Matteo Ricci

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2007)

Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci (left) and Xu Guangqi (徐光啟) (right) in the Chinese edition of Euclid's Elements (幾何原本) published in 1607.
Born	6 October 1552(1552-10-06)
Died	11 May 1610 (aged 57)

Matteo Ricci, SJ (October 6, 1552 – May 11, 1610; simplified Chinese: 利玛窦; traditional Chinese: 利瑪竇; pinyin: Lì Mǎdòu; courtesy name: 西泰 Xītài) was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th-18th centuries.

Early life

Matteo Ricci was born in 1552 in Macerata, today a city in the Italian region of Marche and then part of the Papal States. Ricci started learning theology and law in a Roman Jesuits' school. He entered the congregation in 1571, and in 1577, he filed an application to be a member of a missionary expedition to India, and his journey began in March 1578 from Lisbon, Portugal. He arrived in Goa, a Portuguese Colony, in September 1578, and four years later he was dispatched to China.

Ricci in China

In August 1582, Ricci arrived at Macao, a Portuguese trading post on the South China Sea coast. At the time, Christian missionary activity in China was almost exclusively limited to Macao, where a certain number of the local Chinese people, who converted to Christianity, were expected to live in Portuguese ways, and, until 1579, no one among the Christian missionaries there would even seriously learn Chinese language. It was only in July 1579 (just three years before Ricci's arrival) that Michele Ruggieri, invited by Alessandro Valignano, arrived from Portuguese India to seriously apply himself to the study of Chinese and preparing for spreading the Jesuits' missionary work from Macao into Mainland China.^[1]

Once in Macau, 1582, Ricci started learning the Chinese language and customs in Macao - the beginning of a long project that, eventually, made him one of the first Western scholars to master Chinese script and Classical Chinese. Together with Ruggieri, Ricci traveled a number of times to Guandong's major cities, Guangzhou and Zhaoqing (then, residence of the Viceroy of Guangdong and Guangxi), in order to find a way to establish a permanent Jesuit mission house outside Macau.

In 1583 Ricci and Ruggieri obtained permission to settle in Zhaoqing. They moved there after receiving an invitation from the governor of Zhaoqing at the time, Wang Pan, who had heard of Ricci's skill as a mathematician/cartographer. Ricci stayed in Zhaoqing from 1583 to 1589 before having to leave after a new viceroy decided to expel him. It was in Zhaoqing, in 1584, that Ricci composed the first European-style map of the world in Chinese.

It is thought that during this time (1583-88) Ricci, together with Michele Ruggieri, compiled their Portuguese-Chinese dictionary - the first ever European-Chinese dictionary, for which they developed a consistent system for transcribing Chinese words in Latin alphabet. Unfortunately, the manuscript was misplaced in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, and not re-discovered until 1934. This dictionary was finally published in 2001.^[2][3]

There is now a memorial plaque in Zhaoqing to commemorate his six-year stay there as well as a building set up as a "Ricci Memorial Centre",^[4] although the building itself does not date back to the time of the priest as it was built as recently as the 1860s.

Expelled from Zhaoqing in 1589, Ricci managed to obtain permission to relocate to Shaoguan (Shaozhou, in Ricci's account) in the north of the province, and reestablish his mission there.^[5]

Further travels in China saw Ricci reach Nanjing and Nanchang in 1595. In August 1597, Alessandro Valignano (1539-1606), his superior, appointed him as Major Superior of the mission in China, with the rank and powers of a Provincial, a charge that he fulfilled until his death.^[6] He moved to Tongzhou (a port for Beijing) in 1598 and then first reached Beijing on the 7th September 1598. However, because of a Korean/Japanese war at the time, Ricci could not reach the Imperial Palace. After waiting for two months he left Beijing first for Nanjing and also stopped at Suzhou in Jiangsu Province.

