Francesco Buzomi (1576–1639) was an Italian missionary in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. He was one of the first Catholic missionaries in

Đàng Trong Đàng Trong ( vi-hantu, , lit. "Inner Circuit"), also known as Nam Hà (, "South of the River"), was the South region of Vietnam, under the rule of the Nguyễn lords, later enlarged by the Nam tiến, Vietnamese southward expansion. The word '' ...

(known to the Europeans as "

Cochinchina Cochinchina or Cochin-China (, ; vi, Đàng Trong (17th century - 18th century, Việt Nam (1802-1831), Đại Nam (1831-1862), Nam Kỳ (1862-1945); km, កូសាំងស៊ីន, Kosăngsin; french: Cochinchine; ) is a historical exony ...

") and, along with others such as

Francisco de Pina Francisco de Pina (1585 – 1625) was a Portuguese Jesuit interpreter, missionary and priest, credited with creating the first Latin script, Latinized script of the Vietnamese language, on which the modern Vietnamese alphabet is based. Biography ...

Girolamo Maiorica Girolamo Maiorica ( pt, Jerónimo Majorica; chữ Nôm: ; Vietnamese alphabet: '; 1591–1656) was a 17th-century Italian Jesuit missionary to Vietnam. He is known for compiling numerous Roman Catholic works written in the Vietnamese language's dem ...

and

Alexandre de Rhodes Alexandre de Rhodes (15 March 1593 – 5 November 1660) was an Avignonese Jesuit missionary and lexicographer who had a lasting impact on Christianity in Vietnam. He wrote the ''Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum'', the first trilingua ...

, belonged to the generation of

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

priests in the first half of the 17th century who established the firm foundation of the

Catholic Church in Vietnam The Catholic Church in Vietnam is part of the worldwide Catholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of bishops in Vietnam who are in communion with the pope in Rome. Vietnam has the fifth largest Catholic population in Asia, after the Philipp ...

Biography

Buzomi was born in 1576 in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

then part of the

Kingdom of Naples The Kingdom of Naples ( la, Regnum Neapolitanum; it, Regno di Napoli; nap, Regno 'e Napule), also known as the Kingdom of Sicily, was a state that ruled the part of the Italian Peninsula south of the Papal States between 1282 and 1816. It was ...

. He was sent to

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

in 1608 and studied theology there for a year. Captain Ferdinand de Costa, after visiting

Hội An Hội An (), formerly known as Fai-Fo or Faifoo, is a city with a population of approximately 120,000 in Vietnam's Quảng Nam Province and is noted as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999. Along with the Cu Lao Cham archipelago, it is part o ...

(known to the Europeans as "Faifo"), told the Jesuit superior in Macau that there was a shortage of priests to minister the Japanese Catholic community and that there were no missionaries for the Vietnamese either. Buzomi then asked permission to go on a mission in Đàng Trong and was approved. Buzomi landed in

Da Nang Nang or DanangSee also Danang Dragons ( ; vi, Đà Nẵng, ) is a class-1 municipality and the fifth-largest city in Vietnam by municipal population. It lies on the coast of the East Sea of Vietnam at the mouth of the Hàn River, and is one ...

on 18 January, 1615. After a time in Hội An and Thanh Chiêm, Buzomi established a mission in Pulocambi in 1618. Commissioned by

Nguyễn lord Nguyễn () is the most common Vietnamese surname. Outside of Vietnam, the surname is commonly rendered without diacritics as Nguyen. Nguyên (元）is a different word and surname. By some estimates 39 percent of Vietnamese people bear this s ...

Phúc Lan, Buzomi came back to Macau in 1639; he died there the same year.

References

Italian Roman Catholic missionaries 17th-century Italian Jesuits Roman Catholic missionaries in Vietnam Jesuit missionaries in Vietnam 16th-century Neapolitan people 1576 births 1639 deaths 17th-century Neapolitan people {{Vietnam-reli-bio-stub