Matteo Ricci

Venerable

Matteo Ricci

SJ

Born	6 October 1552, Macerata, Papal States
Died	11 May 1610, Beijing, Ming China
State of life	Professed Jesuit priest; missionary; scholar
Religious institute	Society of Jesus
Ecclesial status	Venerable; heroic virtues recognized on 17 December 2022
Recognition	Heroic virtues decreed in 2022

Matteo Ricci was an Italian Jesuit priest, documented as S.J., mathematician, writer, and missionary whose language study and cultural friendship served the Gospel in Ming China.

Overview

Matteo Ricci SJ (Italian: [matˈtɛːo ˈrittʃi]; Latin: Matthaeus Riccius; Chinese: 利玛窦; pinyin: Lì Mǎdòu; 6 October 1552 – 11 May 1610) was an Italian Jesuit who served in the court of Ming dynasty China and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China missions. He created the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, a 1602 world map written in Chinese characters. In 2022, the Apostolic See declared its recognition of Ricci's heroic virtue, thereby bestowing upon him the honorific of a Venerable.

Ricci arrived at the Portuguese settlement of Macau in 1582 where he began his missionary work in China. He mastered the Chinese language and writing system. He became the first European to enter the Forbidden City of Beijing in 1601 when invited by the Wanli Emperor, who sought his services in matters such as court astronomy and calendrical science. He emphasized parallels between Catholicism and Confucianism but opposed Buddhism. He converted several prominent Chinese officials to Catholicism. He also worked with several Chinese elites, such as Xu Guangqi, in translating Euclid's Elements into Chinese as well as the Confucian classics into Latin for the first time in history.

Life

Ricci was born on 6 October 1552 in Macerata, part of the Papal States and today a city in the Italian region of Marche. He studied the classics in his native hometown and studied law at Rome for two years. He entered the Society of Jesus in April 1571 at the Roman College. While there, in addition to philosophy and theology, he also studied mathematics, cosmology, and astronomy under the direction of Christopher Clavius. In 1577, he applied for a missionary expedition to the Far East. He sailed from Lisbon, Portugal, in March 1578 and arrived in Goa, a Portuguese colony, the following September. Ricci remained employed in teaching and the ministry there until the end of Lent 1582 when he was summoned to Macau to prepare to enter China. Ricci arrived in Macau in the early part of August.

Origins and formation

Ricci studied in Rome and entered the Society of Jesus in 1571, receiving scientific formation at the Roman College under Christopher Clavius. Sent toward Asia in 1578, he completed theology and received Holy Orders in India before reaching Macau. He studied Chinese language, classical texts, etiquette, geography, and philosophy, recognizing that missionary credibility required disciplined learning rather than assuming European customs were identical with the Catholic Church's faith.

Vocation and service

From Zhaoqing through Nanchang and Nanjing to Beijing, Ricci formed relationships with scholars, officials, and converts. He first dressed as a Buddhist monk, then adopted the attire of a Confucian literatus as his understanding improved. Maps, clocks, mathematics, memory techniques, translations, and works such as The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven opened conversations in which natural reason, ethics, and Christian revelation could meet.

Ricci in China

In August 1582, Ricci arrived at Macau, a Portuguese trading post on the South China Sea.^{: 79} At the time, Christian missionary activity in China was almost completely limited to Macau, where some of the local Chinese people had converted to Christianity. Three years before, Michele Ruggieri was invited from Portuguese India expressly to study Chinese, by Alessandro Valignano, founder of St. Paul Jesuit College (Macau), and to prepare for the Jesuits' mission from Macau into Mainland China.

Once in Macau, Ricci studied the Chinese language and customs. It was the beginning of a long project that made him one of the first Western scholars to master the Chinese script and Classical Chinese. With Ruggieri, he travelled to Guangdong's major cities, Canton and Zhaoqing (then the residence of the Viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi), seeking to establish a permanent Jesuit mission outside Macau.

In 1583, Ricci and Ruggieri settled in Zhaoqing, at the invitation of the governor of Zhaoqing, Wang Pan, who had heard of Ricci's skill as a mathematician and cartographer. Ricci stayed in Zhaoqing from 1583 to 1589, when he was expelled by a new viceroy. It was in Zhaoqing, in 1584, that Ricci composed the first European-style world map in Chinese, called "Da Ying Quan Tu" (Chinese: 大瀛全圖; lit. 'Complete Map of the Great World'). No prints of the 1584 map are known to exist, but, of the much improved and expanded Kunyu Wanguo Quantu of 1602, six recopied, rice-paper versions survive.

It is thought that, during their time in Zhaoqing, Ricci and Ruggieri compiled a Portuguese-Chinese dictionary, the first in any European language, for which they developed a system for transcribing Chinese words in the Latin alphabet. The manuscript was misplaced in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, rediscovered only in 1934, and published only in 2001.

There is now a memorial plaque in Zhaoqing to commemorate Ricci's six-year stay there, as well as a "Ricci Memorial Centre" in a building dating from the 1860s.

Expelled from Zhaoqing in 1588, Ricci obtained permission to relocate to Shaoguan (Shaozhou, in Ricci's account) in the north of the province, and reestablish his mission there.

Further travels saw Ricci reach Nanjing (Ming's southern capital) and Nanchang in 1595. In August 1597, Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606), his superior, appointed him Major Superior of the mission in China, with the rank and powers of a Provincial, a charge that he fulfilled until his death. He moved to Tongzhou (a port of Beijing) in 1598, and first reached the capital Beijing itself on 7 September 1598. However, because of a Chinese intervention against the Japanese invasion of Korea at the time, Ricci could not reach the Imperial Palace. After waiting for two months, he left Beijing; first for Nanjing and then Suzhou in Southern Zhili Province.

During the winter of 1598, Ricci, with the help of his Jesuit colleague Lazzaro Cattaneo, compiled another Chinese-Portuguese dictionary, in which tones in Chinese syllables were indicated in Roman text with diacritical marks. Unlike Ricci's and Ruggieri's earlier Portuguese-Chinese dictionary, this work has not been found.

In 1601, Ricci was invited to become an adviser to the imperial court of the Wanli Emperor, the first Westerner to be invited into the Forbidden City. This honor was in recognition of Ricci's scientific abilities, chiefly his predictions of solar eclipses, which were significant events in the Chinese world. He established the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Beijing, the oldest Catholic church in the city. Ricci was given free access to the Forbidden City but never met the reclusive Wanli Emperor, who, however, granted him patronage, with a generous stipend and supported Ricci's completion of the Zhifang Waiji, China's first global atlas.

Once established in Beijing, Ricci was able to meet important officials and leading members of the Beijing cultural scene and convert a number of them to Christianity, the most prominent being leading agronomist Xu Guangqi.