During the winter of 1598, Ricci, with the help of his Jesuit colleague Lazzaro Cattaneo, compiled another Chinese-Portuguese dictionary, in which tones of the romanized Chinese syllables were indicated with diacritical marks. This work has been lost, and, unlike Ricci's and Ruggieri's earlier Portuguese-Chinese dictionary, has never been found.^[2]

In 1601 he returned to Beijing where he was not initially granted an audience with the Emperor of China but, after he presented the Emperor with a chiming clock, Ricci was finally allowed to present himself at the Imperial court of the Wanli Emperor thus becoming the first Westerner to be invited into the Forbidden City. Although Ricci was given free access to the Forbidden City he never met the Wanli Emperor; however, Wanli did grant him patronage by allotting to Ricci a generous stipend that helped the Jesuits in China. Ricci was able to meet important officials and leading members of the Beijing cultural scene.

He was the first Westerner to learn about the Kaifeng Jews.^[7] He was personally contacted by a member of the Jewish community living in Beijing in 1605. Ricci never officially visited the community in Henan, but he did send a junior missionary there three years later in 1608, which was the first of many such missions commissioned by the church. 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 he never accepted the position.^[7]

Ricci lived on in China until the end of his life. He died in Beijing on May 11, 1610 at the age of 58. According to the code of the Ming Dynasty, foreigners who died in China had to be buried in Macao. The Jesuits made a special plea to the court, requesting a burial plot in Beijing in view of Ricci's contributions to China. Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty granted his permission and designated a Buddhist temple for the purpose. In October of 1610, the Jesuit Father's remains were transferred to the tomb.^[8] The tombs of Ferdinand Verbiest, Johann Adam Schall von Bell, and other missionaries are also in the same location, which became known as the Zhalan cemetery (Chinese: 栅栏墓地; pinyin: Zhàlán Mùdì) and is now on the campus the Beijing Administrative College (located at 6 Chegongzhuang Road, Xicheng District, Chinese: 西城区车公庄大街6号; pinyin: Xīchéng Qū Chēgōngzhuāng Dàjiē 6Hào).

Matteo Ricci was succeeded as Superior General of the China mission by Nicolò Longobardo in 1610, who entrusted another Jesuit, Nicolas Trigault, with the job of expanding and editing, as well as translating into Latin, of Ricci's papers that were found in his office after his death. The work was first published in 1615 in Augsburg as De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas, and soon was translated to a number of other European languages.^[9]

Ricci's approach to Chinese culture

Painting of Matteo Ricci in which he was depicted as wearing "Chinese scholar" robe, dated 1611.

Matteo Ricci dressed in traditional Chinese robes.

Ricci could speak Chinese as well as read and write classical Chinese, the literary language of scholars and officials. Added to this he was known for his appreciation of Chinese culture. 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. He refused to explain the Catholic faith as something foreign or new, instead, he confirmed that the Chinese culture and people always believed in God, and that Christianity is simply the most perfect manifestation of their faith. ^[10] Thus the Chinese Lord of Heaven is identical with Jesus Christ. He supported Chinese traditions by agreeing with the veneration of the dead. Dominican and Franciscan missionaries felt he went too far in accommodation and convinced the Vatican to outlaw Ricci’s approach. ^[11] Similarly to developments in India, the identification of European culture with Christianity led to the virtual end of Catholic missions in China. ^[11]

Later discovering that Confucian thought was dominant in Ming Dynasty, Ricci became the first to translate the Confucian classics into a western language, Latin, with assistance from the scholar Xu Guangqi.

Ricci also met a Korean emissary to China, Yi Su-gwang. He taught Yi Su-gwang the basic tenets of Catholicism and transmitted western knowledge to him, giving Yi Su-gwang several books from the west which were incorporated in Jibong yuseol, which was the first Korean language encyclopedia.^[12] Ricci's transmission of western knowledge to Yi Su-gwang influenced and helped shape the foundation of the Silhak movement in Korea.^[13]

Commemoration

The following places and institutions are named after Matteo Ricci:

Matteo Ricci's grave in the courtyard of the Communist Party School in Beijing.

