This article analyzes pictorial interpretations of saint Francis Xavier's death and dreams visions, from early seventeenth century until mideighteenth century. If the Jesuit, even before his canonization in 1622, was seen as an Apostle of the East, a change occurred from the second half of the seventeenth century on. To the Asian iconographic indexes were added Africans and Native Americans ones in the depiction of his dreams and death. Through the observation of this imagetic shift the aim is to understand the making of a visual program for Xavier's hagiography, in which a prior and more exclusive relation with the East is surpassed by the efforts of fulfilling a role as the mission ultimate example, also - and specially - for the Americas. It particularly interests how these iconic displacements occurred in the case of the Portuguese Empire and Brazil.
iconography; Saint Francis Xavier; Portuguese Empire
