[ { "id": 209967, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 226, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "204\n\nA RELIC OF ST. FRANCIS XAVIER\n\nP. BRUCE\n\nIn a small cool church in Macau, separated by a few hundred yards of muddy water from China, rests a unique relic of St Francis Xavier.*\n\nAlmost 20 years ago 100,000 people in 15 days filed past the small piece of bone housed in an ornate silver monstrance when it was taken to America from its usual resting place in Macau. Now the relic is back in a tiny church on Coloane Island. Ten years ago the building was in a run-down condition, having been used as a chapel for soldiers from Mozambique serving in the Portuguese Army. Then Father Mario C. Acquistapace arrived on the scene. A sprightly figure now probably in his seventies, he had the church restored. Today its exterior is washed in pale yellow with windows and woodwork picked out in light blue. He has an outgoing personality that runs to a hug when he finds a visitor is a Christian.\n\nMacau, the first permanent Western settlement on the coast of China, across the silt-laden waters of the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong, despite wars, upheavals and revolutions, remains curiously Mediterranean. The Portuguese built their first houses there in 1557, having camped briefly at Liampo and Sanchuang (St John's) Islands.\n\nFrancisco de Xavier, called by Pope Urban VIII the \"apostle of the Indies\", was born into a noble and wealthy family and in 1529 he made the acquaintance of St Ignatius Loyola who was then studying at Paris. Impressed by his teachings, Xavier became one of the original seven men to take the first vows of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, in 1534.\n\nWhen John III, King of Portugal, asked the Pope to send a mission to his Indian possessions, two Jesuits were selected, one of whom was Xavier. He set sail in 1541 and after a voyage of more than a year arrived in Goa, India, where he carried out missionary work. From there he journeyed to Ceylon, or Sri Lanka...\n\n* See plates 12-14.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209969, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1983", "page_number": 228, "title": "RAS-1983", "content_text": "206\n\nthe Dutch had arrived as a power in Asian waters. In their attacks on Cochin and Malacca the two relics there of the saint were lost.\n\nBut the missionary effort in Japan continued and the Macau fragment was taken there in 1619. However, persecution worsened and it was brought back to the territory shortly afterwards; it was popularly believed that its presence lessened the frequency of the terrible typhoons to which the coast of China was, and is, subject.\n\nThe relic was housed in Macau's famous St Paul's church, destroyed in a fire in the early 19th century and of which now only an impressive facade remains. Then it passed to the church of St. Joseph's seminary.\n\nIn 1952, on the 400th anniversary of Xavier's death it was taken to Malacca and there were celebrations there and throughout Malaysia. The last time the piece of bone left Macau was in 1965, when, at the request of Cardinal Francis Spellman, it was taken to Newark, New Jersey, where it was seen and venerated by more than 100,000 people.\n\nThe relic thereafter went back to its normal resting place in the seminary in Macau. However, soon afterwards Father Acquistapace was given charge of the dilapidated little chapel on Coloane, one of two small islands which with a peninsula form Macau. The relic is now kept at that church.\n\nDuring his decades of service in Asia as a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Father Acquistapace served in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Manila, Formosa and Macau. He spent much of his life teaching in technical schools. A man of immense good humour, he is delighted to find visitors interested in his relics.\n\nAlong with the fragment of bone of Xavier there are relics of 58 Japanese martyrs and 14 Vietnamese martyrs.\n\nThe Japanese perished in the brutal suppression of Christianity which took place in the first half of the 17th century. According to one historian: \"The descriptions of the ways in which the Christians of Japan were forced to meet their deaths rank among the most horrifying and degraded reading matter to be found anywhere.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1983.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215415, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 192, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "-reinfo\n\n141\n\nbrackets, enclose a window. Typical Late Renaissance ornaments and geometric designs of various kinds, such as spheres on pedestals, top the entablature and pediment.