Roberto de Nobili (1577-16 January 1656) was a Tuscan Jesuit missionary to Southern India. He pioneered new methods of evangelism (inculturation), adopting many Brahmin customs which were not, in his opinion, contrary to Christianity, in order to get a hearing. This practice was very controversial in the following decades. He first became an expert in Tamil. He studied Sanskrit from a Brahmin teacher Shivadharma. He was eventually able to convert twelve brahmins. He was probably the first European to learn Sanskrit and Tamil, in which he wrote twenty-one religious works.