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Matteo Ricci was an Italian Catholic priest who spent most of his life in China during the late 1500s and early 1600s, where he worked to introduce Christianity to Chinese audiences. He matters because he pioneered a respectful approach to missionary work by learning the Chinese language, adopting local customs, and engaging with Chinese scholars on intellectual topics, which influenced how Christianity was presented in China for centuries to come.
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Matteo Ricci SJ ( Italian: [matˈtɛːo ˈrittʃi]; Latin: Matthaeus Riccius; 6 October 1552 – 11 May 1610) was an Italian Jesuit priest and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China missions. He created the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, a 1602 map of the world written in Chinese characters. In 2022, the Apostolic See declared its recognition of Ricci's heroic virtues, thereby bestowing upon him the honorific of Venerable.
Ricci arrived at the Portuguese settlement of Macau in 1582 where he began his missionary work in China. He mastered the Chinese language and writing system. He became the first European to enter the Forbidden City of Beijing in 1601 when invited by the Wanli Emperor, who sought his services in matters such as court astronomy and calendrical science. He emphasized parallels between Catholicism and Confucianism but opposed Buddhism. He converted several prominent Chinese officials to Catholicism. He also worked with several Chinese elites, such as Xu Guangqi, in translating Euclid's Elements into Chinese as well as the Confucian classics into Latin for the first time in history.
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1552 births1610 deaths16th-century Italian Jesuits16th-century Italian male writers16th-century Italian mathematicians16th-century Italian writers17th-century Italian cartographers17th-century Italian Jesuits17th-century Italian male writers17th-century Italian mathematicians17th-century Italian translators17th-century Italian writers