Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ippolito Desideri was born on the 21st of December 1684 in Pistoia, a city within the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. His family held a fairly prosperous status under the rule of Grand Duke Cosimo III of the House of Medici.
Ippolito Desideri left Rome on the 27th of September 1712 and traveled through Lisbon, Goa, Surat, Ahmedabad, Rajasthan, and Delhi before reaching Agra on the 15th of September 1714. He arrived in Lhasa on the 18th of March 1716 after a seven-month winter journey across the Tibetan plateau with an armed caravan led by Casal.
Between 1718 and 1721, Ippolito Desideri composed five works written in the Classical Tibetan literary language that sought to refute philosophical concepts such as rebirth and Nihilism or Emptiness. These texts utilized quotations from the dharma and vinaya to support arguments for the superiority of Christian theology over existing Buddhist frameworks.
Italian Capuchin missionaries contested Ippolito Desideri's claims to the territory and petitioned for his expulsion despite helping co-religionists acclimate to the region. The conflict highlighted administrative struggles between different Catholic missionary orders operating within Asia and resulted in an order confirming exclusive rights for the Capuchin Friars on the 29th of November 1732.
Ippolito Desideri died unexpectedly on the 13th of April 1733 at age 48 within the Collegio Romano. Manuscripts containing his monumental works were buried in Jesuit archives and private collections until they came to light in the late 19th century when researchers began examining the stored materials.