- Albert Dorville
Albert Dorville , (also known as "Albert Le Comte d’Orville") (12 August 1621,Brussels ,Belgium -8 April 1662 ,Agra ,India ) was a BelgianJesuit priest,Missionary in China and cartographer.Biography
The young Albert, son of noblemen spent much of his youth at the court of the duke of Neuburg. He joined the
Society of Jesus in 1646, and while studyingtheology at theCatholic University of Leuven he attended the 'Chinese lectures' given byMartino Martini an Italian Jesuit missionary, then visiting the University of Leuven. This evoked in him a strong desire to volunteer for the China mission. Permission was granted by his Provincial and soon after being ordained priest (in 1654) Dorville rejoined Martino Martini inRome before accompanying him on his return journey to China.Leaving
Lisbon in April 1657, Martini, Dorville and 17 other Jesuits (among whomFerdinand Verbiest ) arrived inMacau on the17 July 1658 , after a long and arduous journey during which several lost their life. As was the practice for all newly arrived men Dorville spent some time in Macau to learn theChinese language . He was then sent as missionary in the province of Shanxi.Exploratory overland journey
Soon he was called to
Peking and appointed to accompanyJohann Grueber on a journey back to Europe. Grueber was sent to Rome in order to defend Jesuit astronomer Adam Schall against the accusation of 'fostering superstitious practices' (motivated by his working on theChinese calendar ). As traveling over the seas was increasingly difficult and unsafe - the Portuguese were losing their trade monopoly at the hands of the Dutch - they decided to attempt an exploratory overland journey that, if successful could bring China closer to Europe too. The first stretch would lead them toGoa . Leaving Peking on the13 April 1661 Grueber and Dorville enteredTibet the 13 July and spent two months (October and November) in its capitalLhasa . All along the way Dorville did somegeographical investigations, determining exactly thelongitude andlatitude of the places they were passing through. The travelers crossed theHimalayas , enteredNepal and stayed a month inKatmandu (January 1662). From there they descended into the basin of theGanges river, enteredIndia (8 February) and visitedPatna , andBenares before arriving finally inAgra (31 March), the former capital of theMughal empire . Dorville was however seriously sick and exhausted by the harrowing journey: he died the 8 April 1662, a week after reaching Agra.Evaluation
For the rest of the journey back from Goa to Europe, Grueber was accompanied by
Heinrich Roth , a JesuitSanskrit scholar. On arrival in Rome in 1664 Grueber gave an account of their odyssey. Numerous and interesting observations - geographical, cultural, socio-religious - were made on the countries traveled across and people encountered. With regard to finding a shorter route to China the exploratory journey was a failure: travelers continued, and for many years, to go by ship form Goa to Macau and China... The overland journey was too long, hazardous and thoroughly exhausting…Bibliography
*WESSELS, C.: "Early Jesuit travellers in Central Asia (1603-1721)", The Hague, 1924, pp. 164-202.
*BRAUMANN, F. (ed): "Johannes Grueber. Als Kundschafter des Papstes nach China (1656-1664)", Stuttgart, 1985.
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