Ricci was also the first European to learn about the Kaifeng Jews, being contacted by a member of that community who was visiting Beijing in 1605. Ricci never visited Kaifeng, Henan Province, but he sent a junior missionary there in 1608, the first of many such missions. In fact, the elderly Chief Rabbi of the Jews was ready to cede his power to Ricci, as long as he gave up eating pork, but Ricci never accepted the position.

Ricci died on 11 May 1610, in Beijing, aged 57. By the code of the Ming Dynasty, foreigners who died in China had to be buried in Macau. Diego de Pantoja made a special plea to the court, requesting a burial plot in Beijing, in the light of Ricci's contributions to China. The Wanli Emperor granted this request and designated a Buddhist temple for the purpose. In October 1610, Ricci's remains were transferred there. The graves of Ferdinand Verbiest, Johann Adam Schall von Bell, and other missionaries are also there, and it became known as the Zhalan Cemetery, which is today located within the campus of the Beijing Administrative College, in Xicheng District, Beijing.

Ricci was succeeded as Provincial Superior of the China mission by Nicolò Longobardo in 1610. Longobardo entrusted another Jesuit, Nicolas Trigault, with expanding and editing, as well as translating into Latin, those of Ricci's papers that were found in his office after his death. This work was first published in 1615 in Augsburg as De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas and soon was translated into a number of other European languages.

Christian witness

Ricci's accommodation distinguished civil reverence for ancestors and Confucius from worship owed to God, a judgment later entangled in the Chinese Rites controversy. His prudential conclusions were not themselves canonized by the decree on his virtues. They remain historically and theologically important because they sought genuine inculturation: receiving what is true in a culture, correcting what is incompatible with faith, and allowing local Christians to become agents of evangelization.

He lived at Beijing with imperial permission but never met the Wanli Emperor in person. Ricci collaborated with Chinese Catholics including Xu Guangqi, sustained communities through correspondence and visitation, and died on 11 May 1610. The exceptional grant of burial land near Beijing symbolized respect for his learning. His legacy belongs to Chinese Christian history, not merely to a European story of discovery.

Ecclesial recognition

Cause and present status

The Diocese of Macerata pursued Ricci's historical cause and submitted its documentation to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. Pope Francis authorized the decree recognizing heroic virtues on 17 December 2022, granting him the title Venerable. As of 30 August 2026 he has not been beatified. Diplomatic praise, scholarly fame, or use of the title 'apostle of China' does not confer a higher canonical status.

Liturgical and devotional scope

The heroic-virtues decree does not authorize public liturgical cult or a feast for Matteo Ricci. Catholics may privately ask his intercession and pray for his beatification, while cultural institutes and memorials remain historical rather than liturgical honors. His S.J. postnominal should link to the Society of Jesus, and devotion should support respectful evangelization, intellectual honesty, and friendship rather than civilizational triumphalism.

Ricci's approach to Chinese culture

Ricci could speak Chinese as well as read and write classical Chinese, the literary language of scholars and officials. He was known for his appreciation of Chinese culture in general but condemned the prostitution which was widespread in Beijing at the time. He also called the Chinese "barbarians" in letters back home to his friends, and opposed what he considered to be anti-Black prejudice among the populace. He noted this, however, in the context of his function as a slave catcher for the Portuguese. (Ricci himself also owned African slaves.)

During his research, he discovered that in contrast to the cultures of South Asia, Chinese culture was strongly intertwined with Confucian values and therefore decided to use existing Chinese concepts to explain Christianity. With his superior Valignano's formal approval, he aligned himself with the Confucian intellectually elite literati, and even adopted their mode of dress. He did not explain the Catholic faith as entirely foreign or new; instead, he said that the Chinese culture and people always believed in God and that Christianity is the completion of their faith,^{: 323} and explained the tenets of the Catholic faith through existing Chinese precepts and practices.^{: 79} He borrowed an unusual Chinese term, Tiānzhǔ (天主, "Lord of Heaven") to describe the God of Abraham, despite the term's origin in traditional Chinese worship of Heaven. (He also cited many synonyms from the Confucian Classics.)

Ricci took an accommodating approach on various Chinese practices, including rituals such as ancestor worship.^{: 81}Dominican and Franciscan missionaries considered this an unacceptable accommodation and later appealed to the Vatican on the issue.^{: 324} This Chinese rites controversy continued for centuries. In 1721, fallout from the controversy led the Kangxi emperor to expel the Jesuits.^{: 81} The Vatican's most recent statement on the Chinese rites controversy came in 1939. Some contemporary authors have praised Ricci as an exemplar of beneficial inculturation, avoiding at the same time distorting the Gospel message or neglecting the indigenous cultural media.

Like developments in India, the identification of European culture with Christianity led almost to the end of Catholic missions in China, but Christianity continued to grow in Sichuan and some other locations.^{: 324}

Xu Guangqi and Ricci became the first two to translate some of the Confucian classics into a Western language, Latin.

Ricci also met a Korean emissary to China, teaching the basic tenets of Catholicism and donating several books. Along with João Rodrigues's gifts to the ambassador Jeong Duwon in 1631, Ricci's gifts influenced the creation of Korea's Silhak movement.

Beatification process

The cause of his beatification opened in 1984, was reopened on 24 January 2010, at the cathedral of the Italian diocese of Macerata-Tolentino-Recanati-Cingoli-Treia. Bishop Claudio Giuliodori, the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Macerata, formally closed the diocesan phase of the process on 10 May 2013. The cause moved to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 2014. Pope Francis issued a decree on 17 December 2022 that Ricci had lived a life of heroic virtue, thus conferring on him the title of a Venerable.

Commemoration

Ricci is often commemorated as a symbol of cross-cultural understanding, particularly in the Sinosphere. The following places and institutions are named after Ricci:

• Matteo Ricci Pacific Studies Reading Room at The National Central Library of Taiwan
• Ricci Hall, a dormitory at The University of Hong Kong
• Ricci Building, a building at Wah Yan College, Kowloon in Hong Kong
• The Matteo Ricci Study Hall, at the Ateneo de Manila University
• Matteo Ricci College, Kowloon in Hong Kong
• Matteo Ricci College, at Seattle University
• Colégio Mateus Ricci, Macau
• Sekolah Katolik Ricci 1 and 2 in Jakarta, Indonesia
• Taipei Ricci Institute, Taiwan
• Macau Ricci Institute, Macau
• Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at Boston College.
• The Matteo Ricci Seminar and Matteo Ricci Award at Fordham University
• Centro Matteo Ricci, a centre for refugees and asylum seekers run by the Italian branch of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Rome, Italy
• Matteo Ricci Hall-"R" Hall, Ricci Hall Annex-"RA" Hall, two buildings at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea

In 2010, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Matteo Ricci's death, the Italy Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo in China commissioned Italian sculptor Dionisio Cimarelli to create a monumental bust in his honor. This sculpture was later exhibited for about two years at the Italian Embassy in Beijing. Subsequently, the Marche Regional Government purchased the work, while the original model is now permanently exhibited at the main entrance of the Italian Consulate in Shanghai.

