Diego de Pantoja

• Birthplace — Valdemoro, Spain • Place of death — Portuguese Macau • Honorific Prefix — The Reverend • Honorific Suffix — SJ

He joined the Society of Jesus in 1589. He studied at the Plasencia College. He arrived in Portuguese Macau on 20 July 1597, where he received his final instructions for his work in China at St. Paul's College. He was then sent to the Ming dynasty's southern capital, Nanjing, where he stayed from March 1600. He worked with Matteo Ricci, who later completed his work on the Zhifang waiji, China's first global atlas. Together, they left Nanjing on 19 May 1600, and arrived at the Ming dynasty's Northern and overall capital, Beijing, on 24 January 1601. He was the first Westerner to enter the Forbidden City. He worked in Beijing for many years, including as a musician, astronomer (with calendar corrections) and as a geographer (working with latitude). He was able to obtain some land to create a Jesuit cemetery. In 1614 he published Qi Ke which looked at ethics and culture of Catholicism in China. On 18 March 1617 he was tried as an enemy of the Chinese astronomers and was expelled from China, along with his colleague Sabatino de Ursis, and settled in Macao, where he lived for the short time remaining before his death. In recent years, the life and legacy of Diego de Pantoja have become more relevant the government of the People's Republic of China welcomed the Cervantes Institute's proposal and decreed 2018 as "Diego de Pantoja Year" to mark his 400th death anniversary.

Diego de Pantoja is recorded with the occupation astronomer. Recorded as astronomer, cartographer, religious, musician and missionary.