LOBO, JERONIMO (1593-1678)

This article appears in Volume V16, Page 838 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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LOBO, JERONIMO (1593-1678) , Jesuit missionary, was born in Lisbon, and entered the Order of Jesus at the age of sixteen. In 1621 he was ordered as a missionary to India, and in 1622 he arrived at Goa. With the intention of proceeding to Abyssinia, whose Negus (emperor) Segued had been converted to Roman Catholicism by Pedro Paez, he left India in 1624. He disembarked on the

coast

COAST (from Lat. costa, a rib, side)

Mombasa

MOMBASA

, and attempted to reach his destination through the Galla country, but was forced to return. In 1625 he set out again, accompanied by .Mendez, the patriarch of Ethiopia, and. eight missionaries. The party landed on the

coast

COAST (from Lat. costa, a rib, side)

of the Red Sea, and Lobo settled in Abyssinia as superintendent of the missions in Tigre. He remained there until death deprived the Catholics of their protector, the emperor Segued. Forced by persecution to leave the kingdom, in 1634 Lobo and his companions fell into the hands of the Turks at Massawa, who sent him to India to procure a

ransom

RANSOM (from Lat. redemptio, through Fr. rancon)

for his imprisoned fellow-missionaries. In this he was successful, but could not induce the Portuguese viceroy to send an armament against Abyssinia.

Intent

INTENT (from Lat. intend ere, to stretch out, extend, particularly in the phrase intendere animum, to turn one's mind to, purpose)

upon accomplishing this cherished project, he embarked for Portugal, and after he had been ship-wrecked on the coast of

Natal

NATAL

, and captured by pirates, arrived at Lisbon. Neither at this city, however, nor at Madrid and Rome, was any countenance given to Lobo's plan. He accordingly returned to India in 164o, and was elected

rector

RECTOR (Lat. for " ruler," " guide," &c., from regere, "
rule
- RULE
")

, and afterwards provincial, of the

Jesuits

JESUITS

at Goa. After some years he returned to his native city, and died there on the 29th of January 1678.
Lobo wrote an account of his travels in Portuguese, which appears never to have been printed, but is deposited in the monastery of St Roque, Lisbon. Balthazar Telles made large use of the information therein in his Historia geral da Ethiopia a Alta (Coimbra, 1660), often erroneously attributed to Lobo (see Machado's Bibliotheca Lusitana). Lobo's own narrative was translated from a MS. copy into French in 1728 by the Abbe

Joachim

JOACHIM, JOSEPH (1831—1907)

le Grand, under the title of Voyage historique d'Abissinie. In 1669 a

translation

TRANSLATION

by Sir Peter Wyche of several passages from a MS. account of Lobo's travels was published by the Royal Society (translated in M. Thevenot's Relation des voyages in 1673). An English abridgment of Le Grand's edition by Dr Johnson was published in 1735 (reprinted 1789). In a Memoire justificatif en rehabilitation des peres Pierre Paez et Jerome Lobo, Dr C. T. Beke maintains against Bruce the accuracy of Lobo's statements as to the source of the Abai branch of the Nile. See A. de Backer, Bibliotheque de la Compagnie de Jesus (ed. C. Sommervogel, iv., 1893).

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