• 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 Preparatory School and Seattle University
• Colégio Mateus Ricci, Macau
• Sekolah Katolik Ricci in Pancoran, Indonesia
• Taipei Ricci Institute, Taiwan
• Macau Ricci Institute, Macau^[14]
• Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at the University of San Francisco.
• The Matteo Ricci Society at Fordham University
• Matteo Ricci Hall-"R" Hall, Ricci Hall Annex-"RA" Hall two buildings at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea
• Townhouse block #14 at Fairfield University

Map of the Far East by Matteo Ricci in 1602.

See also

• 19th Century Protestant Missions in China
• History of the Jews in China
• List of Protestant missionaries in China
• List of Roman Catholic missionaries in China
• Christianity in China
• Jesuit China missions
• Religion in China
• Horses in East Asian warfare
• Zhang Dai (1597 - 1689) Chinese scholar who published a criticism of Ricci's works in China, On Matteo Ricco.

Notes

References

• Dehergne, Joseph, S.J. (1973). Répertoire des Jésuites de Chine de 1552 à 1800. Institutum Historicum S.I., Roma.

Further reading

• Vincent Cronin, The Wise Man from the West: Matteo Ricci and his Mission to China (1955) ISBN 0-00-626749-1
• Jonathan D. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (1985)
• Simon Leys, Madness of the Wise : Ricci in China, an article from his book, The Burning Forest (1983). This is an interesting account, and contains a critical review of The Memory Palace by Jonathan D. Spence.
• Jacques Gernet, China and the Christian Impact (1986)

Resources

Works

• 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 Lous 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 full text of "Hakluytus posthumus" on archive.org. The book also appears on Google Books, but only in snippet view.
• An excerpt from The Art of Printing by Matteo Ricci
• Ricci's World Map of 1602

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Matteo Ricci

• Fairfield University: Matteo Ricci, S.J.
• University of Scranton: Matteo Ricci, S.J.
• A timeline of Matteo Ricci in China
• The Zhaoqing Ricci Center
• Article about the tomb of Matteo Ricci in Beijing
• Catholic Encyclopedia: Matteo Ricci
• Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History
• Rotary Club Macerata Matteo Ricci (in Italian)
• Lamberto Bozzi: The Matteo Ricci Macerata Project
• Lamberto Bozzi: Pinocchio in China/Pinocchio nella Cina (In English and Italian)

v • d • e Christianity in China Christianity in China portal Chinese terms for God Shangdi · Shen · Tianzhu Foundations Timeline of Chinese History · Christianity · Roman Catholicism in China · Protestantism in China · Chinese Orthodox Church Chinese Bible Translations Chinese Union Version · New Chinese Version · Today's Chinese Version · Studium Biblicum Version Assyrian Church of the East in China Nestorian Stele · Jesus Sutras · Christianity among the Mongols Medieval Roman Catholic Missions in China John of Montecorvino · Odoric of Pordenone · Giovanni de' Marignolli Jesuit missions in China Francis Xavier · Matteo Ricci · Chinese Rites controversy · Joachim Bouvet Protestant missions in China Agencies · Robert Morrison · Karl Gützlaff · Divie Bethune McCartee · Hudson Taylor · Lottie Moon · Timothy Richard · Jonathan Goforth · Cambridge Seven · Eric Liddell · Gladys Aylward · (more missionaries) Important figures Liang Fa · Xi Shengmo · John Sung · Watchman Nee · Wang Ming-Dao · Samuel Lamb · Allen Yuan Religious freedom Lianghui · Three-Self Patriotic Movement · China Christian Council · Chinese house churches · Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association Events Taiping Rebellion · Opium Wars · Unequal Treaties · Yangzhou riot · Tianjin Massacre · Boxer Crisis · Anti-Christian Movement · Xinhai Revolution · Chinese Civil War · WW II · People's Republic Impact Science and technology · Medical missions in China · Anti-female infanticide · Anti-Footbinding campaign · Anti-Opium campaign · Chinese Roman Type · Cantonese Roman Type · Chinese Colleges · Chinese Hymnody · Manchurian revival