Its popularity may be accounted for in part by the great and unsatisfied demand which existed everywhere in Europe for a comprehensive and authoritative survey of China.
In fact, the authority of this book by Mendoza was so great that it became the point of departure and the basis of comparison for all subsequent European works on China written before the eighteenth century.
Japan, the Maluccas (the Spice Islands), and the Philippines were also included by Mendoza.
The Philippines, their history, indigenous populations, and "conquest by the Spaniards and missionaries" are treated in several places.
For this coverage, he had reports of the first Christian activity in the Philippines by the Order of Saint Augustine, which had begun ten years previously in 1575.
For interesting materials on the Malaccas (the Spice Islands) and Indochina, Mendoza reported, for example, the experiences of men such as the Franciscan, Martin Ignatius de Loyola.
He was a relative of Saint Ignatius Loyola, and served in Asia in 1579.
Before the end of the century this book by Mendoza had been translated into most European languages and had become one of the best-selling books of its day.
Its translation into the Italian language happened in 1586, only one year after initial edition appeared in Spanish at Rome. Two more Italian editions quickly followed.
The rate at which demand for this book increased is indicated by the rapid appearance of nine editions in four major Continental European languages in the following eight years.
It was printed in Italian at Rome during 1585 and again in 1586, in Venice during 1586 and 1588 and 1590; in Spanish in Madrid in 1586 and at Anvers in 1596; in German at Frankfurt during 1589; and in French in Paris during 1589.
On 31st May 1593 Mendoza was appointed Bishop of Lipari, which is a volcanic island off the coast of southern Italy.
He resigned in 1599, and on 7th May 1607 was appointed Bishop of Chiapas (Ciudad Real de Chiapas), Chiapas, México.
On 17th November 1608 he was then transferred, and made the Bishop of Popayán, Colombia (then called New Grenada), where he died in office on 14th February 1618.
He had served on three continents, and had successively been the bishop of three different dioceses on two of these continents.
To have been a bishop of three different dioceses is relatively rare.
In that Philip II of Spain had a direct voice in the appointment of bishops in the colonies of Spain, possibly the fact that Philip knew the Mendoza family in Toledo and knew Juan Mendoza personally caused this to happen without there needing to be any suggestion that Mendoza himself had either wanted or had sought it to happen.
