Home > Jeronimo Lobo

Born in Lisbon, he 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 Páez, he left India in 1624. He disembarked on the coast of 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 patriarchSee Patriarchs (Bible) for details about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob of the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. Originally a patriarch is a man who exercises autocratic authority over an extended family. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are referred to as the thre of Ethiopia, and eight missionaries. The party landed on the coast of the Red SeaSudan The Red Sea ( Arabic Bar al-Amar al-Baru l-’Amar Hebrew Yam Suf Latin Mare Erythraeum is a gulf or basin of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb sound and the Gulf of Aden., and Lobo settled in Abyssinia as superintendent of the missions in TigréTigray is the northern-most of the nine ethnic divisions kililoch of Ethiopia. Its capital is Mek'ele. Other major towns and cities in Tigray include Adwa, Aksum, Inda Selase, Adigrat, May'chew, Korem, Himora, Abiy Adi and Wik'ro. The region borders Eritr. He remained there until death deprived the Catholics of their protector, the emperor Segued. Forced by persecution to leave the kingdom, in 1634Events Moses Amyraut's Traite de la predestination is published Curacao captured by the Dutch Treaty of Polianovska First meeting of the Academie francaise The witchcraft affair at Loudun Jean Nicolet lands at Green Bay, Wisconsin Opening of Covent Garden Lobo and his companions fell into the hands of the TurksTurkey (officially the Republic of Turkey Turkish Turkiye is a country located in Southwest Asia with a small part in southeastern Europe. Until 1922 the country was the center of the Ottoman Empire. The Anatolian peninsula, between the Black Sea and the at MassawaMassawa is both an island in the Red Sea, and a major city of Eritrea. The city covers both the island, the island of Taulud, and a portion of the mainland where the majority of the inhabitants of Massawa live. On the island of Taulud are situated the old, who sent him to India to procure a ransom for his imprisoned fellow-missionaries. In this he was successful, but could not induce the Portuguese viceroyA viceroy is somebody who governs a country or province as a substitute for the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice meaning "in the place of" and roi meaning king. A vicereine is a woman in a viceregal position, or a viceroy's wife. For e to send an armament against Abyssinia. Intent upon accomplishing this cherished project, he embarked for Portugal, and after he had been shipwrecked on the coast of NatalKwaZulu-Natal Province Area92,100 km² (xxx% of country's total) Population Total ( 2001) Density 9,426,000 (xx% of total)102/km² GDPxx% of the country's total Languages isiZulu (80. 59%), English (13. 6%), isiXhosa (2. 3%), Afrikaans (1. 5%) Capital Piete, 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 1640, and was elected rector, and afterwards provincial, of the Jesuits at Goa. After some years he returned to his native city, and died there January 29, 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 manuscript copy into French in 1728 by the Abbé Joachim le Grand, under the title of Voyage historique d'Abissinie. In 1669 a translation by Sir Peter Wyche of several passages from a manuscript account of Lobo's travels was published by the Royal Society (translated in M. Thévenots Relation des voyages in 1673). An English abridgment of Le Grand's edition by Dr. Johnson was published in 1735 (reprinted 1789). In a Mémoire justificatif en réhabilitation des pères Pierre Paez et Jérôme 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, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus (ed. C. Sommervogel, iv., 1893).

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica