Background
Piccolo was born in Palermo, Sicily on 25 March 1654, then part of the Kingdom of Spain.
Piccolo was born in Palermo, Sicily on 25 March 1654, then part of the Kingdom of Spain.
He completed his period of formation and was ordained.
His letters and reports are important sources for the ethnography and early history of the peninsula. He then volunteered for the missions of New Spain
As a consequence, Juan Maria Salvatierra, Society of Jesus (Jesuit), was the lone missionary in establishing Mission Loreto among its Monqui inhabitants in 1697. Piccolo crossed the Gulf of California to be Salvatierra"s assistant about a month later.
Piccolo founded the second Baja California mission, San Francisco Javier, among the Cochimí, in 1699 and served there until 1701, when he abandoned the mission, due to threats from the indigenous population.
He was then transferred to Mission Loreto, where he remained until his death there on 22 February 1729. He conducted several exploratory trips seeking neophytes and future mission sites, including journeys to what would later be Mulegé, Mission Louisiana Purísima and Mission San Ignacio.
His accounts of these travels contain additional ethnographic information on the Cochimí.
During this period, in 1689, he made his final religious profession as a member of the Society.