter arsi], Goa. 33, fols. 750–751.
Traça da Pompa Trivnfal com qve os Padres da Companhia de iesv celebraõ em Goa a Canonizaçaõ de Sancto Ignacio de Loyola seu fundador, e Patriarcha, e de S. Francisco Xauier Apostolo deste Oriente, no anno [colophon with the Jesuit emblem] de 1624. Goa: At the College of St. Paul, 1624, arsi, Goa. 33, fols. 734r–747v. This is the only extant copy known today, which escaped the most complete check–list of Indo–Portuguese imprints made by Boxer in 1975, see Charles R. Boxer, “A Tentative Check–List of Indo–Portuguese Imprints,” Arquivos do Centro Cultural Português 9 (1975): 567–99, here 579–80.
Annual Letter, Goa December 15, 1624, arsi, Goa. 33, fol. 750.
Della Valle reported nine days of celebrations, Della Valle, Travels, 2:410–14.
François Pyrard de Laval, Voyage de Pyrard de Laval aux Indes orientales (1601–1611), vol. 2: Goa, l’empire maritime portugais et le séjour au Brésil, ed. Xavier de Castro (Paris: Editions Chandeigne, 1998), 770–75. Jean Mocquet, Voyage à Mozambique & Goa: La relation de Jean Mocquet (1607–1610), ed. Xavier de Castro, intr. Dejanirah Couto (Paris: Éditions Chandeigne, 1996), 142–44.
All these accounts are kept in Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (hereafter antt), Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 78r–277v, and Goa’s relation is in fols. 261r–275v. This miscellaneous codex was discovered by Maria João Pereira Coutinho, who has presented several studies on other Ignatian festivities based on this material, among which this paper on Goa’s with João Teles e Cunha. She and António Júlio Trigueiros, S.J. are editing the manuscript for publication. For a full description of all accounts included in the codex, see Appendix 1.
relacion svcinta del admirable ornato qve em la fiesta de la Veatificacion del Beato Padre Ignacio de Loyola, fundador de la insigne Religion de la Compañia de iesvs, se vio em el Templo, Claustros y Patio dela casa de Professos de Seuilla, desde Sabado seys de Febrero, hasta Miercoles en la noche, diez del mismo, año de. 1610. Lueua al fin de toda la relacion, el Soneto em Vizcayno (Seville: Bartolome Gomez), 1610; cf. antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 94r–95v.
The title page is missing, but the biography has seventy-five pages and was printed in Madrid by Luis Sánchez in 1601.
Two eighteenth-century documents, a report on legislation made in 1778 (fols. 278r–280r), and a memorial written by Goa’s Jesuit procurator to João V at an unknown date (1720s-1730s) on Salcete’s churches (fols. 282r–283v) were added at a later date.
On the global reach and cultural circulation within Portugal and her empire in the early seventeenth century, with connections to Europe, see Liam Matthew Brockey, “An Imperial Republic: Manuel Severim de Faria Surveys the Globe, 1608–1655,” in Portuguese Humanism and the Republic of Letters, ed. Maria Berbara et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 265–85.
João Teles e Cunha, “‘Porque eu quero também vender o meu saber, pois sou mal pago de meu serviço.’ Alvitres e quimeras políticas de Diogo do Couto,” in Diogo do Couto: História e intervenção política de um autor polémico, ed. Rui Manuel Loureiro et al. (Vila Nova de Famalicão: Húmus, 2019), 221–83, here 280–81.
Geoffrey Parker, Empire, War and Faith in Early Modern Europe (London: Allen Lane, 2002), 24–25.
Ines Županov, “Introduction: Is One World Enough for the Jesuits?,” The Oxford Handbook of the Jesuits, ed. Ines Županov (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), xi–xxxvi, here xxii–xxiv.
José Manuel Garcia, Cartas dos Jesuítas do Oriente e do Brasil 1549–1551 (Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional, 1983).
Fernão Guerreiro, Relaçam annal [sic] das cousas que fezeram os Padres da Companhia de Jesus nas partes da India Oriental, & do Brasil, Angola, Cabo Verde, Guine, nos anos de seiscentos & dous & seiscentos & três, & do processo da conversam, & christandade daquelas partes, tirada das cartas dos mesmos padres que de là vieram. Pelo Padre […]. Vay dividido em quatro livros. O primeiro de Japan. O ii. da China & Maluco. O iii. Da India. O iiii. Do Brasil, Angola, & Guiné (Lisbon: Jorge Rodrigues, 1605).
