Matteo Ricci (1552 ~ 161)

Jesuit missionary and scholar who lived in China in Wanli period of Ming Dynasty. Italian

people. Take the Chinese name, Xitai, and Qingtai and Xijiang. In 1571, he joined the Jesuits in Rome, studied philosophy and theology in the Roman Academy sponsored by the Jesuits, and studied celestial arithmetic from the mathematician C. Clavius. Later, he was sent to China by the Jesuits to preach.

He arrived in Macau in July of the 1th year of Wanli (1582) and was allowed to live in Zhaoqing, Guangdong in the following year.

moved to Shaozhou in seventeen years. I went to Beijing for the second time in December, 28, and presented the self-proclaimed

bell, the World Map and other objects, which won the trust of Ming Shenzong and settled in Beijing. Thirty

eight years in Beijing. Matteo Ricci spent the rest of his life in China. He took Chinese names, studied Chinese, dressed in Confucian clothes and practiced Confucian etiquette. He was the first western scholar to read China literature and study Chinese classics. In addition to spreading religious teachings, he also made friends with China officials and celebrities, and spread western scientific knowledge such as astronomy, mathematics and geography. Scholar-officials such as Shen Yiguan, Ye Xianggao, Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, and Yang Tingyun

were famous for their friendship. At the same time, he introduced China's national conditions to Europe, and

made important contributions to the cultural exchanges between China and the West in the Ming Dynasty. In mathematics, his translation includes < P > Geometry Elements co-translated with Xu Guangqi; In geography, there is a world map "Kun < P > and the Whole Map of the World"? In linguistics, there is the miracle of western characters (now renamed

Roman phonetic writing in the late Ming Dynasty). "Miracle of Western Characters", with the sound of Western France and the sound of China's

, has turned what has always been regarded as a complicated and difficult antithesis into a simple thing, which is the beginning of the road of Latin Chinese characters

in China. At the end of the thirty-sixth year of Wanli, Matteo Ricci began to write down what he knew about China in Italian, based on his experiences and knowledge during his missionary work in China, which is called Notes of Matteo Ricci. After his death, he translated it into Latin, and

supplemented some contents. In 1615, it was published in Germany with the title of

History of Christian Expedition to China. The book is divided into five volumes. This book is

an important private work by Jesuits to introduce China's national conditions, which is of great historical value to the study of the history of communication between China and the West in the Ming Dynasty, the history of Jesuits' missionary work in China and the history of the late Ming Dynasty. After publication, it was translated into French, German, Spanish and other languages. The Chinese translation is called Notes of Matteo Ricci China.