Extremely rare printed letter from King Sebastian of Portugal to Pope Pius V, in which the king asks for more priests, especially Jesuits, stressing the significance of Portuguese conquests in the Far East, in the process detailing the number of ships laden with treasure and trade goods arriving daily in Lisbon.

Extremely rare printed letter from King Sebastian of Portugal to Pope Pius V, in which the king asks for more priests, especially Jesuits, stressing the significance of Portuguese conquests in the Far East, in the process detailing the number of ships laden with treasure and trade goods arriving daily in Lisbon.

The strategic relationships between the rulers of Portugal and Spain with the papacy were crucial in the discovery and colonisation period. The splitting of the new world enacted by the treaty of Tordesillas left the Portuguese and Spanish eager to exploit any advantage that could be gained, and often the evangelisation of pagan natives was used to justify territorial ambitions; it was often in these pious terms that the pope was lobbied for his support.

This letter from Sebastian is an excellent example of the sort of lobbying that took place. Donald Lach has written extensively about the nature of the exotic in the East Indies and the Far East, describing how these printings often encompass exotic subjects for which monarch and pope both had a taste. In his relations with Pius V's namesake and predecessor, for example, Sebastian had been asked for and had promised a pair of elephants for the papal menagerie (see Lach, II, 1, 150n).

The printing of letters and diplomatic orations such as this formed a critical part of the lobbying. Important records of the significance accorded to the new world, it seems that they were generally printed in small numbers for limited circulation, hence the tiny survival rate of any of these early works, with this example particularly uncommon: USTC records five copies, four of them in Italy and WorldCat adds another at Yale, while the last copy that we can identify on the market was that offered by Maggs Bros in 1935.

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At Sebastian's death (fighting the Moors in north Africa) the destiny of Portugal changed completely and from then on she would be under Spanish sway. "When at last she found herself [again] a free and independent state (1640), the sceptre of the Indies had passed irrevocably to Holland and England' (Penrose p. 75). Nonetheless, Sebastian still occupies a most important position in Portuguese history, in which he has been compared with King Arthur, or Barbarossa: he was known as the "sleeping king" who would mysteriously return at Portugal's time of great need. 'He would then be known by symbolic names: O Encoberto (The Hidden One) who would return on a foggy morning to save Portugal; or as O Desejado (The Desired). The legend was vigorously promoted through the massive circulation of popular rhymes (trovas) written by Bandarra. Even as late as the 19th century, Sebastianist peasants in the Brazilian sertão believed that the kings would return to help them in their rebellion against the "godless" Brazilian republic…' (Wikipedia).

Pius V reigned from 1566 to 1572: his reign was largely pre-occupied with the war against the Turks - the battle of Lepanto was won the year after this publication. In 1570 Goa was attacked by the Indian army but the Portuguese successfully defended it. Also in 1570 Sebastian issued orders that the Brazilian Indians used for slavery should be released from captivity.