From Brazil to Japan: the Jesuit missionaries under the authority of the Portuguese Patronage from the cases of Juan de Azpicuelta Navarro and Francis Xavier (sixteenth century).

The Society of Jesus was founded in 1540 and right in 1549 the Order established a mission in the geographical limits of the Portuguese Patronage´s activity, Brazil and Japan. The information about other regions came to be gradually spread across Europe, flow in which the experience from Far East Asia, especially in Japan, was taken as an example to be followed by other missions within the Jesuit campaign. What this article aims is to reflect on some aspects of this dynamic from considering the cases of Juan de Azpilicueta in Brazil and Francis Xavier in Asia, missionaries who were relatives and pioneers of the Jesuit activity in the respective regions. To do so, it analyses some letters of their authorship as others in which both were mentioned. From their consanguineous relationship and the work that they promoted, it was described that Father Navarro worked in Brazil as if he was another Francis Xavier in the Orient. As the experience of Xavier came to be exalted by the whole Society of Jesus, and some of his characteristics were recognized in Navarro, this article starts from the idea that a way of proceeding was being endorsed by the Order, or at least by those who were working in the non-European territories.