In the run-up to the 400th anniversary of Ricci's death, the Vatican Museums hosted a major exhibit dedicated to his life. Additionally, Italian film director Gjon Kolndrekaj produced a 60-minute documentary about Ricci, released in 2009, titled Matteo Ricci: A Jesuit in the Dragon's Kingdom, filmed in Italy and China.

In Taipei, the Taipei Ricci Institute and the National Central Library of Taiwan opened jointly the Matteo Ricci Pacific Studies Reading Room and the Taipei-based online magazine eRenlai, directed by Jesuit Benoît Vermander, dedicated its June 2010 issue to the commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Ricci's death.

Works

The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven

The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (天主實義) is a book written by Ricci, which argues that Confucianism and Christianity are not opposed and in fact are remarkably similar in key respects. It was written in the form of a dialogue, originally in Chinese. Ricci used the treatise in his missionary effort to convert Chinese literati, men who were educated in Confucianism and the Chinese classics. In the Chinese Rites controversy, some Roman-Catholic missionaries raised the question of whether Ricci and other Jesuits had gone too far and changed Christian beliefs to win converts.

Peter Phan argues that True Meaning was used by a Jesuit missionary to Vietnam, Alexandre de Rhodes, in writing a catechism for Vietnamese Christians. In 1631, Girolamo Maiorica and Bernardino Reggio, both Jesuit missionaries to Vietnam, started a short-lived press in Thăng Long (present-day Hanoi) to print copies of True Meaning and other texts. The book was also influential on later Protestant missionaries to China, James Legge and Timothy Richard, and through them John Nevius, John Ross, and William Edward Soothill, all influential in establishing Protestantism in China and Korea.

Other works

Ricci translated various European scientific works into Chinese.^{: 79} Other works by Ricci include:

• De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas: the journals of Ricci that were completed and translated into Latin by another Jesuit, Nicolas Trigault, soon after Ricci's death. Available in various editions:
  • Trigault, Nicolas S. J. "China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Mathew Ricci: 1583–1610". English translation by Louis J. Gallagher, S.J. (New York: Random House, Inc. 1953)
  • On Chinese Government, an excerpt from Chapter One of Gallagher's translation
  • De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas, full Latin text, available on Google Books
  • A discourse of the Kingdome of China, taken out of Ricius and Trigautius, containing the countrey, people, government, religion, rites, sects, characters, studies, arts, acts; and a Map of China added, drawne out of one there made with Annotations for the understanding thereof (an early English translation of excerpts from De Christiana expeditione) in Purchas his Pilgrimes (1625). Can be found in the "Hakluytus posthumus". The book also appears on Google Books, but only in snippet view.
• An excerpt from The Art of Printing by Matteo Ricci
• Ricci's On Friendship published in Chinese in 1595, translated to English in 2009.
• Ricci's World Map of 1602.
• Rare 1602 World Map, the First Map in Chinese to Show the Americas, on Display at Library of Congress, 12 Jan to 10 April 2010
• The Chinese translation of the ancient Greek mathematical treatise Euclid's Elements (幾何原本), published and printed in 1607 by Matteo Ricci and his Chinese colleague Xu Guangqi
• The Ershiwu Yan or Book of Twenty-Five Paragraphs. A moral treatise published in 1605, the text is a highly redacted and adapted version of the Enchiridion by Epictetus. Ricci took the core ideas from the Enchiridion and condensed them into twenty-five sections. The text is a blend of Stoic philosophy, Christian theology, and Confucian ethics that influenced Chinese converts to Catholicism.

See also

• Christianity in China
• Jesuit China missions
• Religion in China
• Three Pillars of Chinese Catholicism

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Matteo Ricci — Founder of the Catholic missions of China, b. at Macerata in the Papal States, 6 Oct. 1552; d. at Peking, 11 May, 1610.

Ricci made his classical studies in his native town, studied law at Rome for two years, and on 15 Aug., 1571, entered the Society of Jesus at the Roman College, where he made his novitiate, and philosophical and theological studies. While there he also devoted his attention to mathematics, cosmology, and astronomy under the direction of the celebrated Father Christopher Clavius. In 1577 he asked to be sent on the missions in Farthest Asia, and his request being granted he embarked at Lisbon, 24 March, 1578. Arriving at Goa, the capital of the Portuguese Indies, on 13 Sept. of this year, he was employed there and at Cochin in teaching and the ministry until the end of Lent, 1582, when Father Alessandro Valignani (who had been his novice-master at Rome but who since August, 1573, was in charge of all the Jesuit missions in the East Indies) summoned him to Macao to prepare to enter China. Father Ricci arrived at Macao on 7 August, 1582.

Beginning of the Mission

In the sixteenth century nothing remained of the Christian communities founded in China by the Nestorian missionaries in the seventh century and by the Catholic monks in the thirteenth and fourteenth (see CHINA). Moreover it is doubtful whether the native Chinese population was ever seriously affected by this ancient evangelisation. For those desiring to resume the work everything therefore remained to be done, and the obstacles were greater than formerly. After the death of St. Francis Xavier (27 November, 1552) many fruitless attempts had been made. The first missionary to whom Chinese barriers were temporarily lowered was the Jesuit, Melchior Nuñez Barreto, who twice went as far as Canton, where he spent a month each time (1555). A Dominican, Father Gaspar da Cruz, was also admitted to Canton for a month, but he also had to refrain from "forming a Christian Christianity". Still others, Jesuits, Augustinians, and Fransciscans in 1568, 1575, 1579, and 1582 touched on Chinese soil, only to be forced, sometimes with ill treatment, to withdraw. To Father Valignani is due the credit of having seen what prevented all these undertakings from having lasting results. The attempts had hitherto been made haphazard, with men insufficiently prepared and incapable of profiting by favourable circumstances had they encountered them. Father Valignani substituted the methodical attack with previous careful selection of missionaries who, the field once open, would implant Christianity there. To this end he first summoned to Macao Father Michele de Ruggieri, who had also come to India from Italy in 1578. Only twenty years had elapsed since the Portuguese had succeeded in establishing their colony at the portals of China, and the Chinese, attracted by opportunities for gain, were flocking thither. Ruggieri reached Macao in July, 1579, and, following the given orders applied himself wholly to the study of the Mandarin language, that is, Chinese, as it is spoken throughout the empire by the officials and the educated. His progress, though very slow, permitted him to labour with more fruit than his predecessors in two sojourns at Canton (1580-81) allowed him by an unwonted complacency of the mandarins. Finally, after many untoward events, he was authorized (10 Sept., 1583) to take up his residence with Father Ricci at Chao-k'ing, the administrative capital of Canton.

