LA CRISTIANITÀ DEGLI ANTIPODI GIAPPONE E CINA IN MISSIONE A VENEZIA (1585-1652).

New global trade routes, connecting for the first time very distant territories, were born and grew in the Early Modern Age. The lands of the Far East, which were of a special economical and religious interest, were integrated in those European trade routes. They were also a centre of special interest for the Jesuits, who were engaged in their evangelizing work all over the world. The Company's members themselves, in their role of conjunction between the Eastern world and the European one, and in their continuous relationship with the local authorities of the East, planned the departure of two delegations from Japan and China to Europe. The two missions, which started sixty years away from each other - one at the end of the 16th Century, the second at the half of the 17th Century - were characterized by profound differences but both had in the city of Venice their pivotal point. Last European city to be visited by the first delegation and the first one for the second, the city of the Serenissima can be seen, by the abundant handwritten documentation that is preserved in the State Archives and in the Marciana National Library, like the most important crossroads to understand the meaning of those two missions, from time to time at the centre of the interests of the Company, which supported them, and of the Italian Courts which welcomed them. The complementarity or the antagonism of those interests represent the real reason of the great appeal these events still cause nowadays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]