\n\nJesuit Churches in India\n\nPerhaps the most ingenious exploitation of the motif in India was by the Jesuit Fathers, whose building schemes form such an important part of the history of art of Colonial Iberian architecture in Asia and the Americas. It can be seen not only on the façade of the now vanished collegiate church of São Paulo in Velha Goa, but also in the Church of their College of São Paulo in Baçaim.\n\nThe Arch of Triumph decoration of their Baçaim church is of great interest for my main argument because at least one art historian has noticed its structural similarities to that of retables. David M. Kowal's recent article implies that not only the façade of the Baçaim collegiate church, but also that of Velha Goa should be so considered and he describes them as \"retable-like.\" Not all art historians would classify any of the church fronts in Portuguese India as retable-façades, including those of the Jesuits, although it is difficult to dismiss D. Kowal's claim for these two churches.13\n\nThe name of the church at Baçaim, built between 1561-1579, is actually Nome de Jesus (Name of Jesus). Its large Arch of Triumph indeed resembles those appearing in a number of Renaissance retable-façades in Southern Spain, such as that of the church of St. Elizabeth, in Seville.\n\nAs far as the Arch of Triumph motif itself is concerned, the most important sixteenth-century example in India may be seen in the Church of São Paulo in Velha Goa. Moreover, one could take 1560, the year when building of the new college and church of São Paulo were initiated, as signalling a more ambitious phase in the Society of Jesus' architectural projects in India.\n\nWhen it was completed in 1572 São Paulo was not only the first major church built by the Jesuits in India, it was also one of the most masterful Portuguese churches in Asia, attesting to the importance that the Jesuit fathers attached to it.15 Its association with St. Francis Xavier", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215417, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 194, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "143\n\nexploit for the decoration of the façades of some of their Indian churches of the last third of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the next. The theme would later be adapted to the more ornate decoration of the façades of the churches of their Casa Professa in Velha Goa and of the Jesuit College in Diu.\n\nMinor Basilica of Bom Jesus and the Diu Collegiate Church\n\nNot only the Bom Jesús, but, as we shall see, the façades of the collegiate churches in Diu and of Madre de Deus in Macao point to a further stylistic development of the architecture of the Society of Jesus in Asia.\n\nIt could be argued that the façade decoration of the three mentioned buildings reveals a transitional phase, one in which a Late Mannerist decorative idiom is elaborated to the utmost. Moreover, in the Church of Madre de Deus in Macao this idiom already heralds the Baroque style.\n\nIn India even before Jules Simão's appointment as chief of the cathedral works the Jesuits had begun work on what was to be their finest building project in India. This was their Casa Professa, or Profess House, begun in 1583-85, whose cloisters were also designed by Simão (Figs. 9,10).\n\nToday the church of the Profess House, originally dedicated to the Child Jesus, is better known as the Minor Basilica of Bom Jesus. It was started on the 24 November 1594 to the plans of G.B. Cairatti, an Italian architect from Milan, and completed about twelve years later. Perhaps its chief attraction today is the so-called incorrupt body of St. Francis Xavier and its magnificent 1690s funerary monument by Giovanbattista Foggini.17\n\nThe design of the front of the Bom Jesús, if not of its ground plan, indicates that the architect followed the general lines of the façade of St. Paul as reconstructed by M. Chicó (Fig. 9). There is the same division into three storeys and three bays, plus attic and pediment joined to the storeys below by gracefully curved brackets. Not only the façade but the whole building is crowned by numerous Herreresque spheres on bases placed as accents to the line of rising unifying pilasters. The Arch", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215421, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 198, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "147\n\nWork on it could only have started after the beatification of St. Francis Borgia at the end of 1624. His statue and that of St. Luís Gonzaga appear in niches on the second storey of the façade with pedestals only bearing the title beatus, not saints. Francis Borgia was only canonised in 1670 but had been beatified by Pope Urban VIII on the 23rd November 1624. Luis Gonzaga had already been beatified in 1605 (Figs 14.15).