Ippolito Desideri

The Reverend

Ippolito Desideri

SJ

Ippolito Desideri, SJ (21 December 1684 Pistoia, Grand Duchy of Tuscany – 14 April 1733 Rome, Papal States)[1] was an Italian Jesuit missionary and traveller and the most famous of the early European missionaries who founded Catholic Church in Tibet.[2] He was also the first documented Tibetologist and the first European to have successfully studied both Classical and Standard Tibetan.

  1. ^ Wessels 1924, p. 273.
  2. ^ Lopez & Jinpa 2017, p. 2.