Everything about Matteo Ricci totally explained
Matteo Ricci (
October 6 1552 –
May 11 1610; ;
courtesy name:西泰 Xītài) was an Italian
Jesuit priest.
Matteo Ricci was born in 1552 in
Macerata, then part of the
Papal States. Ricci started learning theology and law in a
Roman Jesuits' school. In 1577, he filed an application to be a member of a Missionary 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 1582, Ricci started learning the Chinese language and customs in
Macau, a Portuguese trading post in Southern China, and became a rare Western scholar who had mastered Chinese classical script. The next year saw Ricci move inland and, after a visit to
Canton, settle in
Zhaoqing (肇慶) in
Guangdong Province. Ricci moved there after receiving an invitation from the governor of Zhaoqing at the time, Wang P'an, who had heard of Ricci's skill as a mathematician/cartographer. Ricci stayed there 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 ever map of the world in Chinese.
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' although the building itself doesn't date back to the time of the priest as it was built as recently as the 1860s.
Further travels in China saw Ricci reach
Nanjing and
Nanchang in 1595,
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 couldn't reach the
Imperial Palace. After waiting for two months he left
Beijing first for Nanjing and also stopped at
Suzhou in
Jiangsu Province.
In 1601 he returned to Beijing where he wasn't 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
Wanli 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 and the title of Superior-General of the Jesuits in China. Ricci was able to meet important officials and leading members of the Beijing cultural scene.
He learned much about Chinese culture and history, and was the first Westerner to learn about the
Kaifeng Jews. Ricci lived on in China until the end of his life. He died in Beijing on May 11th 1610.
Ricci's approach to Chinese culture
Ricci could speak Chinese as well as read and write
classical Chinese (
wenyan), the literary language of scholars and officials. Added to this he was known for his appreciation of the indigenous culture of the Chinese. 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 that Christianity had to be changed to fit Chinese culture in order to be attractive to the Chinese.
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 that became the basis of his later works. Ricci's transmission of western knowledge to Yi Su-gwang influenced and helped shape the foundation of the
Silhak movement in Korea.
The following places and institutions are named after Matteo Ricci:
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