\n\nThe statues of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier also appear in the second storey and on their pedestals are given the correct title of saints. Both had been declared saints in 1622 with spectacular canonisation ceremonies in Rome, Spain and Portugal. We know from a 1644 Annual Letter written from the college in Macao that the façade was completed the year that this letter was dated. It seems therefore very probable that the frontispiece was constructed between 1625 and 1644 and that the impulse for its construction or reconstruction was very likely the canonisation of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier.\n\nThe initiative for founding the Macao College as the seat of the Japan missions, later expanded to include China, was due to Alessandro Valignano, the Father Superior and Father Visitor of the Jesuits in the East. As stated, the architect of the church was Father Carlo Spinola, an Italian from Naples. The reputed decoration of the façade at the hands of Chinese and Christian Japanese craftsmen was very likely carried out under the direction of Giovanni Nicolao, an Italian Jesuit painter from Nola. From this it is only too obvious that Italian Jesuits with a Late Renaissance mentality were highly influential in its creation, something characteristic of the historical period in question.\n\nJ.E. McCall, whose pioneering research is fundamental to the subject, has studied the activities of Giovanni Nicolao. Yoshitomo Okamoto, in his Namban Bijutsu, also gives important insights on Father Nicolao, who had actually opened a school of fine arts for young Japanese seminarians as apprentices in Western painting, printmaking and sculpture in various missionary colleges in Japan.19 But apart from Giacomo Niva, a Chinese-Japanese painter and the most brilliant of Nicolao's pupils, we hardly know the names of the other Chinese and Japanese artists who may have formed Nicolao's team in Macao. Unfortunately, this was apparently Jesuit practice at the time. Their famous annual letters sent from China or their Macao College, today", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215437, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 214, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "163\n\n- Mario T. Chico. \"Algumas observações acerca da arquitectura da Companhia de Jesus no distrito de Goa: igrejas, fachada, planta e espaço interior\", Garcia de Orta. Lisboa, número especial 1956, pp.257-72.\n\nSee Professor Giorgio Bonsanti's elucidating article dealing mainly with St. Francis Xavier's mausoleum in the Bom Jesus, published in Velha Goa, exhibition catalogue of A. Martinelli's photos. Fundação Oriente, Macao. September 15, 2000. (Unnumbered). However, vid. D.Kowal, op. cit., p. 488, who states the Jesuit Domingo Fernandes, aided by J. Simão were architects of Bom Jesus.\n\nAlso Documenta Indica,\n\n**For Charles Borromeo's Instructions, see E.C. Voelker, “Charles Borromeo's Instructiones Fabricae et Supellectilis Ecclesiasticae, 1577. A Translation with Commentary and Analysis\". Ph.D. dissertation, Syracuse University, 1977.\n\n\"L.E. McCall. \"Early Jesuit Art in the Far East\". Artibus Asiae, XI. Ancona, 1948. pp. 62-9. Y. Okamoto, The Namban Art of Japan, (translation by R.K. Jones of Namban Bijutsu. Tokyo, 1965), Weatherhill/Heibonsha, New York-Tokyo, 1972, pp. 99-103. See also more recently, Gauvin Bailey. \"The Art of the Jesuit Missions in Japan in the Age of St. Francis Xavier and Alessandro Valignano”. lecture in the 450th Anniversary of St. Francis Xavier's Arrival in Japan. International Symposium '98, Sophia University 1998, pp.7-22.\n\n\"Guillen-Nuñez, C., \"Retablo and Imafronte: A Study of the Influence of the Retable on the Church-façade in Mexico and Peru\", (unpublished M.A. dissertation), University of Penn., 1973.\n\n\"H. Rodriguez-Camilloni. \"The Retablo-Façade as Transparency: A Study of the Frontispiece of San Francisco, Lima\", in Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas, 62, Mexico, 1991, pp. 111-22.\n\nSylvie Deswarte, \"Francisco de Hollanda et les Etudes Vitruviennes en Italie”, in A Introdução da Arte da Renascenca na Península Iberica, Coimbra, 1981, pp. 254-80.\n\n* Hugo-Brunt, op. cit., p. 11.\n\nKubler and Soria, op. cit., p. 24.\n\nSee Hugo-Brunt, op. cit., p.13, note 24.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216203, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 502, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "436\n\nAfter a good Chinese lunch at the Lai Yue Mun Restaurant in Xin Hui we took a taxi (RMB250) through the County city of Tai Shan and past some interesting old Chinese villages, including Yeung Do. We arrived at the Guang Hai Bay port of Shen Ju in good time to catch the 4:00 pm public ferry to Shang Chuan Island. The timetable shows ferries leave daily at 9:30 am, 11 am, 2 pm, and at 4 pm, for the crossing that took us just over an hour. They are scheduled for the Shang Chuan to Shen Ju crossing at 7:30 am, 9:30 am, 12:00 and 2:00 pm. A group could otherwise hire a speedboat.