Everything about Giovanni Cavazzi Da Montecuccolo totally explained
Giovanni Antonio Cavazzi da Montecuccolo (1621-1678) was an
Italian Capuchin missionary noted for his travels in
17th century Angola (then a
Portuguese colony) and his lengthy account of local history and culture as well as a history of the Capuchin mission there.
Cavazzi was an indifferent student and was almost denied a position in the central
African mission, but eventually prevailed thanks to his piety. He arrived in
Luanda in 1654 and was dispatched to the
Portuguese possessions in the eastern end of the colony. He traveled widely as a
chaplain with the
Portuguese Army including a stay at the court of the king of
Pungo Andongo, a trip with them, in 1659 into the central highlands region, a visit in
1660 to the court of
Queen Nzinga (or Njinga) in
Matamba and the
Kingdom of Kongo. He returned to Njinga's court in 1662 and remained there after the queen's death in
1663. He presided at her funeral and left Matamba in 1665, returning to Italy in
1667.
He was assigned the task of writing a history of the Capuchin
mission, perhaps because since 1662 or so he'd been writing his own history. He worked in the archives in Italy to round out his history, but The
Holy Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, which had commissioned the work was reluctant to publish it, and in fact it wasn't published until 1687, after Cavazzi's death. In
1673 he returned to Angola as
prefect of the Capuchin mission. He returned to Italy in 1677 where he wrote a second biographical account of the Capuchin mission, which wasn't published until the twentieth century. He died on
July 18,
1678.
The Holy Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith
Cavazzi is famous for his descriptive history,
Istorica Descrizione de' tre regni Congo, Matamba ed Angola (Bologna, 1687, 2nd edition, 1690). There were many translations, a
German one in 1694 and a
French one in 1725. The modern critical edition and
Portuguese translation of the book, edited by Graziano Saccardo was published in 2 volumes in
Lisbon (
1965).
In 1969, Giuseppe Pistoni discovered the original manuscripts of Cavazzi's work, written in Africa in
1668 among the papers of the Araldi Family of
Modena. This collection, three bulky manuscripts was also illustrated with vivid watercolor illustrations of life in
Central Africa and particularly at the court of Queen Njinga. The illustrations were subsequently published by Ezio Bassani in
Quaderni Poro no. 4.
John K. Thornton has edited and translated the first volume (A), a work that isn't yet published.
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