An Italian Jesuit in Canada: Faith and the Imagination in the 'Breve Relatione' of 1653

Abstract

Bressani published his Breve Relatione in Italian in 1653. He had spent the years 1642 to 1650 in New France as a Jesuit missionary. As a Jesuit he was aware of the expansion of the European powers in the New World: the French and English in North America and the Spanish and Portuguese in South America. The Jesuit mission was to spread Christianity in the New World. As an Italian Bressani had particular views on European contact with the First Nations. He saw that it was necessary to spread Italian culture and so encouraged Italians to go to the lands of the New World. There are many indications of these attitudes in his Breve Relatione, the only part of the massive Jesuit Relations that is in Italian.