Method of the Missionaries

The exercise of great prudence alone enabled the missionaries to remain in the region which they had had such difficulty in entering. Omitting all mention at first of their intention to preach the Gospel, they declared to the mandarins who questioned them concerning their object "that they were religious who had left their country in the distant West because of the renown of the good government of China, where they desired to remain till their death, serving god, the Lord of Heaven". Had they immediately declared their intention to preach a new religion, they would never have been received; this would have clashed with Chinese pride, which would not admit that China had anything to learn from foreigners, and it would have especially alarmed their politics, which beheld a national danger in every innovation. However, the missionaries never hid their Faith nor the fact that they were Christian priests. As soon as they were established at Chao-k'ing they placed in a conspicuous part of their house a picture of the Blessed Virgin with the Infant Jesus in her arms. Visitors seldom failed to inquire the meaning of this, to them, novel representation, and the missionaries profited thereby to give them a first idea of Christianity. The missionaries assumed the initiative in speaking of their religion as soon as they had sufficiently overcome Chinese antipathy and distrust to see their instructions desired, or at least to be certain of making them understood without shocking their listeners. They achieved this result by appealing to the curiosity of the Chinese, by making them feel, without saying so, that the foreigners had something new and interesting to teach; to this end they made use of the European things they had brought with them. Such were large and small clocks, mathematical and astronomical instruments, prisms revealing the various colours, musical instruments, oil paintings and prints, cosmographical, geographical, and architectural works with diagrams, maps, and views of towns and buildings, large volumes, magnificently printed and splendidly bound, etc.

The Chinese, who had hitherto fancied that outside of their country only barbarism existed, were astounded. Rumours of the wonders displayed by the religious from the West soon spread on all sides, and thenceforth their house was always filled, especially with mandarins and the educated. It followed, says Father Ricci, that "all came by degrees to have with regard to our countries, our people, and especially of our educated men, an idea vastly different from that which they had hitherto entertained". This impression was intensified by the explanations of the missionaries concerning their little museum in reply to the numerous questions of their visitors.

One of the articles which most aroused their curiosity was a map of the world. The Chinese had already had maps, called by their geographers "descriptions of the world", but almost the entire space was filled by the fifteen provinces of China, around which were painted a bit of sea and a few islands on which were inscribed the names of countries of which they had heard — all together was not as large as a small Chinese province. Naturally the learned men of Chao-k'ing immediately protested when Father Ricci pointed out the various parts of the world on the European map and when they saw how small a part China played. But after the missionaries had explained its construction and the care taken by the geographers of the West to assign to each country its actual position and boundaries, the wisest of them surrendered to the evidence, and beginning with the Governor of Chao-k'ing, all urged the missionary to make a copy of his map with the names and inscriptions in Chinese. Ricci drew a larger map of the world on which he wrote more detailed inscriptions, suited to the needs of the Chinese; when the work was completed the governor had it printed, giving all the copies as presents to his friends in the province and at a distance. Father Ricci does not hesitate to say: "This was the most useful work that could be done at that time to dispose China to give credence to the things of our holy Faith.... Their conception of the greatness of their country and of the insignificance of all other lands made them so proud that the w hole world seemed to them savage and barbarous compared with themselves; it was scarcely to be expected that they, while entertaining this idea, would heed foreign masters." But now numbers were eager to learn of European affairs from the missionaries, who profited by these dispositions to introduce religion more frequently with their explanations. For example, their beautiful Bibles and the paintings and prints depicting religious subjects, monuments, churches, etc., gave them an opportunity of speaking of "the good customs in the countries of the Christians, of the falseness of idolatry, of the conformity of the law of God with natural reason and similar teachings found in the writings of the ancient sages of China". This last instance shows that Father Ricci already knew how to draw from his Chinese studies testimony favourable to the religion which he was to preach.

It was soon evident to the missionaries that their remarks regarding religion were no less interesting to many of their visitors than their Western curiosities and learning, and, to satisfy those who wished to learn more, they distributed leaflets containing a Chinese translation of the Ten Commandments, an abbreviation of the moral code much appreciated by the Chinese, composed a small catechism in which the chief points of Christian doctrine were explained in a dialogue between a pagan and a European priest. This work, printed about 1584, was also well received, the highest mandarins of the province considering themselves honoured to receive it as a present. The missionaries distributed hundreds and thousands of copies and thus "the good odour of our Faith began to be spread throughout China". Having begun their direct apostolate in this manner, they furthered it not a little by their edifying regular life, their disinterestedness, their charity, and their patience under persecutions which often destroyed the fruits of their labours.

Development of the Missions

Father Ricci played the chief part in these early attempts to make Christianity known to the Chinese. In 1607 Father Ruggieri died in Europe, where he had been sent in 1588 by Father Valignani to interest the Holy See more particularly in the missions. Left alone with a young priest, a pupil rather than an assistant, Ricci was expelled from Chao-k'ing in 1589 by a viceroy of Canton who had found the house of the missionaries suited to his own needs; but the mission had taken root too deeply to be exterminated by the ruin of its first home. Thenceforth in whatever town Ricci sought a new field of apostolate he was preceded by his reputation and he found powerful friends to protect him. He first went to Shao-chow, also in the province of Canton, where he dispensed with the services of interpreters and adopted the costume of the educated Chinese. In 1595 he made an attempt on Nan-king, the famous capital in the south of China, and, though unsuccessful, it furnished him with an opportunity of forming a Christian Church at Nan-ch'ang, capital of Kiang-si, which was so famous for the number and learning of its educated men. In 1598 he made a bold but equally fruitless attempt to establish himself at Peking. Forced to return to Nan-king on 6 Feb., 1599, he found Providential compensation there; the situation had changed completely since the preceding year, and the highest mandarins were desirous of seeing the holy doctor from the West take up his abode in their city. Although his zeal was rewarded with much success in this wider field, he constantly longed to repair his repulse at Peking. He felt that the mission was not secure in the provinces until it was established and authorized in the capital. On 18 May, 1600, Ricci again set out for Peking and, when all human hope of success was lost, he entered on 24 January, 1601, summoned by Emperor Wan-li.

