Matteo Ricci (46 page)

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Every book has its own history. Given my scientific background and my experience in scientific journalism, why did I decide to write a biography of Matteo Ricci? I owe the idea of a book on the dissemination of European science in China by a Jesuit from the Italian town of Macerata to someone I met at the beginning of my stay in China, namely Umberto Colombo (former Italian Minister of University and Research). Even though the initial project changed in shape over time, this book would never have come into being without his vigorous encouragement. I must, however, also thank Gian Arturo Ferrari for his suggestion to broaden the original concept and embark on the more demanding but also more engrossing task of writing a biography.

While Ricci used science as a means to the end of conversion, his commitment to the translation of scientific works into Chinese was of crucial importance and left an imprint on the history of the Jesuit mission in China. Biographers have not always given this aspect of his activity the attention it deserves. The aim here is not only to present an overall description of Ricci’s life and work but also to highlight the constant attention that he and the most authoritative Chinese converts focused on science. The switch from outlining the new developments in contemporary science to reconstructing the life of a missionary who lived in China in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century was a challenge that I endeavored to address in the same spirit as my work of popularization, seeking to understand the meaning of the events and ideas in order to convey it to my readers.

Taking Ricci’s writings as my essential starting point, I present the events in accordance with his own reconstruction of them, and the China that emerges is seen through his eyes. His Western views and prejudices often seem to be of extraordinary present-day relevance. I therefore hope that the specialists will forgive me for according priority to the narrative and not always bothering to keep up with the latest historiographic interpretations. Though rigorously documented, this is a work aimed at the general public.

My warmest thanks to all the experts who lent me a hand along the way, in particular Eugenio Menegon of the History Department of Boston University for his advice, explanations, and bibliographical recommendations as well as for agreeing to read through the text and providing invaluable suggestions. I am also most grateful to Isaia Iannaccone, professor at the European School in Brussels and researcher at the astronomical observatory in Paris, for useful suggestions. His works on the dissemination of Western science in China by the Jesuits were an important point of reference for my book.

Vital help and support were provided both during and after my stay in Beijing by Mario Sabattini, professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, then director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing. The personnel of the Institute, and in particular Patrizia Liberati, were most helpful in the search for material in Chinese libraries. Precious assistance was also received from Hengda Yang and Ron Anton, then respectively director and international director of the Beijing Center for Language and Culture, and in particular from Thierry Meynard, now in the Philosophy Department at Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, who allowed me to make full use of their library’s resources.

I am indebted to Ren Yanli, director of the Christianity Department at the Institute of Research on World Religions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, not least for allowing me unlimited access to the
Fonti Ricciane
; to the director Liu Dun and Han Qi of the History of Natural Sciences Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing for useful indications and help with bibliographical research; to Gu Wei Min of the History Department at Shanghai University for taking me on a guided tour of the places where Xu Guangqi lived; to Xu Huping, the director of the Nanjing Museum, for granting me a private viewing of the Ricci map held there and for agreeing to show it to a broader public at the Italian Cultural Institute in Beijing; to Xiaoxin Wu, director of the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, San Francisco, for the support and helpfulness shown in particular during the convention “Encounters and Dialogues,” held in Beijing in October 2001. The many specialists who were so kind as to make fruitful suggestions during this convention include Father Gianni Criveller, researcher at the Holy Spirit Study Centre in Hong Kong. Particular thanks to Catherine Jami of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Paris University for useful clarification on the introduction of Western mathematics into China, and to Roger Hart of the University of Texas at Austin.

Among my friends in Beijing, I thank Davide Cucino, now director of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in China, for bibliographical suggestions and Franco Amadei, Fiat representative in China, for help in organizing my visit to Nanjing. I am very grateful to Anna Jaguaribe Bruni, who provided support and encouragement during the gestation of this project, and to the Beijing International Society for giving me the opportunity to ascertain how much interest still attaches to Ricci for an international public.

For help with my research in Italian libraries, I thank Father Giuseppe de Cock, then director of the Archivium Romanum Societatis Iesu, who showed me the manuscript of Ricci’s
Della entrata della Compagnia di Giesù e Christianità nella Cina
; Monsignor Pier Francisco Fumagalli, cultural director at the Ambrosian Library in Milan, and Giliola Barbero; Father Lorenzo Chiesa, the director of the Papal Institute of Foreign Missions in Milan, and all the staff there; Ambrogio Piazzoni, vice prefect of the Vatican Library, and Clara Yu Dong; and Anna Pieroni of the Mozzi-Borgetti Library of Macerata.

Thanks also to Umberto Bottazzini (Department of Mathematics), Claudia di Filippo and Letizia Arcangeli (Department of History of Science and Historical Documentation), and Pasquale Tucci (Institute of Applied General Physics) of Milan University; Fabrizio Bònoli of Bologna University (Department of Astronomy); Flavio Rurale of Udine University (faculty of humanities and philosophy); Silvia Toniato of the University of Savoie; and Donatella Guida of Naples University (Department of Asian Studies).

Needless to say, I bear sole responsibility for the end result.

I am particularly indebted to Nicoletta Lazzari for her constant dedication and invaluable aid in the pursuit of quality, and to Roberto Armani for his acute and meticulous checking of the text.

I am deeply indebted to Paul Metcalfe, the excellent translator of the English edition, who succeeded in bringing the best out of the text with skill, dedication, care, and all the precision I could have wished for. A special thank-you to Barbara Venturi and Mario Curti at Scriptum in Rome for their fundamental contribution to the English version of this work.

I would also like to express my gratitude to all the friends who offered encouragement and support, especially Gisèle Geymonat. Thanks to Diego, who kept me company while doing his homework during the afternoons of work in Beijing.

I am most grateful to my father Angioletto, who read through the first draft of the book together with my mother and displayed such enthusiasm that I had yet another reason for continuing with the work. He would have been so happy to see it finally published. Special thanks to my husband for his unfailing concrete help and indispensable support during the four years it took me to complete the demanding work of writing this biography.

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Michela Fontana
, holding a degree in mathematics, is a science journalist and writer. She has won the Glaxo Prize for science journalism and the Pirelli International Award for popularization of science for her book
Percorsi calcolati
(A Calculated Journey), and she received the 2010 Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique in Touquet, France, for the French edition of
Matteo Ricci
. She is the author of the theater play
Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit Scientist at the Ming Court
.
She lived for four years in China.