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412 THE AFRICAN ORIGINS OF THE MISSIO ANTIQUA camerieri or cibiculari, but he was killed while trying to land on the Red Sea coast 17 . Santori entered the conclave of 1592 as a very strong candidate for the pa– pal throne. Blocked by the opposition of one faction among the cardinals, he was nevertheless greatly respected by Clement VIII (1592-1605) who supported his initiatives. In 1593 Girolamo Vecchietti, younger brother of Giambattista, was sent to Egypt and while he was there he contacted four Ethiopian monks. The following year Clement was reported to have established "the Congrega– tion of Ethiopia" consisting of four cardinals, headed by Santori 18 • and throughout this period of intense negotiations with Copts in Egypt, contacts were maintained by Girolamo with Ethiopian clerics there. Girolamo was spe– cifically instructed in 1595 that the Coptic patriarch should send to Ethiopia a copy of the proposed act of union with the papacy so that it could be published and observed in that country. Girolamo later claimed that after the act of union and obedience made by the Coptic delegation in Rome in 1597, notification of this was sent to Ethiopia 19 • Following these developments, Clement VIII for– mally appointed in 1599 a congregation of cardinals to be known as the Con– gregation of Propaganda Fide. Meeting regularly in Santori's palace, the congre– gation included two papal nephews, and various prominent reforming cardinals, including Baronio, Federico Borromeo and Bellarmine. Its discussions covered not only the area of Santori's greatest interest, but also Protestant Europe and the overseas missions. Clement's congregation, however, had merely a brief ex– istence. Santori died in 1602 20 , and although the Congregation was reputed still to be functioning in 1605 at the beginning of Paul V's papacy, it appears to have achieved little after Santori's death 21 • Yet its organization and method of working clearly established a precedent for its eventual successor. Africans, in· their continued summons and appeals from Ethiopia together with the· re- 17 The details concerning Britti are in two memoranda written by Girolamo Vecchietti: one is published in C. Beccari, Remm aethiopicamm scriptores occidentales, Rome 1903-1915, XI, 179, and the other, unpublished, is in cod. Vat. Lat. 6723, f. 6. Britti is described as "un gen– tilhuomo di cappa corta", and I am grateful to Father Mariano D'Alatri O.F.M.Cap. for the reference to G. Moroni, Dizjonano di emdizjone ecclesiastica, Venice 1841, VIII, 91 which states that the cubiculari wore a "cappa senza coda, con maniche larghe e carte". 18 B.A.V., cod. Urb. Lat. 1062, £ 334Avviso ofll.VI.1594. 19 B.A.V.. cod. Vat. Lat. 6723, ff. 2-7v. Relazione d'Etiopia. 20 A. Castellucci, If risveglio dell'attivita missionaria e le prime origini della S.C de Propaganda Fide, in Le Conferenze al Laterano, Marzo-Aprile 1923, Rome 1924, 168-189. 21 B.A.V., cod. Urb. Lat. 837, f. 464. Relatione.