Last Labours

Ricci's last nine years were spent at Peking, strengthening his work with the same wisdom and tenacity of purpose which had conducted it so far. The imperial goodwill was gained by gifts of European curiosities, especially the map of the world, from which the Asiatic ruler learned for the first time the true situation of his empire and the existence of so many other different kingdoms and peoples; he required Father Ricci to make a copy of it for him in his palace. At Peking, as at Nan-king and elsewhere, the interest of the most intelligent Chinese was aroused chiefly by the revelations which the European teacher made to them in the domain of the sciences, even those in which they considered themselves most proficient. Mathematics and astronomy, for example, had from time immemorial formed a part of the institutions of the Chinese Government, but, when they listened to Father Ricci, even the men who knew most had to acknowledge how small and how mingled with errors was their knowledge. But this recognition of their ignorance and their esteem for European learning, of which they had just got a glimpse, impelled very few Chinese to make serious efforts to acquire this knowledge, their attachment to tradition or the routine of national teaching being too deep-rooted. However, the Chinese governors, who even at the present day have made no attempt at reform in this matter, did not wish to deprive the country of all the advantages of European discoveries. To procure them recourse had to be had to the missionaries, and thus the Chinese mission from Ricci's time until the end of the eighteenth century found its chief protection in the services performed with the assistance of European learning. Father Ricci made use of profane science only to prepare the ground and open the way to the apostolate properly so called. With this object in view he employed other means, which made a deep impression on the majority of the educated class, and especially on those who held public offices. He composed under various forms adapted to the Chinese taste little moral treatises, e.g., that called by the Chinese "The Twenty-five Words", because in twenty-five short chapters it treated "of the mortification of the passions and the nobility of virtue". Still greater admiration was aroused by the "Paradoxes", a collection of practical sentences, useful to a moral life, familiar to Christians but new to the Chinese, which Ricci developed with accounts of examples, comparisons, and extracts from the Scriptures and from Christian philosophers and doctors. Not unreasonably proud of their rich moral literature, the Chinese were greatly surprised to see a stranger succeed so well; they could not refrain from praising his exalted doctrine, and the respect which they soon acquired for the Christian writings did much to dissipate their distrust of strangers and to render them kindly disposed towards the Christian religion.

But the book through which Ricci exercised the widest and most fortunate influence was his "T'ien-chu-she-i" (The True Doctrine of God). This was the little catechism of Chao-k'ing which had been delivered from day to day, corrected and improved as occasion offered, until it finally contained all the matter suggested by long years of experience in the apostolate. The truths which must be admitted as the necessary preliminary to faith — the existence and unity of God, the creation, the immortality of the soul, reward or punishment in a future life — are here demonstrated by the best arguments from reason, while the errors most widespread in China, especially the worship of idols and the belief in the transmigration of souls, are successfully refuted. To the testimony furnished by Christian philosophy and theology Ricci added numerous proofs from the ancient Chinese books which did much to win credit for his work. A masterpiece of apologetics and controversy, the "T'ien-chu-she-i", rightfully became the manual of the missionaries and did most effacacious missionary work. Before its author's death it had been reprinted at least four times, and twice by the pagans. It led countless numbers to Christianity, and aroused esteem for our religion in those readers whom it did not convert. The perusal of it induced Emperor K'ang-hi to issue his edict of 1692 granting liberty to preach the Gospel. The Emperor Kien-long, although he persecuted the Christians, ordered the "T'ien-chu-she-i" to be placed in his library with his collection of the most notable productions of the Chinese language. Even to the present time missionaries have experienced its beneficent influence, which was not confined to China, being felt also in Japan, Tong-king, and other countries tributary to Chinese literature.

Besides the works intended especially for the infidels and the catechumens whose initiation was in progress, Father Ricci wrote others for the new Christians. As founder of the mission he had to invent formulae capable of expressing clearly and unequivocally our dogmas and rites in a language which had hitherto never been put to such use (except for the Nestorian use, with which Ricci was not acquainted). It was a delicate and difficult task, but it formed only a part of the heavy burden which the direction of the mission was for Father Ricci, particularly during his last years. While advancing gradually on the capital Ricci did not abandon the territory already conquered; he trained in his methods the fellow-workers who joined him and commissioned them to continue his work in the cities he left. Thus in 1601, the mission included, besides Peking, the three residences of Nan-king, Nan-ch'ang, Shao-chow, to which was added in 1608 that of Shang-hai. In each of these there were two or three missionaries with "brothers", Chinese Christians from Macao who had been received into the Society of Jesus, and who served the mission as catechists. Although as yet the number of Christians was not very great (2000 baptized in 1608), Father Ricci in his "Memoirs" has said well that considering the obstacles to the entrance of Christianity into China the result was "a very great miracle of Divine Omnipotence". To preserve and increase the success already obtained, it was necessary that the means which had already proved efficacious should continue to be employed; everywhere and always the missionaries, without neglecting the essential duties of the Christian apostolate, had to adapt their methods to the special conditions of the country, and avoid unnecessary attacks on traditional customs and habits. The application of this undeniably sound policy was often difficult. In answer to the doubts of his fellow-workers Father Ricci outlined rules, which received the approval of Father Valignano; these insured the unity and fruitful efficacy of the apostolic work throughout the mission.

Question of the Divine Names and the Chinese Rites

The most difficult problem in the evangelization of China had to do with the rites or ceremonies, in use from time immemorial, to do honour to ancestors or deceased relatives and the particular tokens of respect which the educated felt bound to pay to their master, Confucius. Ricci's solution of this problem caused a long and heated controversy in which the Holy See finally decided against him. The discussion also dealt with the use of the Chinese terms T'ien (heaven) and Shang-ti (Sovereign Lord) to designate God; here also the custom established by Father Ricci had to be corrected. The following is a short history of this famous controversy which was singularly complicated and embittered by passion. With regard to the designations for God, Ricci always preferred, and employed from the first, the term T'ien chu (Lord of Heaven) for the God of Christians; as had been seen, he used it in the title of his catechism. But in studying the most ancient Chinese books he considered it established that they said of T'ien (Heaven) and Shang-ti (Sovereign Lord) what we say of the true God, that is, they described under these two names a sovereign lord of spirits and men who knows all that takes place in the world, the source of all power and all lawful authority, the supreme regulator and defender of the moral law, rewarding those who observe and punishing those who violate it. Hence he concluded that, in the most revered monuments of China, T'ien and Shang'ti designate nothing else than the true God whom he himself preached. Ricci maintained this opinion in several passages of his T'ien-chu-she-i; it will be readily understood of what assistance it was to destroy Chinese prejudices against the Christian religion. It is true that, in drawing this conclusion, Ricci had to contradict the common interpretation of modern scholars who follow Chu-Hi in referring T'ien and Shang-ti to apply to the material heaven; but he showed that this material interpretation does not do justice to the texts and it is at least reasonable to see in them something better. In fact he informs us that the educated Confucianists, who did not adore idols, were grateful to him for interpreting the words of their master with such goodwill. Indeed, Ricci's opinion has been adopted and confirmed by illustrious modern Sinologists, amongst whom it suffices to mention James Legge ("The Notions of the Chinese concerning God and Spirits", 1852; "A Letter to Prof. Max Muller chiefly on the Translation of the Chinese terms Ti and Chang-ti", 1880).