Guerreiro, Relaçam annal, Preface to the reader, non–foliated.
Relation of the beatification celebration of Ignatius of Loyola in Angola, Luanda, January 7, 1611, Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (hereafter antt), Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 276r–277v.
Relation of the beatification celebration of Ignatius of Loyola in Bahia, Bahia May 15, 1610, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 229r–234v; Relation of the beatification celebration of Ignatius of Loyola in Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires June 13, 1610, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 199r–122r.
Relation of the beatification celebration of Ignatius of Loyola in Goa, Goa, November 11, 1610, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 262r.
Relation of the beatification celebration of Ignatius of Loyola in Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires June 13, 1610, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 119r–121v. Hugo Stormi, Catálogo de los jesuitas de la Provincia del Paraguay (Cuenca del Plata), 1585–1768 (Rome: ihsi, 1980), 144.
Relation of the beatification celebration of Ignatius of Loyola in Valladolid, Valladolid December 1, 1609, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 80r–80v, here 80r.
Relation of the beatification celebration of Ignatius of Loyola in Pernambuco, Pernambuco, after July 30, 1611, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 249r–251v.
Fernão Guerreiro, Relaçam annual das cousas que fizeram os Padres da Companhia de iesus na India, & Iapão nos annos de 600. & 601. & do processo da conversaõ, & christandade daquellas partes: tirada das cartas gêraes que de lâ vierão pello Padre Fernão Guerreiro … vai diuidida em dous livros (Évora: Manuel de Lyra, 1603), fol. 2.
Letter of Sebastião Gonçalves to Lourenço Mexia, Goa, November 26, 1565, Documenta Indica, vol. 6: 1563–1566, ed. Joseph Wicki (Rome: ihsi, 1960), 508–18, here 517.
Relation Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 262r.
Bartolomé Bennassar, La España del Siglo de Oro (Barcelona: Critica, 2010), 274–75.
Henry Kamen emphasizes the limited impact that inquisitorial censorship had on Siglo de Oro dramaturgy, while noting ecclesiastical control over pilgrimages and feasts, as well as the requirement for Holy Office approval of the content of sacred plays. Henry Kamen, Inquisition and Society in Spain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (London: Weidenfel and Nicolson, 1985), 98, 204.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 264v.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 264v.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 264v.
João Teles e Cunha, “O insólito no quotidiano goês: Santa Mónica e o milagre da cruz (1636),” Povos e culturas 17 (2013): 179–217, here 197–200.
On Jesuit accommodation in India, see Ines Županov, Disputed Mission. Jesuit Experiments and Brahmanical Knowledge in Seventeenth-century India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Relation of the beatification celebration of Ignatius of Loyola in Lisbon (São Roque), Lisbon, February 7, 1610, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 153r–164v, here fol. 162r. Relation of the beatification celebration of Ignatius of Loyola in Lisbon (Santo Antão), Lisbon, September 28, 1609, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 169r–180v, here fol. 175r.
Traça da Pompa Trivnfal, arsi, Goa. 33, fols. 743r–744v.
Relation of the beatification celebration of Ignatius of Loyola in Braganza, Braganza, n.d. [1610], antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 203r–207v, here 203r.
Relation of Braganza, Braganza n.d. [1610], antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 203r.
Relation of Braganza, Braganza n.d. [1610], antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 203v.
Relation of Braganza, Braganza n.d. [1610], antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 204r–205r.
Cunha, “O insólito,” 198–99.
Sebastião Gonçalves, Primeira parte da Historia dos Religiosos da Companhia de Jesus e do que fizeram com a divina graça na conversão dos infiéis a nossa sancta fee catholica nos reynos e províncias da India Oriental, ed. Joseph Wicki (Coimbra: Atlântida, 1957), 1:427–61. A third Fr. Sebastião Gonçalves took Xavier right arm to Rome in 1615, four years before his beatification, to speed the process; António Franco, Ano Santo da Companhia de Jesus em Portugal (Porto: Biblioteca do “Apostolado da Imprensa,” 1931), 158.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 266 v, 273 v–275v.
