[16] Apparently a lapsus calami for Miguel de Talavera, the name given by Santa Ines (Cronica, i, p. 219) who states that his commission was given by Monsenor Sega, apostolic nuncio; he went to Mexico in 1580, whence he directed the affairs of the Philippine mission during several years (pp. 226-229).

[17] The term “province” is here used by anticipation, as the Franciscan custodia of San Gregorio was not actually erected into a province until the following year (see brief to this effect by Sixtus V. post).  A custodia is a group of religious houses not large enough to form a province.

[18] So in the text, and often elsewhere; sometimes (apparently with more correctness) Macau.  The discrepancy may arise from an error made by transcribers, even those of contemporaneous date.

[19] This is evidently the Sangley friar mentioned by Santiago de Vera in his letter of 1585 (see p. 75, ante).  Perez says (Catalogo, p. 21) that Juan de Vascones (Bascones) was minister in the following villages:  Calumpit in 1580, Bulacan in 1583, and Hagonoy in 1585; and that he died at the last-named place in 1586.

[20] This friar was originally a soldier, but abandoned military life to enter the Augustinian order.  In 1576, he was appointed by Felipe II, with two other friars, to go as an envoy to the emperor of China; but various obstacles prevented them from going thither until 1584, and the effort proved to be a failure.  Mendoza thereupon collected various narratives written by Spanish and Portuguese missionaries who had visited China, and therefrom compiled (especially from that of Martin de Rada) the Historia here described.  In 1607 Mendoza (then bishop of Lipari) went to Nueva Espana, and was there made bishop of Chiapa, and afterward bishop of Popayan.  He died about the year 1620.

The title page reads:  “History of the most notable things, the rites, and customs of the great kingdom of China; gathered not only from books of the Chinese themselves, but likewise from the relation of the religious and other persons who have been in the said country.  Made and compiled by the very reverend father Maestro Fray Juan Goncalez de Mendoca, of the order of St. Augustine, apostolic preacher, and penitentiary of his Holiness; whom his Catholic Majesty sent, with his royal missive and other things for the king of that country, in the year M.D.LXXII.  Now recently enlarged by the same author.  To the illustrious Lord, Fernando de Vega y Fonseca, of the Council of his Majesty, and president of his royal Council of the Indias.  With an itinerary of the New World.  With license.  Madrid, at the shop of Pedro Madrigal.  M.D.LXXXVI.  At the expense of Blas de Robles, bookseller.”

[21] In this connection three Chinese characters are given, the first to be printed in any European book.

[22] Jeronimo Marin was a native of Mexico, where he became an Augustinian friar in 1556.  Coming to the Philippine Islands in 1571, he acquired the Bisayan, Tagal, and Chinese languages, and spent many years in missionary labors among those peoples.  Afterward he went to Spain, where for a time he had charge of the Philippine missions of his order; and finally returned to Mexico, where he died in 1606.