The Company's edifying letters of Jesus: sources for an approach to the history of science

Abstract

As is well known, the Company of Jesus was recognized as an order religious by Pope Paul III on the 27th September 1540, from then he dedicated himself to missionizing and evangelizing everyone, obeying his fourth vow that is OBEDIENCE TO THE POPE, who sent them to preach the Gospel. And as a consequence of that evangelization all over the world, Jesuit missionaries They took on the task of preparing reports on all the missions they had in the most distant places and unknown, these would be given the name of edifying or curious letters, in which they described, based on geography, ethnography, anthropology, history, cartography, astronomy, zoology and botany all their missions. Is It is worth noting that the Jesuits not only dedicated themselves to religious issues or catechization of the aboriginals, but within these activities They gave themselves enough time to carry out activities scientific ones like those mentioned.