Bento de Goës SJ (1562–1607) and his journey from India to China in search of Cathay (1602–1607) according to Historiae Sinarum Imperii by Tomasz Ignacy Dunin Szpot SJ1

Abstract

The article describes the expedition of the Portuguese Jesuit Bento de Goës SJ undertaken between 1602 and 1607 from India to China in search of the land of Cathay and the purported Christian communities believed to exist there. The principal objective of the expedition was to verify a hypothesis advanced by Matteo Ricci SJ and other Jesuits active in China, namely that China and Cathay described in medieval sources were in fact one and the same political entity. Through this journey, Bento de Goës became the first European to travel overland from India to China via Central Asia, overcoming exceptionally formidable natural obstacles, including the Pamir and Karakoram mountain ranges. The results of the expedition confirmed the identification of Cathay with China, known in the European tradition also under the names Serica and Sinea, which was a finding with significant implications for European geography and perceptions of Asia. Travelling incognito through Persia and Afghanistan, Goës reached Suzhou on the Great Wall in 1606, where the identification of Cathay with China and of Cambaluc (Khanbaliq) with Peking was conclusively confirmed. He died there in 1607, probably from exhaustion or as a result of poisoning. Despite attempts by local Muslims to seize his body and documents, his companions ensured him a Christian burial, and fragments of his journal were subsequently delivered to Matteo Ricci. This expedition, known primarily from the works of Fernão Guerreiro SJ, and Matteo Ricci, is re-examined in the present article in the light of a description previously unused for this purpose, prepared by the Polish Jesuit Tomasz Ignacy Dunin Szpot SJ, and preserved in his Historiae Sinarum Imperii (Jap. Sin. 102). Dunin Szpot’s account was most probably based on Ricci’s concise report of 1607, sent to Rome in at least two copies, via India and the Manila route. This brief account, now lost, is also attested in the testimony of Fernão Guerreiro, and Dunin Szpot’s description may therefore constitute a second confirmed source deriving from that original account.