An Italian Jesuit in Canada: Faith and Imagination in Bressani's Breve Relatione of 1653

by Joseph J. Pivato

Francesco Giuseppe Bressani published his Breve Relatione in Italian in 1653. It is the only part of the voluminous Jesuit Relations or Relations des Jésuites that is in Italian. The other volumes are in French or in Latin. It is a factual account of the years Bressani spent in New France as a missionary among the settlers and Native people. At the same time it is a vision of the possibilities of future Italian settlement in the New World. As a result Bressani's chronicle may be examined as a testament to his religious faith and to his imagination in constructing the image of a martyr.

Bressani was born in Rome in 1612 and grew up in this city of papal power and saintly obsessions. It was the Rome of Pope Paul V and the controversy over Galileo Galilei. The enormous Basilica of St. Peter was being completed and in 1626 it was dedicated by Pope Urban VIII, the Jesuit-educated pope who reigned for 21 years. That same year Bressani joined the Society of Jesus. One of the remarkable endeavors of Popes Paul and Urban was their support for missions to faraway lands which included China, Japan, India, Ethiopia, Persia, the Congo and the New World. And martyrdom was not too high a price to pay for the propagation of the faith. As the spiritual army of the pope, the Jesuits were based in Rome and many young men joined the order so as to take up work in the missions abroad. As an indication of the zeal with which these young men approached their vocations one should note that the order, founded by Ignatius Loyola who was canonized in 1622, was barely 100 years old at the time of Bressani and already numbered over 16,000 members. (Menchini 24-25)

Bressani's training with the Jesuits took him to Paris in 1636 and then to Dieppe in 1641. At that time Paris was a focal point of missionary activity in North America. In 1642 we find Bressani in Canada where he first worked in the French settlement of Quebec and the following year was sent to Trois Rivières to the Algonquin mission. In April, 1644, on his way west to the Huron missions he was captured by the Iroquois who killed one of his Huron companions and then took Bressani, a French boy, and five other Huron captives south into the territory which is now New York State. They tortured him for two months cutting off his left thumb and parts of his fingers, for example. However, Bressani was ransomed by Dutch settlers at Fort Orange and sent back to France where he arrived in November, 1644. (Cro 28-29)

Torture could not keep Bressani from his mission and the following year he was back in Canada working zealously at the Huron Missions until their destruction by Iroquois attacks four years later. In 1649 a war-party of some twelve hundred warriors attacked Huronia. Since by this time many Iroquois had firearms which they had procured from the Dutch on the Hudson River, the Jesuits were forced to retreat east to the territory of Quebec. Bressani, however, continued to work with the scattered and fugitive Hurons for some months back in the original Quebec settlements. Only his failing health forced him to return to Italy in 1650 where he would show people his mutilated hands as proof of his sacrifice and faith in the mission cause.

In 1653 as he continued to preach and to promote mission work, Bressani published his Breve Relatione in Macerata, Italy. He opened his chronicle with a reference to Pope Urban VIII and the papal decree that the publication of any books about the lives and actions of religious people, saints, and martyrs had to be approved by Church authorities. This is followed by several imprimaturs which approve his book (Relatione 38: 210). Urban VIII is the pope who in his letter of 1638 forbade the enslavement of Natives in the New World. As subjects of the missions the natives were recognized as human beings with souls that needed to be saved. It is clear that Bressani shared these ideals and enthusiastically followed them in his mission work. The foreign missions were part of the Counter Reformation strategy of the Catholic Church, whereby all the souls lost in Europe to the Protestant churches were to be made up for by the conversions in the New World. (Mealing 8-9)

The Breve Relatione is organized into three parts. The first chapters present a very positive image of the missions: Bressani describes the geography and vegetation of Canada, and then deals with the Native people. The Second Part describes the conversion of the Native people and the many difficulties encountered by the Jesuits who arrived to convert them. The Third Part of the chronicle gives us graphic details about the suffering, torture, and martyrdom of the missionaries.

