Letters by the Slovenian Missionary Marcus Antonius Kappus to the Habsburg Monarchy Including the 1701 Map of California as a Peninsula

The book contextualizes and analyzes the unknown or unpublished writings of the Carniolan-Slovenian Jesuit missionary Marcus Antonius Kappus (1657–1717). He is the first Carniolan known to have been sent as a Jesuit missionary to the Spanish Viceroyalty of “Nueva España” in North America. Kappus originally applied to serve as a missionary in the Orient, but was selected and sent to Sonora in Mexico, bordering today with the federal state of Arizona in the United States of America, instead. The book focuses on the social context in Carniola/“Krain” at the time of the late Baroque, particularly on Kappus's colonial letters, written to his superiors, peers, family and friends back home in the Habsburg Empire, before and during his missionary work. The text is complemented by photos, maps, original documents and other visual materials. A central topic of the book is the discussion of the context and process of geographical discovery, and the mapping of California, to which both Eusebio Francisco Kino and, indirectly, also Kappus contributed. The first section of the book discusses his 'Indian letters' (“lettere indipetae”) to the Jesuit order, religious vows taken before his departure, an important letter by Kappus in Spanish, and the map of California drawn by Father Kino, which Kappus sent to Vienna, publicizing Kino's major discovery that California is not an island. Owing to this map, which was later republished many times, the non-insular state of California became known in the Habsburg Monarchy and in Europe. In the second section Kappus's letters from North America home to Carniola/Slovenia, written in Latin and German, are transcribed, translated and analyzed.