Asia-Pacific in the Making of the Americas: Toward a Global History

The First Dominicans in Las Filipinas

Although the last of the four main religious order to arrive in Las Filipinas, in 1587, Dominicans, known as Order of Preachers, were the first dedicated to preaching to the sangley; therefore, they were the first to take learning Chinese seriously. Several learned to read and write Chinese in short order, sufficiently well to begin translating works between Spanish and Chinese. Like the Augustinians before them, Dominicans were also intellectually and scientifically inclined. Fray Miguel de Benavides founded the Royal and Pontificate University of Santo Tomás in Manila. It still stands today as a leading institution of higher learning in Manila, holding intact some of Benavides’s books that Dominicans were clearly using in the sixteenth century as they went about their missionary, educational, cultural and scientific work in Manila. They cover medicine, geography, mathematics, astronomy. One of the jewels is a copy of Copernicus’s De revolucionibus orbium coelestium, which had a great impact on the history of science and ideas in Europe. Only several copies of the first edition of this influential work, published in Nuremberg in 1543, exist in the world; one of these rare copies is located in the Santo Tomás library.
 
Other important works deposited by the Dominicans when they founded the university in the sixteenth century and still preserved in the library are: 
  • Dioscorides. De Medica Materia. Cologne, 1529 
  • Vigo, Giovanni. Practica in Arte Chirurgica. Lyon, 1534 
  • Strabon. Geographicum. Libri XVII. Basel, 1539 
  • Lobera de Avila, Luys. Remedio del Cuerpo Humano. Alcalá de Henares, 1542 
  • Copernicus, Nicolaus. De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium. Nuremberg, 1543 
  • Galenus Pergamenus. De Alimentorum Facultatibus Libri Tres. Lyon, 1549
  • Strabon. De Situ Orbis (Graece et Latine). Book XVII. Basel, 1549 
  • Montaña de Monserrato, Bernardino. Libro de Anothomia del Hombre. Valladolid, 
1551 
  • Euclides Megarensis. Philosophia Geometrica Elementa. Venice?, 1557? 
  • Ramusio. Navegationi e Viaggi. Venice, 1565 
  • Dioscorides. Acerca de la Materia, Medicinal y de los Venenos Mortíferos. 
Salamanca, 1570. Translated into Spanish by doctor Andrés de Laguna 
  • Fernellius Ambiannus, Joannes. Universa Medicina. Paris?, 1577 
  • Iunctinus Florentinus, Franciscus. Commentaria in Spheram Ioannis de Sacro 
Bosco Accuratissima. Lyon, 1577 
  • Calendarium Romanum Perpetuum, Toledo, 1578. Edited by Pedro Ruyssius 
  • Piccolomini, Alessandro. Della Sfera del Mondo. Venice?, 1580 
  • Fragoso, Juan. Chirurgia Universal. Alcalá de Henares, 1591 


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