Bressani had spent the years 1642 to 1650 in New France as an active missionary. As a Jesuit he was aware of the expansion of the European powers in the New World: the French and English rivalry in North America and that of the Spanish and Portuguese in South America. In March of 1629 an English naval force captured the port city of Quebec and occupied it for three years. In his Relatione he also refers to Dutch and Swedes (38: 228). Along with the other Jesuits Bressani advocated that a key role of the missions was to spread Christianity in the New World as a counterbalance to the exploitative side of imperial expansion.

As an Italian, Bressani had particular views on European contact with the Natives. He clearly shared Urban VIII's views on the conversion of Native people and the spread of European civilization and Italian culture. He saw that it was necessary to spread Italian influence and so encouraged Italians to go to the lands of the New World. There are many indications of these attitudes in his Breve Relatione. Not only is it addressed to Italian readers, but there are comparisons between Canada and Italy in several places. He describes the summer temperatures in New France as no less hot than those in Italy (38: 220) and compares the Laurentian mountains to the Apennines (38: 224), his purpose being to persuade Italians to join the missions.

The Jesuits had been successful in South America in establishing seven mission communities among the Guarani Indians in Paraguay. These were seen as ideal Christian communities of peace and harmony. They had been founded in 1610 in the Spanish colony by two Italian Jesuits: Fathers Cataldino and Mascetta (Hounder). This is the ideal that the Jesuits in Canada had in mind and the first Superior of the Jesuit missions in Quebec, Fr. Paul Le Jeune, refers to the Paraquay missions as a model in his Relations of 1637 (12: 218-221).

From the fortress of Quebec the Jesuits moved up the St. Lawrence River to establish mission communities among the Algonquins at Sylleri, then Trois Rivières, then the small settlement of Montreal, then west to Huron missions on Georgian Bay (38: 230-2). The Algonquins and the Hurons were the peaceful nations which had friendly relations with the French. The Hurons were settled into villages and Bressani saw them as the ideal people for Christian conversion. He repeatedly made requests to his superiors to be sent to the Huron missions and was finally sent there in 1644 but was captured by the Iroquois before reaching Huronia.

Since it was believed that in order to have an ideal society, the Native people had to possess innate virtues, in his Breve Relatione Bressani lists the good qualities of his Hurons: their highly developed senses, their fortitude, their imagination and their amazing memory for details. He writes in Italian as follows:

Son certo degni d'ammirazione particolarmente in quattro cose: primo nei
sensi che hanno perfettissimi…una vista acutissima, udito eccellente e
harmonico; odorato raro... .
Secondo, hanno una costanza ammirabile nei disagi... .
Terzo, la loro imaginazione è prodigiosa in riconoscere i luoghi, e
descriversegli uni agli altri...
Quattro, una memoria tenacissima…Io mi sono stupito di vedere di quante
cose, e di quante circostanze mai si ricordano. (38: 258-260)
(They are very worthy of admiration, particularly in four things. First,
they possess the most perfect senses…an acute vision, excellent hearing, an
ear for music, and a fine sense of smell... .
Second, they have an admirable constitution in hardships... .
Third, their imagination is prodigious in remembering places and for
describing them to one another.
Fourth, a very tenacious memory... I have been amazed to see how many
things and how many circumstances they can recall.) [All translations are mine.]

In the Italian we can almost hear Bressani's voice as he argues that their intellectual capabilities and skills are as good as those of any bright Europeans. They are capable of learning and knowledge and of showing faith (38: 263). What we find in the first chapters of Breve Relatione is an image of the noble savage, long before this idea was expressed by Jean Jacques Rousseau in 1778.

Bressani goes into some detail to describe the society of the Hurons. He lists their food and feast celebrations, their communal singing and dances (38: 254). He explains marriage practices and compares them to those of the ancient Jews (38: 254). He points out that in their system of government tribal chiefs are determined by succession by way of the mother's line (38: 265). In their system of justice crimes of theft and murder are dealt with through fines and gift giving for reparation (38: 280-285). It is clear that he admires these people for their honesty, hospitality, and inherent sense of right and wrong (38: 226-7).

Bressani concludes Part One by commenting on what he sees as the Huron and Algonquins beliefs in l'immortalità dell'anima (the immortality of the soul, 39: 12), in good and evil, in a perceived divinity, and in their interpretation of dreams (39: 14).

