Alessandro Valignano, S.J., sometimes Valignani (Chinese: 范禮安 Fàn Lǐ’ān; February 1539 – January 20, 1606),[1] was an Italian Jesuit priest and missionary born in Chieti, part of the Kingdom of Naples, who helped supervise the introduction of Catholicism to the Far East, and especially to Japan.

Valignano was born in Chieti, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, son of a Neapolitan aristocrat and friend of Pope Paul IV.

[2]: 256  The nomination of a Neapolitan to supervise Portugal-dominated Asia was controversial, and his nationality led to conflicts with mission personnel, as would later his adaptationist and expansionist policies.

His strategy was in contrast to those of mendicant orders including Franciscans and Dominicans, whom Valignano worked hard to block from entering Japan.

In his view, to improve the Jesuits' penetration rate into the country and their success at converting the locals, it was necessary first to learn to speak, read, and write the Chinese language.

To this end, he wrote to the order's Superior in India, asking him to send to Macau a person who would be equal to the task, namely Bernardino de Ferraris (1537–1584).

Once Ruggieri started studying Chinese and realized the immensity of the task, he wrote to Valignano, asking him to send Matteo Ricci to Macau as well, to share the work.

[citation needed] On his first arrival in Japan, Valignano was horrified by what he considered to be, at the least, negligent, and at the worst, abusive and un-Christian practices on the part of mission personnel.

Valignano later wrote that, although the mission had made some major gains during Francisco Cabral's tenure, the general methods used by the Superior were severely lacking.

Before the Visitor arrived in Japan, seventeen of Valignano's personally appointed missionaries wrote to him complaining that language training was totally nonexistent.

Cabral had protested that it was impossible for Europeans to learn Japanese and that even after fifteen years of study the padres could hardly preach a sermon, even to Christian converts.

It was Valignano's first official act upon arriving in Japan that all new missionaries in the province spend two years in a language course, separating these newcomers by leaps and bounds from the first enthusiastic but stilted efforts of Francis Xavier.

The need for a trained native clergy was obvious to Valignano, and so, in 1580, a recently emptied Buddhist monastery in Arima province was converted into a nascent seminary.

For one, as the Arima seminary was a converted Buddhist monastery, and because Valignano emphasized the need for cultural adaptation, the original décor was left largely unchanged.

This is probably an apt interpretation, because it does appear that the Catholic seminaries appealed to, but in typical Jesuit style were not limited to, many of the same sons of wealthy nobles as the Buddhist tradition of living as a novice in a monastery would have.

Few Buddhist monks were forced to live under a rule of strict poverty as the Jesuits enforced it, and because gift-giving was such an important part of Japanese social relations, the inability of the novices to accept these gifts undoubtedly helped to alienate them from their families.

Within most Buddhist communities it is common, if not expected, that young men and women spend some time in seclusion as a monk or nun for a few years or months.

It was no dishonor for a monk to take vows for a limited period of time and then return to his normal occupation, while the counter-Reformation era Roman Church, with its emphasis on vocation and eternal priesthood, could scarcely have been more different.

The Superior General in Rome was shocked by the news of such a blatant acquisition of property and gave firm instructions that Jesuit control of Nagasaki should only be temporary.

Jesuit ownership of the Port of Nagasaki gave the Society a concrete monopoly in taxation over all imported goods coming into Japan.

The delegation would sail on to Lisbon and spend several years in Europe where they were received with honors in Portugal, Spain, Florence, Rome, Venice and Milan.

[citation needed] This breach of ecclesiastical practice did not go unnoticed by the heads of other European missions in the area, or by those who make their living via inter-Asiatic trade.

Valignano made an impassioned appeal to the Pope, saying that he would forgo all trade as soon as the 12,000 ducats required to meet their annual expenses were forthcoming from another source.

Placed in the context of the widespread poverty that plagued Japan during this era, it is not surprising that the Valignano authorized the mission to rely on the tax income provided them by the Port of Nagasaki.

Tokugawa Ieyasu worked diligently to thwart all European attempts to reestablish contact with Japan, religious or otherwise, after his rise to power in 1603.

Valignano paved the way for a closer relationship between Asian and European peoples by advocating equal treatment of all human beings.