Who are we talking about?
Of a jesuit born in Macerata on October 6, 1552 and died in Beijing on May 11, 1610, Mattero Ricci. A person of the highest culture, I like to describe him as…
A jesuit1 very neapolitan!
Portrait of Matteo Ricci2.
He succeeds where others have failed
The noble family has allowed him to study at the Jesuit College, since he was a child he wanted to go to China thanks to the reading of Marco Polo. Getting to the emperor’s palace was not an easy thing. The unsuccessful missions of the Jesuits with Francis Xavier as well as those of the Dominican, Augustinian and Franciscan missionaries are an example that the proselytizing activity was very difficult with the arduous task of questioning the values of the Asians with a presence of a God above everyone.
The religious algorithm did not work
The missionary’s mission (a play on words) was based on the conversion of the pagan rulers and later, on the christianization of their people. For China, an impenetrable wall, it was impossible to approach the highest spheres.
The cazzimma3 eunuchs
To imagine the thousand obstacles of the suspicious officials to ensure mobility in moving between the provinces. Impossible to be welcomed in the palace in Beijing, the eunuchs protected the Emperor to the utmost from any possible contact with people outside the court environment.
Matteo Ricci, one of us
Matteo Ricci’s strategy was completely different, he had to become one of them to be welcomed. Within a year he learned Chinese and could converse without the help of interpreters, and was welcomed by the Mandarins.
Plausible dismissal of 200 court astronomers
Matteo Ricci was an astronomer, he brought to China the obsolete tolemaic model based on geocentrism. It is not surprising that at the turn of the sixteenth century Galileo was still teaching tolemaic astronomy and the Copernican revolution was proceeding very slowly.
It must also be taken into account that revealing to the Chinese the development of the heliocentric theory, condemned at that time by the Church, would have cast in a bad light all of Matteo Ricci’s work on his teachings as a theologian.
Emperor Wanli4 paid handsomely more than 200 astronomers that looked after the calendar symbol of sovereignty and power. Clearly they had to make the emperor happy by making astral events in his birth data coincide with significant events of his reign.
Matteo Ricci with his diplomatic manner highlighted macroscopic errors in the calendar, revealing the astronomy that allowed a more accurate analysis of the movements of celestial bodies and eclipses and at the same time allowed him to obtain the approval of the Emperor.
The cazzimmata5 of Matteo Ricci
The Chinese loved the complicated trinkets, clocks, globes and astrolabes that Matteo Ricci had with him for his mission in China, to use as gifts and as tools for his studies. It was the emperor himself, intrigued by the clocks and bells, that made an appointment at court to be able to touch these trinkets with his own hands.
The emperor’s mother wanted to see these very special objects, Matteo Ricci was aware that if the empress mother had asked for the object as a gift, he could not refuse. And here the good Ricci made the stupid decision to deactivate the alarm, to prevent the empress mother from asking for the watch with the alarm complication as a gift for her son.
Ricci was playing the charmer
Matteo Ricci was a captivating person who left speechless anyone who showed his objects and at the same time he was a catalyst of souls. After all, the clock worked by the work of God and God worked like a clock.
Religious fundamentalists criticized him for his ways and for to appear outside the norm. Regardless of the criticism, Ricci also obtained the title of Confucian scholar of the great West.
Attach ‘o pacifier’ to ‘ddò rice’ or master6
In order not to displease the Emperor, Matteo Ricci had to redraw the maps by placing China at the center and showing the other continents in smaller projections.
Do you want to learn more?
His books are public, I recommend taking a look at Description of the Empire of China and Chinese-Tartary click here.
Emblem of the Jesuit order cover image licensed under cc Wikipedia Society of Jesus or Jesuits male religious institute of pontifical right. ↩︎
The Portrait of Matteo Ricci di YouWenhui 游文輝, alias Manuel Pereira c. 1610, oil on canvas, 120 × 95 cm. © Society of Jesus, Il Gesù, Rome. ↩︎
Cazzimma, Neapolitan expression to express negative attitudes of wickedness. ↩︎
Wanli 萬曆 (Beijing, September 4, 1563 – Beijing, August 18, 1620) was a Chinese emperor of the Ming dynasty. ↩︎
Cazzimmata, a neapolitan expression that expresses cunning. I recommend reading the article click here based on the song by Pino Daniele, in A me me piace ‘o blues which explains the concept of cazzimma napoletana. ↩︎
Neapolitan expression meaning: tie the donkey where the master wants. ↩︎