Vasco Calvo is a character discovered by the narrator of
Fernão Mendes Pinto's fantastical memoir ''Peregrinação'' ("Pilgrimage", written in the 1570s, published 1614). A former member of the ill-fated Portuguese embassy of 1517 to
Beijing, capital of the
Ming Empire, Calvo has since been living in
internal exile in one of the capital's suburbs. The narrator meets him in 1544 while performing prison-labour on the nearby
Great Wall.
Calvo has married a woman from a respectable local family; they have two sons and two daughters. The household features a
chapel where the exotic
Roman faith of the father is maintained and inculcated. The narrator is deeply moved by the chapel's beauty.
Reality
China scholar
Jonathan Spence
Jonathan Dermot Spence (11 August 1936 – 25 December 2021) was an English-born American historian, sinologist, and writer who specialized in Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1993 to 2008. His ...
says there is no evidence—nor much likelihood—of any mixed Sino-Euro family until much closer to the end of the 16th century.
[Jonathan Spence, ''The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds'', New York: 1999, W.W.Norton & Company, , p.31]
See also
*
Fernão Pires de Andrade
Captain Fernão Pires de Andrade (also spelled as Fernão Peres de Andrade; in contemporary sources, Fernam (Fernã) Perez Dandrade) (died 1552) was a Portuguese merchant, pharmacist, and official diplomat under the explorer and Portuguese Malacc ...
*
Rafael Perestrello
Notes and references
{{DEFAULTSORT:Calvo, Vasco
Portuguese explorers
Portuguese male writers