As an educated man of the Italian Renaissance Bressani finds these customs and beliefs intellectually interesting. They accorded with the idealized view that missionaries must have of people in order to carry out this difficult work. He speaks about his efforts in learning the different “Indian” languages and how some sounds are difficult for an Italian to master (38: 254). For an Italian like Bressani the missions had as their object the conversion of souls rather than imperial conquest. Exhibiting an imagination that goes beyond the occupation of territory, he highlights his goal of teaching the Native people, but also of learning from them, repeatedly referring to the Huron's “most constant and most tender devotion,” for example (38: 262-3).

Bressani uses the term barbari (savages) to refer to the Native people generally in his chronicle, but he distinguishes between the “Indian” converts called nostri Cristiani (our Christians) or the Christian Hurons, on the one hand, and the other non-converted Natives, on the other. And there are also the other barbari, the enemy Iroquois, who attack villages, capture, torture and kill Hurons, French settlers, and missionaries alike. In the French Jesuit Relations the comparable common term is sauvage.

Bressani moves away from the Utopian vision of peaceful Native communities in the second part of Breve Relatione, though, where he describes the difficulties of mission work in New France. He explains the many obstacles the Jesuits encountered: the harsh climate, river rapids and waterfalls, the dangers of the journeys due to Iroquois attacks, the problems with the different Indian languages, conflict with the Indian medicine men, and the plagues which killed large groups of Natives.

In this second part of Breve Relatione Bressani devotes the second chapter to quoting verbatim a letter as a concrete example of the many hardships. It is a letter from a captured missionary who is writing back to his Superior, and recounts his capture by the Iroquois, his tortures, forced travels, beatings, starvation, mutilations, and final rescue. Every detail of this eyewitness account is vivid with blood and pain. It is only when we come to the signature at the end that we learn that this letter is from Bressani himself. By framing the letter as a third-person account Bressani has distanced himself from the account of his own torture and mutilation. This distancing device is designed to diminish any hint of bragging about his suffering and heroism. The irony is that by presenting himself in this apparent humble manner Bressani enhances his achievements as a missionary, becoming thus an example to inspire other young Italian men to go out into the missions.

This powerful letter which occupies the midpoint of his Breve Relatione, is an outstanding example of faith and imagination. Bressani actually elaborated this letter on the basis of his original version which can be found in the Vatican’s Jesuit archives, Fondo Gesuitico IX, 1644 nn 459. The original document which is called Father Bressani's Letter from Fort Orange (1644) was meant for his Superior Father Vimont in Quebec and was hurriedly drafted after his rescue by the Dutch. The published version instead is meant to impress his Italian readers and is more deliberate in the details that it includes and excludes with respect to the original account. For example the published Italian letter opens with this image:

La lettera è mal scritta, & assai sordida perché oltre l'altre incommodita, chi la scrive non hà, che un ditto intiero nella man dritta, ed è difficile, che la carta no resti imbrattata dal sangue che gli scaturisce dale piaghe... . (39: 54)
(This letter is poorly written and very soiled because, in addition to other physical problems, he who writes it has but one whole finger on his right hand. And it is difficult to avoid staining the paper with the blood dripping from his wounds....) [All translations are mine. ]

In the original letter of 1644 there is no striking image of a right hand with only one whole finger or of blood dripping on the paper from wounds that have yet to heal. After the Utopian images of Part One these images of bleeding wounds leave a lasting impression and demonstrate that Bressani has subtly constructed himself in the image of a living martyr of the Jesuit missions in the New World.

This text is followed by two short letters explaining his rescue by the Dutch (39: 76). First, the Iroquois warriors sold Bressani to an old Iroquois woman and then he was ransomed by Dutch settlers. During the last days of his captivity he was able to baptize a captured Huron who was also being tortured and was eventually killed (39: 78-80). In the second note Bressani reveals his motivation for risking the dangers as a missionary in New France:

Io mi stimarei troppo felice se Dio mi facesse la gratia di perdere la vita nell'aiuto e conversione dell'anime (39: 86)
(I would esteem myself very happy if God should grant me the grace of losing my life for the help and conversion of souls.)

