• This article is about a fictional character. The real/historical Vasco Calvo was a Portuguese merchant held prisoner by the Ming empire. Not much is known of him beyond the fact of a letter which he managed to get out.

Vasco Calvo is a character discovered by the narrator of Fernão Mendes Pinto

Fernão Mendes Pinto

Fernão Mendes Pinto was a Portuguese explorer and writer. His exploits are known through the posthumous publication of his memoir Pilgrimage in 1614, an autobiographical work whose truthfulness is nearly impossible to assess...

's fantastical memoir Peregrinação ("Pilgrimage", written in the 1570s, published 1614). A former member of the ill-fated Portuguese embassy of 1517 to Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, capital of the Ming Empire

Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...

, 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

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 of the father is maintained and inculcated. The narrator is deeply moved by the chapel's beauty.

Reality

China scholar Jonathan Spence

Jonathan Spence

Jonathan D. Spence is a British-born historian and public intellectual specializing in Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1993 to 2008. His most famous book is The Search for Modern China, which has become one of the standard texts on the last several...

says there is no evidence—nor much likelihood—of any mixed Sino-Euro family until much closer to the end of the 16th century.