Therefore it was not without serious grounds that the founder of the Chinese mission and his successors believed themselves justified in employing the terms T'ien and Shang-ti as well as T'ien-chu to designate the true God. However, there were objections to this practice even among the Jesuits, the earliest rising shortly after the death of Father Ricci and being formulated by the Japanese Jesuits. In the ensuing discussion carried on in various writings for and against, which did not circulate beyond the circle of the missionaries only one of those working in China declared himself against the use of the name Shang-ti. This was Father Nicholas Longobardi, Ricci's successor as superior general of the mission, who, however, did not depart in anything from the lines laid down by its founder. After allowing the question to be discussed for some years, the superior ordered the missionaries to abide simply by the custom of Father Ricci; later this custom together with the rites was submitted to the judgment of the Holy See. In 1704 and 1715 Clement XI, without pronouncing as to the meaning of T'ien and Shang-ti in the ancient Chinese books, forbade, as being open to misconstruction, the use of these names to indicate the true God, and permitted only the T'ien-chu. Regarding the rites and ceremonies in honour of ancestors and Confucius, Father Ricci was also of the opinion that a broad toleration was permissible without injury to the purity of the Christian religion. Moreover, the question was of the utmost importance for the progress of the apostolate. To honour their ancestors and deceased parents by traditional prostrations and sacrifices was in the eyes of the Chinese the gravest duty of filial piety, and one who neglected it was treated by all his relatives as an unworthy member of his family and nation. Similar ceremonies in honour of Confucius were an indispensable obligation for scholars, so that they could not receive any literary degree nor claim any public office without having fulfilled it. This law still remains inviolable; Kiang-hi, the emperor who showed most goodwill towards the Christians, always refused to set it aside in their favour. In modern times the Chinese Government showed no more favour to the ministers of France, who, in the name of the treaties guaranteeing the liberty of Catholicism in China, claimed for the Christians who had passed the examinations, the titles and advantages of the corresponding degrees without the necessity of going through the ceremonies; the Court of Peking invariably replied that this was a question of national tradition on which it was impossible to compromise.

After having carefully studied what the Chinese classical books said regarding these rites, and after having observed for a long time the practice of them and questioned numerous scholars of every rank with whom he was associated during this eighteen years of apostolate, Ricci was convinced that these rites had no religious significance, either in their institution or in their practice by the enlightened classes. The Chinese, he said, recognized no divinity in Confucius any more than in their deceased ancestors; they prayed to neither; the made no requests nor expected any extraordinary intervention from them. In fact they only did for them what they did for the living to whom they wished to show great respect. "The honour they pay to their parents consists in serving them dead as they did living. They do not for this reason think that the dead come to eat their offerings [the flesh, fruit, etc.] or need them. They declare that they act in this manner because they know no other way of showing their love and gratitude to their ancestors.... Likewise what they do [especially the educated], they do to thank Confucius for the excellent doctrine which he left them in his books, and through which they obtained their degrees and mandarinships. Thus in all this there is nothing suggestive of idolatry, and perhaps it may even be said that there is no superstition." The "perhaps" added to the last part of this conclusion shows the conscientiousness with which the founder acted in this matter. That the vulgar and indeed even most of the Chinese pagans mingled superstition with their national rites Ricci never denied; neither did he overlook the fact that the Chinese, like infidels in general, mixed superstition with their most legitimate actions. In such cases superstition is only an accident which does not corrupt the substance of the just action itself, and Ricci thought this applied also to the rites. Consequently he allowed the new Christians to continue the practice of them avoiding everything suggestive of superstition, and he gave them rules to assist them to discriminate. He believed, however, that this tolerance, though licit, should be limited by the necessity of the case; whenever the Chinese Christian community should enjoy sufficient liberty, its customs, notably its manner of honouring the dead, must be brought into conformity with the customs of the rest of the Christian world. These principles of Father Ricci, controlled by his fellow-workers during his lifetime, and after his death, served for fifty years as the guide of all the missionaries.

In 1631 the first mission of the Dominicans was founded at Fu-kien by two Spanish religious; in 1633 two Franciscans, also Spanish, came to establish a mission of their order. The new missionaries were soon alarmed by the attacks on the purity of religion which they thought they discerned in the communities founded by their predecessors. Without taking sufficient time perhaps to become acquainted with Chinese matters and to learn exactly what was done in the Jesuit missions they sent a denunciation to the bishops of the Philippines. The bishops referred it to Pope Urban VIII (1635), and soon the public was informed. As early as 1638 a controversy began in the Philippines between the Jesuits in defence of their brethren on the one side and the Dominicans and Franciscans on the other. In 1643 one of the chief accusers, the Dominican, Jean-Baptiste Moralez, went to Rome to submit to the Holy See a series of "questions" or "doubts" which he said were controverted between the Jesuit missionaries and their rivals. Ten of these questions concerned the participation of Christians in the rites in honour of Confucius and the dead. Moralez's petition tended to show that the cases on which he requested the decision of the Holy See represented the practice authorized by the Society of Jesus; as soon as the Jesuits learned of this they declared that these cases were imaginary and that they had never allowed the Christians to take part in the rites as set forth by Moralez. In declaring the ceremonies illicit in its Decree of 12 Sept., 1645 (approved by Innocent X), the congregation of the Propaganda gave the only possible reply to the questions referred to it.

In 1651 Father Martin Martini (author of the "Novus Atlas Sienensis") was sent from China to Rome by his brethren to give a true account of the Jesuits practices and permissions with regard to the Chinese rites. This delegate reached the Eternal City in 1654, and in 1655 submitted four questions to the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office. This supreme tribunal, in its Decree of 23 March, 1656, approved by Pope Alexander VII, sanctioned the practice of Ricci and his associates as set forth by Father Martini, declaring that the ceremonies in honour of Confucius and ancestors appeared to constitute "a purely civil and political cult". Did this decree annul that of 1645? Concerning this question, laid before the Holy Office by the Dominican, Father John de Polanco, the reply was (20 Nov., 1669) that both decrees should remain "in their full force" and should be observed "according to the questions, circumstances, and everything contained in the proposed doubts".

