The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci

Author: Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0140080988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
From the renowned historian and author of The Death of Woman Wang, a vivid and gripping account of the 16th-century missionary’s remarkable sojourn to Ming China In 1577, the Jesuit Priest Matteo Ricci set out from Italy to bring Christian faith and Western thought to Ming dynasty China. To capture the complex emotional and religious drama of Ricci's extraordinary life, Jonathan Spence relates his subject's experiences with several images that Ricci himself created—four images derived from the events in the Bible and others from a book on the art of memory that Ricci wrote in Chinese and circulated among members of the Ming dynasty elite. A rich and compelling narrative about a fascinating life, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci is also a significant work of global history, juxtaposing the world of Counter-Reformation Europe with that of Ming China.

The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci

Author: Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher: Quercus Books
ISBN: 9781847243447
Category : Jesuits
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Book Description
In 1577 a Jesuit priest named Matteo Ricci set out from Italy on a long journey to bring the Christian faith and Western thought to Ming dynasty China. He spent time in India and Macao before entering China in 1583 to undertake mission work. Travelling widely, Ricci learned local languages, mastered Chinese classical script, drew the first-ever map of the world in Chinese and acquired a rich appreciation of the indigenous culture of his hosts. In 1596 Ricci wrote a short book in Chinese on the art of memory for the governor of Jiangxi province, who was preparing his three sons for China's demanding civil service examinations. In it he described a 'memory palace' in which to hold knowledge such as might help the three brothers and their peers in the Ming social elite to pass their exams with flying colours. Ricci must have hoped that, in gratitude to him for instructing them in mnemonic skills, they would use their newly won prestige to further the cause of the Catholic Church in China. To capture the complex emotional and religious drama of Ricci's life, author Jonathan Spence relates the missionary's experiences via a series of images. Four of these images derive from events described in the Bible, the others from Ricci's book on the art of memory that was circulated among members of the Ming dynasty elite. A rich and compelling narrative about a remarkable life, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci is also a significant work of global history, juxtaposing the world of Counter-Reformation Europe with that of Ming China.

The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci

Author: Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571139590
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Book Description

The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci

Author: Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0140080988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Matteo Ricci

Author: Michela Fontana
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1442205881
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

Book Description
Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), the first of the early Jesuit missionaries of the China mission, is widely considered the most outstanding cultural mediator of all time between China and the West. This engrossing and fluid book offers a thorough, knowledgeable biography of this fascinating and influential man, telling a deeply human and captivating story that still resonates today. Michela Fontana traces Ricci's travels in China in detail, providing a rich portrait of Ming China and the growing importance of cultural exchanges between China and the West. She shows how Ricci incorporated his ideas of "cultural accommodation" into both his life and his writings aimed at the Chinese elite. Her biography is the first to highlight Ricci's immensely important scientific work and that of key Christian converts, such as Xu Guangqi, who translated Euclid's Elements together with Ricci. Exploring the history of science in China and the West as well as their dramatically different cultural attitudes toward religious and philosophical issues, Michela Fontana introduces not only Ricci's life but the first significant encounter between Western and Chinese civilizations.

Mission to China

Author: Mary Laven
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571225187
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 279

Book Description
An epic history of the clashes of cultures between Jesuit missionaries in China.

The Search for Modern China

Author: Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393307801
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1054

Book Description
In this widely acclaimed history of modern China, Jonathan Spence achieves a fine blend of narrative richness and efficiency. The Search for Modern China offers a matchless introduction to China's history.

The Memory Palace

Author: Mira Bartok
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439183325
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Book Description
A gorgeous memoir about the 17 year estrangement of the author and her homeless schizophrenic mother, and their reunion.

The Death of Woman Wang

Author: Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 014005121X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
“Spence shows himself at once historian, detective, and artist. . . . He makes history howl.” (The New Republic) Award-winning author Jonathan D. Spence paints a vivid picture of an obscure place and time: provincial China in the seventeenth century. Life in the northeastern county of T’an-ch’eng emerges here as an endless cycle of floods, plagues, crop failures, banditry, and heavy taxation. Against this turbulent background a tenacious tax collector, an irascible farmer, and an unhappy wife act out a poignant drama at whose climax the wife, having run away from her husband, returns to him, only to die at his hands. Magnificently evoking the China of long ago, The Death of Woman Wang also deepens our understanding of the China we know today.

The Question of Hu

Author: Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307793818
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 209

Book Description
This lively and elegant book by the acclaimed historian Jonathan D. Spence reconstructs an extraordinary episode in the early intercourse between Europe and China. It is the story of John Hu, a lowly but devout Chinese Catholic, who in 1722 accompanied a Jesuit missionary on a journey to France--a journey that ended with Hu's confinement in a lunatic asylum. At once a triumph of historical detective work and a gripping narrative, The Question of Hu deftly probes the collision of tw ocultures, with their different definitions of faith, madness, and moral obligation.