Matteo Ricci

Italian missionary, geographer, and mathematician

• Born: October 6, 1552
• Birthplace: Macerata, Papal States (now in Italy)
• Died: May 11, 1610
• Place of death: Beijing, China

As a pioneer of cultural relations between China and Europe, Ricci introduced China to Western mathematics and introduced the West to China’s ancient civilization. During his long and colorful career as a Jesuit missionary, Ricci developed the first map of China in the West, which correctly situated China geographically.

Early Life

Matteo Ricci (REE-chee) entered the Jesuit school in his hometown of Macerata in 1561. Although he had the inclination to join a religious order early in life, in 1568, he went to Rome to study law at the Roman College. Despite his father’s strident orders to the contrary, he joined the Roman Catholic Jesuit Order, also known as the Society of Jesus, in 1571. Remaining in Rome, Ricci studied mathematics, cosmology, and astronomy under the direction of Father Stephan Clavius, the prominent German mathematician who was influential in instituting the Gregorian calendar in 1582.

Ricci next studied for the priesthood at the University of Coimbra in Portugal, and from there he sailed to the Portuguese city of Goa in western India, where he was ordained in 1580. The Jesuits, following in the footsteps of their missionary founder Saint Ignatius Loyola, maintained distant missionary outposts in India, Japan, Canada, Central and South America, and China. Shortly after his ordination, at the request of Father Alessandro Valignani, Ricci sailed for China, where he was to live for the next twenty-seven years. Arriving at Macau on China’s east coast in 1582, he settled in Guangdong Province and began his lifework by studying, in addition to in-depth work on the Chinese language, the philosophy, art, literature, and myriad other aspects of China’s ancient society.

Life’s Work

Before Ricci’s arrival, it was still unclear in Europe whether Cathay, the country described by the Italian explorer Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century, was in fact the same country as China. Ricci’s overland journey from India confirmed this as fact. Before leaving Guangdong Province for Shaozhou in 1589, Ricci produced his extraordinary map of the world, the Yudi shanhai quantu (1584; complete map of the Earth’s mountains and seas), which is no longer extant, and the third edition, Kunyu wanguo quantu (1602; map of the ten thousand countries), which has survived. In Shaozhou, he gained popularity among the city’s Chinese intellectuals to whom he taught mathematics, especially the Euclidian mathematical systems that he had earlier studied under Clavius. Ricci’s mathematical and astronomical treatises demonstrated his fine intelligence and high learning to the Chinese mandarins who tended to look on missionaries, and all foreigners for that matter, as primitive barbarians with nothing to teach the Chinese.

From the beginning, Ricci was intent on making himself, and his work, known to the emperor, but foreigners were forbidden entrance to Beijing, the capital. It was hoped that by winning the support of the emperor, Ricci could also win large numbers of Chinese converts to Christianity, his ultimate goal. His attempt to enter Beijing in 1595 resulted in failure, so he settled instead in Nanjing in 1599, where he formed a Christian church and came to be accepted by the city’s scholars.

He became noted for his remarkable memory and renowned for his ability to educate and train young Chinese men in the art of memory, a trait essential for high scores in the country’s civil service examinations. It was not until 1601, after waiting twenty-one years, that he was summoned by the reclusive emperor Wanli and allowed to live in Beijing. Thanks to Ricci’s map of the world, the Chinese emperor, and the Ming elite, came to see their country’s location in the world for the first time and learned of the existence of so many other kingdoms. Soon Ricci became the court mathematician. While in Beijing, he managed to publish several books in Chinese: Jiaoyou lun (1595; treatise on friendship), Ershiwu yan (1605; the twenty-five sayings), Jihe yuanben (1607; Chinese translation of the first six books of the elements of Euclid), and Jiren shipian (1608; ten discourses by a paradoxical man).

