Dionigi da Palacenza Carli was a Capuchin missionary in Africa, in the seventeenth century. He was one of a band of

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

friars of the Capuchin Reform, sent out to the Congo in 1666. One of his companions was Padre

Michele Angelo Guattini da Rhegio Michele (), is an Italian male given name, akin to the English male name Michael. Michele (pronounced ), is also an English female given name that is derived from the French Michèle. It is a variant spelling of the more common (and identically ...

, who wrote an account of the voyage of the missionaries from

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

and thence to

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Luanda Luanda () is the capital and largest city in Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Angola's administrative centre, its chief seaport ...

, and the Congo, that being the route the missionaries had to take to get to their destination.

Works

Padre Michele Angelo died shortly after his arrival in the Congo, leaving his manuscript in the hands of Dionigi Carli, who, on his return to Italy a few years afterwards owing to sickness, wrote an account of his own experiences in the Congo and on his homeward journey. Carli published at Rhegio in 1672 his own work together with that of Guattini under the title: "Il Moro transportato in Venezia ovvero curioso raconto de' Costumi, Riti et Religione de' Populi dell' Africa, America, Asia ed Europa". A second edition appeared at Bologna in 1674. An English translation is published in Churchill, "Voyages" (London, 1704), I. Carli gave a detailed description of the manners and customs of the Congolese, and of the doings of the missionaries. He tells how the friars died in numbers, owing to the climate, and speaks with discouragement of the peculiar difficulties of the situation. He trusts that some of the 2700 children he baptized will reach Heaven and be to his credit as a missionary in the judgment book of God. Finally he gives some account of the various cities he passed through in Portugal, Spain, and France on his way home.

References

;Attribution * {{DEFAULTSORT:Carli, Dionigi da Palacenza 17th-century Italian Christian monks Capuchin missionaries Italian Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Italian expatriates in the Democratic Republic of the Congo