Jesuit on the Roof of the World: Ippolito Desideri's Mission to Eighteenth-Century TibetJesuit on the Roof of the World is the first full length study in any language of Ippolito Desideri (1684 1733), a Jesuit explorer and missionary who traveled in Tibet from 1715 to 1721. Based on close readings of a wide range of primary sources in Tibetan, Italian, and Latin, Jesuit on the Roof of the World follows Desideri's journey across the great Western deserts of Tibet, his entry into the court of the Mongol chieftain Lhazang Khan, and his