ABSTRACT
In 1621, the newly appointed Neapolitan Viceroy, Cardinal Gaspar Borja, ordered that a mission be conducted in the dioceses of Aversa, just outside Naples. According to Jesuit sources, the area had long been the site of vicious factionalism, discord and apparent decline in attention to religious devotion. Just a few years earlier, the Jesuit missionary Carlo D’Orta had written an impassioned letter from Colombia to members of his congregation back in Aversa, imploring them to ‘escape the dangers of sinning, embrace positive occasions, easily pardon those who offend you, and do not pay too much attention to that which will soon pass and be over.’1