António Júlio Trigueiros, S.J., “The Conversion of Ignatius of Loyola (1521),” in To See all Things New: From the Conversion to Canonisation of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (Lisbon: Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, 2022), esp. 15–33.
Pedro de Ribadeneyra, S.J., Vita Beati P. Ignatii Loiolae Societatis Iesv Fvndatoris, Rome: n/a, 1609. On the iconographic construction of Ignatius of Loyola, see Constructing a Saint Through Images: The 1609 Illustrated Biography of Ignatius of Loyola. Introduction by John W. O’Malley, S.J., Latin captions translated by James P. M. Walsh, S.J. (Philadelphia, PA: Saint Joseph’s University Press, 2008).
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 265r.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 261r.
Della Valle, Travels, 1:73.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 261r.
These were likely casados—Portuguese or their descendants who, as married men, had military obligations in exchange for land and fiscal grants provided by the crown.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 267v, 269v.
Relation of Lisbon (Santo Antão), antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 176v.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 261r.
João Teles e Cunha, “De Diamper a Mattanchery: Caminhos e encruzilhadas da Igreja Malabar e Católica na Índia: Os primeiros tempos (1599–1624),” Anais de história de Além-Mar 5 (2004): 283–368, here 353.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 267r. The islands are the Maldives.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 262r.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 268r.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 262r.
Relation of Lisbon (São Roque), antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 159v.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 262r–266v.
As on the third day, November 14, Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 261v–262r.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 272r.
Relation of Lisbon (Santo Antão), antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 176v.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, respectively, fols. 266 v, 267 v, 269v.
Robert Bellarmine, De controversiis fidei christianae: De Ecclesia militante difusa per orbem terrarum, transl. Ryan Grant (Post Falls, ID: Mediatrix Press, 2018).
Relation of Lisbon (Santo Antão), antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 177r.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 273v. Meneses conservatism, and his dislike for Jesuit accommodation may be behind his reticence to participate.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 261v. The former archbishop of Rhodes was Jeremias ii (1603–4). Sebastião Gonçalves names them: Fr. Jeremias, Fr. Philotheos, Fr. Joachim, and Fr. Inofre; Gonçalves, Primeira parte da Historia (Coimbra: Atlântida, 1962), 3:319.
They were forbidden to say Mass by Meneses as they did not show a document proving their allegiance to Rome, nor professed it in his presence; Gonçalves, Primeira parte da Historia, 3:320.
The four monks were touring the Estado da Índia to collect alms for their monastery, while also distributing relics to prominent figures such as the viceroy and the archbishop of Goa. Interestingly, Jeremias gave Rui Lourenço de Távora several relics, including a stone from the site of Moses’s burning bush and a piece of cloth from St. Catherine’s shroud. Gonçalves, Primeira parte da Historia, 3:320–21.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 268v–269r.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 267v.
Judy Sund, Exotic: A Fetish for the Foreign (London: Phaidon, 2019), 118–34.
Della Valle, Travels, 2:415–16.
Della Valle, Travels, 1:155–56.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 269v.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 262r–266v.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 270r–270v.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 264r–264v.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fol. 270v.
Relação das Festas que a Companhia de iesvs da Cidade de Lisboa fez na Canonizaç̧ão dos Gloriosos Sancto Ignacio de Loyola seu fundador, & S. Francisco Xauier da mesma Campanhia, Apostolo da India Oriental (Lisbon: Officina de Pedro Craesbeeck, 1623), fol. 17.
Della Valle, Travels, 2:409–14.
Maria João Pereira Coutinho and Sílvia Ferreira, “Aplausos e triunfos em louvor de S. Francisco Xavier: As festas de beatificação nas cidades de Lisboa, Porto e Luanda,” Missão, espiritualidade e arte em São Francisco Xavier, ed. António Júlio Trigueiros et al. (Lisbon: Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, 2020), 160–209, here 187–94.
Della Valle, Travels, 1:178, 2:409–14.
Luís de Matos, Imagens do Oriente no século xvi: Reprodução do códice português da Biblioteca Casanatense (Lisbon: Imprensa Naciona-Casa da Moeda, 1985), plate xliii.
Relation of Goa, antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 263r–263v.
Appendix 1 List of the festivities of the beatification of Ignatius of Loyola in Europe, America, Africa, and Asia in 1609–11, in antt, Manuscritos da Livraria 486, fols. 78r–277v