To gain acceptance in missionary outposts, Jesuit missionaries would often dress and act like the local population in host countries, because to declare openly their intention to preach Christianity would have resulted in expulsion. This Jesuit missionary practice, which took great care to adapt to the special conditions of the host country and not to criticize traditional customs, was referred to as accommodation. So, in his efforts to gain respect and acceptance in China, Ricci gave up his Jesuit clerical habit, dressing instead in the style of a Chinese scholar. He also adopted a Chinese name, Li Madou. Another aspect of the Jesuits method to infiltrate China was to have the members of their missionaries in China declare their intention to remain in that country permanently.

Ricci whetted the Chinese appetite for knowledge and, in his desire to gain acceptance and respect, brought with him valuable gifts of clocks, mathematical and astronomical instruments, musical instruments, religious oil paintings, and maps and books, elaborately bound Bibles in particular. Chinese mandarins and the educated were enormously impressed, especially by his map of the world, and they began to take on a different view of Europe as a civilized nation. In short, Ricci opened the door to China. He played the chief role as missionary, in time translating and spreading Chinese copies of the Ten Commandments and composing a Chinese catechism.

Taking care not to offend the Chinese, he also composed various moral treatises in Chinese. In particular, the Tianzhu shiyi (wr. 1579-1584, pb. 1603; The True Meaning of the Lord in Heaven , 1985, first complete translation) used Christian scriptures, supported by ancient Chinese philosophical tracts, to teach moral values. Although he had earlier persecuted Christians, the emperor granted Ricci the right to preach the Gospel in 1592. By this time his mission included, in addition to Beijing, three residences of Nanjing, Nanchang, and Shaozhou, and eventually Shanghai in 1608.

Significance

Ricci’s contributions to geography include his calculations on the actual size of China. He also introduced trigonometry to China, which laid the groundwork for his successors to make great advances in astronomy, mapmaking, and the design of accurate calendars. The respect Ricci achieved as a mathematical and astronomical scholar overflowed eventually into high regard for his Christian teachings, but it was Ricci’s extraordinary memory and his knowledge of astronomy that gained him the most recognition. No doubt, the work he began as a devout Jesuit missionary also had far reaching economic, political, and social consequences.

Through his willingness to share his vast knowledge, and by his demonstrations of intense respect for Chinese society and traditions, Ricci introduced the West to China and led the isolated country to a better understanding of Europe.

Bibliography

Cronin, Vincent. The Wise Man from the West. Reprint. London: Harvill Press, 1999. Covers Ricci’s early years in Rome, his ordination in India, his disheartening attempts for acceptance among the Ming Dynasty elite, his subsequent successes as a scholar in astronomy and mathematics, his many converts to Christianity, and his role in bringing the reclusive China into the modern world.

Gernet, Jacques. A History of Chinese Civilization. Translated by J. R. Foster and Charles Hartman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Examines the historical evolution of the Chinese world from early nomadic antiquity through the unification of China during the medieval area, the great upsurge of Buddhism, and the Mandarin and Mongol influence leading to Ricci’s arrival. Also discusses Ricci’s and other Catholic missionaries’ influence and places Ricci and his work in historical perspective.

Neill, Stephen. A History of Christian Missions. 1964. Reprint. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Chapter 5, “The Age of Discovery, 1500-1600,” traces the expansion of Roman Catholic missionaries throughout Europe, India, North and South America, and China, with many references to Ricci’s impact on astronomy and mathematics in China.

Ricci, Matteo. China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matteo Ricci, 1583-1610. New York: Random House, 1953. Illustrates in particular China’s isolation from the rest of the world in this era. Provides a historical framework within which to read Ricci’s successes as a Jesuit missionary in the fields of astronomy and mathematics and to learn how he gained the Ming elite’s respect and trust.

Spence, Jonathan D. The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. 1984. Reprint. New York: Penguin Books, 1985. This scholarly work examines much of the cultural history of both Europe and China during the sixteenth century. Presents in great depth Ricci’s memory techniques and, especially, his use of religious paintings and icons to help scholars navigate his memory palace while simultaneously impressing on them Christian values.

Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001. Written in an informative, but not overly scholarly style. Covers Chinese history beginning with the sixteenth century Ming Dynasty, when Ricci made his influential mark on China. Contains more than two hundred illustrations, including maps.