Antoni de Montserrat

Antoni de Montserrat (Vic, Spain, 1536 – Salsette, India, 1600) was a Catalan Jesuit trained in Portugal who in 1574 was assigned to the mission of the Portuguese colony of Goa, in India, from where he would travel for the most part of Central Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. This traveler and scholar recorded his travels in four manuscripts, of which only two are preserved, the Mongolicae Legationis Commentarius, in Latin, and Relaçam do Equebar, rei dos mogoras, in Portuguese, referring to his stay in the court of the great mogul.

Son of a noble family from Osona, he studied in Barcelona, where he came into contact with Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Fascinated by the life of missionaries, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1558, being sent to Portugal, where he was ordained a priest in 1561. He studied at the University of Coimbra and, in Lisbon, where he was prefect of Sant Roc, founder of the convent of the orphans of Santa Marta, vice-rector of the college of Sant Antoni and preceptor of King Sebastian I of Portugal.