Dom Felice Vaggioli was Italian Benedictine monk who was sent by his Order in 1879 to New Zealand as a young missionary priest. He became absorbed in and fascinated by the country and its people, the Maori. A Papal directive sent in 1883 to Catholic missionaries throughout the world requesting the gathering of artefacts and information concerning indigenous peoples prompted and encouraged Vaggioli to extend and deepen his earlier studies of New Zealand.