Later Bressani explains his ability to withstand the pain of torture at the hands of the Iroquois:

Non credete peró, che io non sentissi i tormenti; li sentivo vivamente, ma havevo interiormente forza tale per soffrirli, che stupivo di me stesso, ó più tosto della gratia. (39: 90)
(Do not believe however that I did not feel the torments. I felt them keenly, but within I had such strength to suffer them, that I was astonished at myself, or rather, at the grace [from God]).

It is clear that Bressani wants to convey to his readers an image that will inspire young men to go into mission work in the New World. It is work rewarded with the gift of grace directly from God.

The third and final part of the Breve Relatione deals with the sufferings of the missionaries at the hands of the Iroquois. Bressani gives us several accounts of torture and martyrdom, some of which are reproduced from other volumes of the Jesuit Relations written in French. We read about the martyrdom of Father Isaac Jogues (39: 226-234), Father Charles Garnier (40: 14-18), and Noel Chabanel (40: 34-36). He also recounts the fate of Father Anne de Noue who died of cold when he got lost in the snow (39: 158-164). Again Bressani provides the Italian reader with first hand accounts. The tortures are described in such detail as to suggest a kind of Baroque ecstasy of suffering for the glory of God, the church and the missions. They are all the more vivid since they are often given as epistolary first-person accounts. For the modern reader it is hard to believe that these gruesome descriptions of mutilation and horrible death are meant as propaganda in favour of the missions. We must read them in the context of an almost fanatical zeal, the goal being to save the souls of the Natives in the New World, to spread the message of Christianity, and to give glory to God, with the possibility of martyrdom and sainthood. Faith leads to zealous mission work, danger and also the prospect of sainthood.

By placing his own account of torture in Part Two rather than Part Three Bressani removes it from any comparison with the actual martyrdom of the other Jesuits, his contemporaries in New France, the eight men we now call the Canadian Martyrs. But this humility allows his letter from Fort Orange to stand on its own in the middle of his Breve Relatione as a kind of Baroque centre piece with his own blood on the paper.

The contrast between the Utopian vision in Part One and the eye witness accounts of torture in Parts Two and Three brings these experiences together in one striking narrative. In a less dramatic way this pattern is echoed in the work of many Italian-Canadian writers some 350 years later. Many of these contemporary authors capture the enthusiasm and ideals about coming to the New World for a new life; yet many works often include images of mutilation and physical handicaps, as well. The novels of Frank Paci, Nino Ricci, Maria Ardizzi, Mary di Michele and Mary Melfi have many images of physical injury and death. Yet in these novels, such as The Italians or Made in Italy, physical mutilation may be a metaphor for the sacrifices of the immigrants, symbols of uprooting, rather than emblems of religious faith, as was the case in Bressani's text. Nevertheless some Italian-Canadian writers see in Bressani a precursor of their own written encounters with the Canadian land, climate and people. It seem appropriate then that a literary prize for ethnic minority literature is named after Bressani.

In his life time Bressani became well known as a hero of the missions. His book was read and well distributed and we can still find copies of the original 1653 edition in rare book collections. In Italy Bressani travelled the country preaching about the Jesuit missions. Here is a partial itinerary: 1654-55 Florence, 1656 Bologna, 1657 the Veneto region, 1658 Modena, 1659 province of Rome, 1661 Mantua, 1667 province of Florence, and 1668 Naples. What picture of Canada did his Italian audiences receive? We know that in the years following Bressani several Italians came to Canada with the French settlers. They include: Carlo Marini, Tommaso Crisafi, Enrico Tonti ( with La Salle) and Francesco Burlamacchi who came, however, as soldiers and explorers, rather than as missionaries.

Bressani died in Florence in 1672. With his wounds he could say until the end that he had on his body the stigmata of Christ. Breve Relatione that records his experiences is a work of late Renaissance imagination and faith.

Endnote: For a different view of The Jesuit Relations see Monique Tschofen, “Agents of Aggressive Order: Letters, Hands, and the Grasping Power of Teeth in the Early Canadian Torture Narrative,” Media Notes eJournal 1.1 (2008) 19-41.

© 2008 Joseph Pivato. A version of this essay is published in Faith and Fantasy in the Renaissance, eds. Olga Zorzi Pugliese & Ethan Matt Kavaler. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2009.

Works Cited

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