Diego Collado

Born in Miajadas, in Extremadura, in the late sixteenth century, Diego Collado entered the Dominican Order at Salamanca around 1600. He went to Japan in 1619, when Christianity had already been banned and missionaries were working under constant threat.

After fellow Dominican Luis Flóres was martyred in 1622, Collado traveled to Rome and Spain to argue for the needs of the Asian missions. He later returned to the East with papal and royal backing, though accounts of his final years differ slightly; the most common reports say he died in a shipwreck near the Philippines in 1638.

Collado is especially notable for his writings on Japanese, including a grammar and other language works printed in 1632. These books were meant to help missionaries preach and hear confessions more effectively, and they also gave Europe one of its earliest sustained looks at Japanese language study.