Alexandre de Rhodes was born in
Avignon,
Papal States (now in
France). According to some sources, he was of Jewish origin. His paternal side was from
Aragón, Spain. He entered the
novitiate of the
Society of Jesus in
Rome on 24 April 1612 to dedicate his life to missionary work. In 1624, he was sent to
East Asia, arriving in the
Nguyễn-controlled domain of
Đàng Trong (known to the Europeans as
Cochinchina) on a boat with fellow Jesuit
Girolamo Maiorica. De Rhodes studied Vietnamese under
Francisco de Pina before returning to
Portuguese Macau. Following the successful visit of fellow Jesuits
Giuliano Baldinotti and Julio Koga to
Đàng Ngoài (known to the Europeans as
Tonkin) in 1626, his superior André Palmeiro sent Alexandre de Rhodes and Pero Marques Sr to evangelize the region, within North Vietnam. The two missionaries landed in Thanh Hoá on 19 March 1627 (the Feast of Saint Joseph) and arrived to the capital Thăng Long (nowadays
Hanoi) on 2 July (the
Feast of Visitation). De Rhodes worked there until 1630, when he was forced to leave. During these three years he was in and around the court at Hanoi during the rule of lord
Trịnh Tráng, where he captivated the emperor with gifts such as an intricate clock and a glided volume on
mathematics. It was during that time that he composed the
Ngắm Mùa Chay, a popular Catholic devotion to this day, meditating upon the
Passion of Christ in the Vietnamese language. He was expelled from
Northern Vietnam in 1630 as
Trịnh Tráng became concerned about him being a spy for the
Nguyen clan. Rhodes in his reports said he converted more than 6,000 Vietnamese. Daily conversation in Vietnam "resembles the singing of birds", wrote Alexandre de Rhodes. From Đàng Ngoài Rhodes went to Macau, where he spent ten years. He then returned to Vietnam, this time to Đàng Trong, mainly around
Huế. He spent six years in this part until he aroused the displeasure of lord
Nguyễn Phúc Lan and was condemned to death. , written by Alexandre de Rhodes. ''. As his sentence was reduced to exile, Rhodes returned to Rome by 1649 and pleaded for increased funding for Catholic missions to Vietnam, telling somewhat exaggerated stories about the natural riches to be found in Vietnam. This plea by Alexandre de Rhodes helped to found the
Paris Foreign Missions Society in 1659. As neither the Portuguese nor the Pope showed interest in the project, Alexandre de Rhodes, with
Pope Alexander VII's agreement, found
secular volunteers in Paris in the persons of
François Pallu and
Pierre Lambert de la Motte, the first members of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, who were sent to the Far-East as
Apostolic vicars. Alexandre de Rhodes himself was sent to
Persia instead of back to Vietnam. Rhodes died in
Isfahan,
Persia, in 1660 and was buried in the
New Julfa Armenian Cemetery. with denominations of 15 and 30 centimes, issued in 1943 in recognition of Alexandre de Rhodes' contribution to the development of the latin-based Vietnamese script. In 1943,
French Indochina issued two postage stamps with denominations of 15 and 30 centimes in recognition of his contributions to the development of the
chữ Quốc ngữ script. A series of four postage stamps commemorating the 300th anniversary of the death of Alexandre de Rhodes was issued in the
Republic of Vietnam. The release took place with a delay of one year — on November 5, 1961. , issued in 1961 for the 300th anniversary of the death of Alexandre de Rhodes (1591–1660) In March 2001, to mark the 350th anniversary of the
Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum, Vietnamese painter and nuclear physicist
Nguyen Dinh Dang (born 1958) created the painting "
The Introduction of Roman Writing Into Vietnam (The Transcendental Death of Mr. Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh)", dedicated to Alexandre de Rhodes and Vietnamese intellectual
Nguyen Van Vinh (1882–1936) — a journalist and translator of Western literature who was among the foremost advocates of the
latin-based Vietnamese script in early 20th-century Vietnam. ==Works==