Meanwhile an understanding was reached by the hitherto divided missionaries. This reconciliation was hastened by the persecution of 1665 which assembled for nearly five years in the same house at Canton nineteen Jesuits, three Dominicans, and one Franciscan (then the sole member of his order in China). Profiting by their enforced leisure to agree on a uniform Apostolic method, the missionaries discussed all the points on which the discipline of the Church should be adapted to the exigencies of the Chinese situation. After forty days of conferences, which terminated on 26 Jan., 1668, all (with the possible exception of the Franciscan Antonio de Santa Maria, who was very zealous but extremely uncompromising) subscribed to forty-two articles, the result of the deliberations, of which the forty-first was as follows: "As to the ceremonies by which the Chinese honour their master Confucius and the dead, the replies of the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition approved by our Holy Father Alexander VII, in 1656, must be followed absolutely because they are based on a very probable opinion, to which it is impossible to offset any evidence to the contrary, and, this probability assumed, the door of salvation must not be closed to the innumerable Chinese who would stray from the Christian religion if they were forbidden to what they may do licitly and in good faith and which they cannot forego without serious injury." After the subscription, however, a new courteous discussion of this article in writing took place between Father Domingo Fernandez Navarrete, superior of the Dominicans, and the most learned of the Jesuits at Canton. Navarrette finally appeared satisfied and on 29 Sept., 1669, submitted his written acceptance of the article to the superior of the Jesuits. However, on 19 Dec. of this year he secretly left Canton for Macao whence he went to Europe. There, and especially at Rome where he was in 1673, he sought from now on only to overthrow what had been attempted in the conferences of Canton. He published the "Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China" (I, Madrid, 1673; of vol. II, printed in 1679 and incomplete, only two copies are known). This work is filled with impassioned accusations against the Jesuit missionaries regarding their methods of apostolate and especially their toleration of the rites. Nevertheless, Naverrette did not succeed in inducing the Holy See to resume the question, this being reserved for Charles Maigrot, a member of the new Société des Missions Étrangères. Maigrot went to China in 1683. He was Vicar Apostolic of Fu-kien, before being as yet a bishop, when, on 26 March, 1693, he addressed to the missionaries of his vicariate a mandate proscribing the names T'ien and Shang-ti; forbidding that Christians be allowed to participate in or assist at "sacrifices or solemn oblations" in honour of Confucius or the dead; prescribing modifications of the inscriptions on the ancestral tablets; censuring and forbidding certain, according to him, too favourable references to the ancient Chinese philosophers; and, last but not least, declaring that the exposition made by Father Martini was not true and that consequently the approval which the latter had received from Rome was not to be relied on.

By order of Innocent XII, the Holy Office resumed in 1697 the study of the question on the documents furnished by the procurators of Mgr Maigrot and on those showing the opposite side brought by the representatives of the Jesuit missionaries. It is worthy of note that at this period a number of the missionaries outside the Society of Jesus, especially all the Augustinians, nearly all the Franciscans, and some Dominicans, were converted to the practice of Ricci and the Jesuit missionaries. The difficulty of grasping the truth amid such different representations of facts and contradictory interpretations of texts prevented the Congregation from reaching a decision until towards the end of 1704 under the pontificate of Clement XI. Long before then the pope had chosen and sent to the Far East a legate to secure the execution of the Apostolic decrees and to regulate all other questions on the welfare of the missions. The prelate chosen was Charles-Thomas-Maillard de Tournon (b. at Turin) whom Clement XI had consecrated with his own hands on 27 Dec., 1701, and on whom he conferred the title of Patriarch of Antioch. Leaving Europe on 9 Feb., 1703, Mgr de Tournon stayed for a time in India (see MALABAR RITES) reaching Macao on 2 April, 1705, and Peking on 4 December of the same year. Emperor K'ang-hi accorded him a warm welcome and treated him with much honour until he learned, perhaps through the imprudence of the legate himself, that one of the objects of his embassy, if not the chief, was to abolish the rites amongst the Christians. Mgr de Tournon was already aware that the decision against the rites had been given since 20 Nov., 1704, but not yet published in Europe, as the pope wished that it should be published first in China. Forced to leave Peking, the legate had returned to Nan-king when he learned that the emperor had ordered all missionaries, under penalty of expulsion, to come to him for a piao or diploma granting permission to preach the Gospel. This diploma was to be granted only to those who promised not to oppose the national rites. On the receipt of this news the legate felt that he could no longer postpone the announcement of the Roman decisions. By a mandate of 15 January, 1707, he required all missionaries under pain of excommunication to reply to Chinese authority, if it questioned them, that "several things" in Chinese doctrine and customs did not agree with Divine law and that these were chiefly "the sacrifices to Confucius and ancestors" and "the use of ancestral tablets", moreover that Shang-ti and "T'ien" were not "the true God of the Christians". When the emperor learned of this Decree he ordered Mgr de Tournon to be brought to Macao and forbade him to leave there before the return of the envoys whom he himself sent to the pope to explain his objections to the interdiction of the rites. While still subject to this restraint, the legate died in 1710.

Meanwhile Mgr Maigrot and several other missionaries having refused to ask for the piao had been expelled from China. But the majority (i.e. all the Jesuits, most of the Franciscans, and other missionary religious, having at their head the Bishop of Peking, a Franciscan, and the Bishop of Ascalon, Vicar Apostolic of Kiang-si, an Augustinian) considered that, to prevent the total ruin of the mission, they might postpone obedience to the legate until the pope should have signified his will. Clement XI replied by publishing (March, 1709) the answers of the Holy Office, which he had already approved on 20 November, 1704, and then by causing the same Congregation to issue (25 Sept., 1710) a new Decree which approved the acts of the legate and ordered the observance of the mandate of Nan-king, but interpreted in the sense of the Roman replies of 1704, omitting all the questions and most of the preambles, and concluded with a form of oath which the pope enjoined on all the missionaries and which obliged them under the severest penalties to observe and have observed fully and without reserve the decisions inserted in the pontifical act. This Constitution, which reached China in 1716, found no rebels among the missionaries, but even those who sought most zealously failed to induce the majority of their flock to observe its provisions. At the same time the hate of the pagans was reawakened, enkindled by the old charge that Christianity was the enemy of the national rites, and the neophytes began to be the objects of persecutions to which K'ang-hi, hitherto so well-disposed, now gave almost entire liberty. Clement XI sought to remedy this critical situation by sending to China a second legate, John-Ambrose Mezzabarba, whom he named Patriarch of Alexandria. This prelate sailed from Lisbon on 25 March, 1720, reaching Macao on 26 September, and Canton on 12 October. Admitted, not without difficulty, to Peking and to an audience with the emperor, the legate could only prevent his immediate dismissal and the expulsion of all the missionaries by making known some alleviations of the Constitution "Ex illâ die", which he was authorized to offer, and allowing K'ang-hi to hope that the pope would grant still others. Then he hastened to return to Macao, whence he addressed (4 November, 1721) a pastoral letter to the missionaries of China, communicating to them the authentic text of his eight "permissions" relating to the rites. He declared that he would permit nothing forbidden by the Constitution; in practice, however, his concessions relaxed the rigour of the pontifical interdictions, although they did not produce harmony or unity of action among the apostolic workers. To bring about this highly desirable result the pope ordered a new investigation, the chief object of which was the legitimacy and opportuneness of Mezzabarba's "permissions"; begun by the Holy Office under Clement XII a conclusion was reached only under Benedict XIV. On 11 July, 1742, this pope, by the Bull "Ex quo singulari", confirmed and reimposed in a most emphatic manner the Constitution "Ex illâ die", and condemned and annulled the "permissions" of Mezzabarba as authorizing the superstitions which that Constitution sought to destroy. This action terminated the controversy among Catholics.

