“The Many Faces of Ignazio Maria Romeo, SJ (1676–1724?), Petitioner for the Indies: A Jesuit Seen through his Litterae Indipetae and the Epistulae Generalium”

This article explores the process by which a Jesuit vocation to the overseas missions was manifested and managed in the early- modern period. It does this through a case study of the Sicilian Jesuit, Ignazio Maria Romeo SJ (1676–1724?). The analysis is conducted through a variety of protagonists (including the applicant himself, his local superiors, his family, and the Superior General), and the extensive documentary trail they left behind, now preserved at the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (ARSI). In particular, the essay brings together two sources, the Li erae Indipetae, or petitions for the Indies, and the Epistulae Generalium, containing registers of the Jesuit Superior General’s correspondence. While the rst source has been the focus of considerable scholarly a ention in recent years, the second is barely known in relation to the missionary enterprise: it includes the General’s responses to many petitioners for the Indies, and even to their families (in the case of the Jesuit under consideration here), thus providing a vital closure to the epistolary cycle of which only the rst part currently is well known, that of the Li erae Indipetae. Through a single case study, the essay seeks to present these sources in a new light, with the aim to understand something more about the process of selecting missionaries, the potential role of families, local superiors, and Superiors General in these negotiations, and the importance of correspondence in conducting the Society’s business in one of its most distinctive and complex endeavours: the overseas missionary enterprise.