Document signed.

4to. 2 pp. on bifolium. In Latin. With papered seal. Highly interesting early version of an oath renouncing the practice of the so-called Chinese rites, written and signed by Adriano di Santa Thecla (1697-1764), a Discalced Augustinian and missionary of the Propaganda Fide destined for Vietnam (East Tonkin), witnessed by Carlo Gaetano Stampa in the archiepiscopal residence in Milan. The oath refers to Pope Clement XI's condemnation of the Chinese rites, an accommodation of Catholicism to Chinese customs and Confucian practice associated with the Jesuit China mission, as officiated in the 1715 Bull "Ex Ille Die". It would later be standardized and required to be sworn by all missionaries in South-East Asia in accordance with the 1742 Bull "Ex Quo Singularis". - Strengthening non-Jesuit missions in China and Vietnam, including the Papal mission of the Propaganda Fide, was an important way to assert control in regions still dominated by the pioneering Jesuit missions, who had long resisted the condemnation of the Chinese rites. Adriano di Santa Thecla did indeed reach his destination in 1738, where, around 1750, he wrote the important "Opusculum de Sectis apud Sinenses et Tunkinenses", the earliest known systematic account of religious practice in Northern Vietnam. It has survived in manuscript form and was first published in 2002. Following the death of bishop Hilario a Costa in 1754, Santa Thecla took temporary charge of the vicariate of East Tonkin until the arrival of the newly appointed Spanish Dominican Santiago Hernández in 1757. A long-running conflict between the Italian Discalced Augustinians and the Spanish Dominicans in East Tonkin culminated in 1763, when Bishop Hernández gave the Italians the choice of either submitting to the authority of the Dominicans or leaving the diocese. Adriano di Santa Thecla was the last Italian Augustinian to remain in East Tonkin, where he died in 1764. - Stampa signed the oath as Vicar general and appointed Archbishop of Milan. Co-signed by the deacon of the Milan Cathedral and Archiepiscopal chancellor Paolo Cernuschi (1691-1746), who would later become Bishop of Como. - Minor browning and minimal foxing.