The Holy See did not touch on the purely theoretical questions, as for instance what the Chinese rites were and signified according to their institution and in ancient times. In this Father Ricci may have been right; but he was mistaken in thinking that as practised in modern times they are not superstitious or can be made free from all superstition. The popes declared, after scrupulous investigations, that the ceremonies in honour of Confucius or ancestors and deceased relatives are tainted with superstition to such a degree that they cannot be purified. But the error of Ricci, as of his fellow-workers and successors, was but an error in judgment. The Holy See expressly forbade it to be said that they approved of idolatry; it would indeed be an odious calumny to accuse such a man as Ricci, and so many other holy and zealous missionaries, of having approved and permitted their neophytes practices which they knew to be superstitions and contrary to the purity of religion. Despite this error, Matto Ricci remains a splendid type of missionary and founder, unsurpassed for his zealous intrepidity, the intelligence of the methods applied to each situation, and the unwearying tenacity with which he pursued the projects he undertook. To him belongs the glory not only of opening up a vast empire to the Gospel, but of simultaneously making the first breach in that distrust of strangers which excluded China from the general progress of the world. The establishment of the Catholic mission in the heart of this country also had its economic consequences: it laid the foundation of a better understanding between the Far East and the West, which grew with the progress of the mission. It is superfluous to detail the results from the standpoint of the material interests of the whole world. Lastly, science owes to Father Ricci the first exact scientific knowledge received in Europe concerning China, its true geographical situation, its ancient civilization, its vast and curious literature, its social organization so different from what existed elsewhere. The method instituted by Ricci necessitated a fundamental study of this new world, and if the missionaries who have since followed him have rendered scarcely less service to science than to religion, a great part of the credit is due to Ricci.

[MATTEO RICCI], "Dell' entrata della Campagnia di Giesu e christianita nella Cina" (MS. Of Father Ricci, extant in the archives of the Society of Jesus; cited in the foregoing article as the "Memmoirs of Father Ricci", a somewhat free tr. Of his work is given in TRIGAULT, "De christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu". "Ex P. Matthaei Ricci commentariis libri", V (Augsbrg, 1615); DE URSIS, "P. Matheus Ricci, S.J. Relacao escripta pelo seu companhiero" (Rome, 1910); BARTOLI, "Dell' Historia della Compagnia di Gesu. La Cina", I-II (Rome, 1663). Bartoli is the most accurate biographer of Ricci; d'ORLEANS, "La vie du Pere Matthieu Ricci" (Paris, 1693); NATALI, "Il secondo Confucio" (Rome, 1900); VENTURI, "L'apostolato del P. M. Ricci d. C. d. G. in Cina secondo I suoi scritti inediti" (Rome, 1910); BRUCKER, "Le Pere Matthieu Ricci" in "Etudes", CXXIV (Paris, 1910), 5-27; 185-208; 751-79; DE BACKER-SOMMERVOGEL, "Bibl. Des ecrivains de la C. de J", VI, 1792-95). Chinese Rites.-BRUCKER in VACANT, "Dict. De Theol. cath., s.v. "Chinois (Rites"" and works indicated; CORDIER, "Bibl. Sinica", II, 2nd. Ed., 869-925; IDEM, "Hist. Des relations de la Chine avec les puissances occidentales", III (Paris, 1902) xxv.

External links

• Inculturation: Matteo Ricci's Legacy in China [Short videos from Georgetown's Ricci Legacy Symposium.]
• University of Scranton: Matteo Ricci, S.J.
• The Zhaoqing Ricci Center
• Article about the tomb of Matteo Ricci in Beijing
• Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History Archived 27 February 2010 at the Wayback Machine
• Rotary Club Macerata Matteo Ricci (in Italian)
• Matteo Ricci moves closer toward beatification

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Further reading

• Cameron, Nigel (1970). "Matteo Ricci and the Reluctant Dragon". Barbarians And Mandarins: Thirteen Centuries Of Western Travelers In China. New York: Walker/Weatherhill. OCLC 1028660705 – via Internet Archive.
• Cronin, Vincent (1955). The Wise Man from the West. New York: Dutton. OCLC 1407493408 – via Internet Archive. Republished in 2016: ISBN 978-1-62164-004-2
• Gernet, Jacques (1985). China and the Christian Impact: a conflict of cultures. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire], New York: Cambridge University Press: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme. OCLC 1244509546 – via Internet Archive. Reprinted in 1990: ISBN 978-0-521-31319-3
• Harris, George L. (1966). The Mission of Matteo Ricci, S.J.: A Case Study of an Effort at Guided Culture Change in China in The Sixteenth Century. [Los Angeles]: [Monumenta Serica Institute, University of California]. OCLC 27402578.
• Huang, Shijian; Gong, Yingyan zhu (2004). 利瑪竇世界地圖研究 [A Study of Matteo Ricci's World Map] (in Chinese). Shanghai: Shanghai Ancient Works Publishing House. ISBN 978-7-532-53696-2. OCLC 57198566.
• Leys, Simon (1986). "Madness of the Wise: Ricci in China". The Burning Forest: essays on Chinese culture and politics. New York: New Republic Books. ISBN 978-0-03-005063-3. OCLC 1089797507 – via Internet Archive.
• Rosati, Riccardo (June 2013). "Cultural Relations between China and Italy: a Brief Survey". Rivista di Studi Italiani. 31 (1): 960–972.
• Weizhun, Mao (7 September 2018). "European influences on Chinese humanitarian practices". Emulations - Revue de sciences sociales (7): 85–99. doi:10.14428/emulations.007.005. ISSN 1784-5734. Retrieved 13 November 2025.
• 職方外紀 六卷卷首一卷 [Chronicle of Foreign Lands] (in Chinese). 1623. OCLC 1478042569 – via Library of Congress. This book explains Matteo Ricci's world map of 1574.

Bibliography

Sources

• Dehergne, Joseph, SJ (1973). Répertoire des Jésuites de Chine de 1552 à 1800 Rome: Institutum Historicum S.I. OCLC 462805295
• Hsia, R. Po-chia. (2007). "The Catholic Mission and translations in China, 1583–1700" in Cultural Translation in Early Modern Europe (Peter Burke and R. Po-chia Hsia, eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521862080 ISBN 0521862086; OCLC 76935903
• Spence, Jonathan D. (1984). The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. New York: Viking. ISBN 9780670468300; OCLC 230623792
• Vito Avarello, L'oeuvre italienne de Matteo Ricci: anatomie d'une rencontre chinoise, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 2014, 738 pages. (ISBN 978-2-8124-3107-4)