\n\nWe were told that the island had been closed to visitors until 1983 and that there was still a sizeable PLA naval base there. As we entered the fishing harbour at the NW side of the island we passed some naval vessels and fishing boats. We also had our first view of the St Francis Xavier Church on the hillside. There were several modern large tourist hotels in the Fei Sha Tan Tourist Resort at the eastern side of the island. We took a public minibus from the port to the Resort. Probably the best of the hotels was the Biyun Tian Hotel (Eastern Harbour View Hotel), though we chose a smaller one. Both faced the beach, with a pleasant esplanade packed with plenty of hawkers in the evening. The choice of restaurants was uninspiring. In the morning we hired a minibus with driver for a half day (RMB150) to show us around the island. He took us to the fishing village, purpose-built in 1992, and over the Cheung Po Chai pirate pass with the Twin Treasure Rocks. He also took us to a grotesque Laughing Buddha cave with little figurines representing the Journey to the West.\n\nSuch were the delights the driver thought we should enjoy, but for us the highlight was the visit to the Church of St Francis Xavier at the NW side of the Island. The church was a simple white tiled building with a plaque above the porch dating the church at 1869. There was reported to have been a church at the spot since 1700 with various restorations from 1813 to 1932. The caretaker unlocked the church for us. There are several rows of pews facing a large wooden cross. On the altar stands a statue of a bearded priest in front of which is a statue of the Virgin Mary. Religious paintings were hanging on the walls. In the centre of the church lay a stone sarcophagus with some Chinese inscriptions.\n\nOutside, a modernist sculpture had been erected by the Yamaguchi", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216204, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 503, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "437\n\nAssociation on 3 December 1999. Behind the church over 100 steps led up to a tall statue of St Francis Xavier. Beside the steps were 14 stone posts bearing Chinese numbering and inscription. The pedestal of the statue bears worn inscriptions in Chinese and Portuguese - ‘Aqui foi sepultado S. Fran.co Xavier da Comp.a de Jesus, Alpo do Oriente. Este Padrao se levantou no anno de 1639.'\n\nThe current caretaker, Mr Lam, took over in 1996 from a Christian caretaker aged 86, who had cared for the church since 1984. We had the pleasure of meeting this delightful old man in the village beside the church. The current caretaker suggested that for further information we could contact the Religious Affairs Dept. of Tai Shan Municipal Government on Tel 075 552 5980.\n\nWe returned to the port for a good seafood lunch. The ferry arrived a little late but took us safely back to Shen Ju in good time for us to hire a taxi to Zhuhai. There we crossed the border to Macau and enjoyed our dinner accompanied by a bottle of good Portuguese wine, and a toast to the memory of St Francis.\n\nA visit assisted by China Travel Service\n\nBy chance, in June 2001, I (Chris Bailey) had read an article in HK Magazine about the Jesuit-run Xavier Retreat House on Cheung Chau - dedicated to the missionary Saint Francis-Xavier. The article quoted the resident priest, Father Kane, as follows: \"Xavier was one of the founding members of the Jesuits, and came to Asia in 1542. He was a tough guy, a trailblazer and died very near to Hong Kong, on an island about 60 miles west of Macau. His letters describe travelling from Japan and trying to get to Guangzhou, and stopping somewhere nearby to get fresh vegetables and water. There is one historian who theorizes that he stopped at the Old Port in Hong Kong. In any case, he must have passed through Hong Kong waters and seen the islands here. So I stand here (in the Xavier Retreat House) and see what he saw over 400 years ago It's very private, on top of a hill and overlooking the sea. It's a very beautiful sight.”\n\nThis information inspired me to speak to Father Kane who said he knew the island well, had been there several times via Macau and that there was a non-active church dedicated to Francis Xavier, built close", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216210, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 509, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "Entrance gate to church of St Francis Xavier, St John's Island\n\n443", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216211, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 510, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "444\n\n4\n\nChurch of St Francis Xavier, St John's Island,\n\nPage 510\n\nPage 511", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216212, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 511, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "Interior of church of St Francis Xavier, St John's Island \n\n¦ \n\n445 \n\n3", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]