Vasco Calvo

Who is Vasco Calvo?

Vasco Calvo is a character discovered by the narrator of Fernão Mendes Pinto's fantastical memoir Peregrinação. A former member of the ill-fated Portuguese embassy of 1517 to Beijing, capital of the Ming Empire, Calvo has since been living in internal exile in one of the capital's suburbs. The narrator meets him in 1544 while performing prison-labour on the nearby Great Wall.

Calvo has married a woman from a respectable local family; they have two sons and two daughters. The household features a chapel where the exotic Roman faith of the father is maintained and inculcated. The narrator is deeply moved by the chapel's beauty.