The Portuguese Jesuit António Francisco Cardim (c. 1596–1659) was one of the most prolific writers of the Japan Province of the Society of Jesus in the midseventeenth century. His 1646 martyrology published in Rome stands as his representative work, while in the years surrounding that publication, he also composed missionary chronicles that encompassed Japan, Macau, and Southeast Asia. These historiographical and related documentary undertakings, pursued in Lisbon, Rome, and later Goa, were characterized by a vigorousness and a keen responsiveness to prevailing circumstances. They formed an integral part of his service as Procurador, the office charged with representing the interests and claims of the Province. This study traces Cardim’s transcontinental career during his tenure as the provincial representative and, through a multi-archival approach, examines his principal works alongside the letters and reports he addressed to relevant parties. By analyzing these materials in conjunction with their missionary, political, and institutional contexts, particularly those marked by the persecution in Japan, the collapse of the Iberian Union, and the frictions with the China Vice-Province, this study elucidates the interlinked conditions that shaped his authorial undertakings at the conjunctures of the Far East and Portugal. It further clarifies how Cardim articulated both the contemporary circumstances and the surviving presence of the “Japan” Province, historically rooted in the apostolic foundations laid by St. Francisco Xavier, and how he deployed distinctive rhetorical strategies to affirm and legitimize the Province’s claims and achievements within a broader historical and organizational framework.
Susumu Akune (Wed,) studied this question.