At the age of 17 he went off to Rome to study law but soon yielded to the call of the priesthood, entering the Society of Jesus at the College of Rome in In addition to studying philosophy and theology, he also studied mathematics, cosmology, and astronomy under the celebrated Christopher Clavius, studies that would later serve him well in China. In Ricci announced his desire to become a missionary to the Far East, and the following year he was dispatched by the Jesuits to the Portuguese Indies, where he spent the next four years in ministry and teaching.
Finally he received the summons to come to Macao and prepare to enter China. While waiting in Macao, the Jesuit fathers had applied themselves to learning the Mandarin language and had also learned something of the Chinese mindset.
While they did not hide their faith or the fact that they were priests, they knew they had to overcome Chinese pride and fear of foreign influence before they could take the initiative in sharing their Christian message. Their first step was to display in their house a picture of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus in her arms.
Chinese visitors always inquired about the meaning of this picture, and this gave them an opportunity to share the basic tenets of Christianity. Realizing that the Chinese had a natural intellectual curiosity, they also displayed other things they had brought with them—clocks, mathematical and astronomical instruments, books, paintings, maps, and architectural drawings.
Word soon spread of the marvels the European priests had in their home, and the object that drew the most interest was a beautifully drawn map of the world. The Chinese had maps, too, but they showed the world beyond China as consisting only of a few islands totaling a size less than the smallest of the Chinese provinces. Although Chinese scholars at first protested the validity of the European map, they eventually accepted that it had been carefully constructed by learned geographers and asked Father Ricci if he could draw a replica with the names of the countries, rivers, and oceans in Chinese.
Their conception of the greatness of their country and of the insignificance of all other lands made them so proud that the whole world seemed to them savage and barbarous compared with themselves; it was scarcely to be expected that they, while entertaining this idea, would heed foreign masters. However he became famous in China for more than his mathematical skills, becoming known for his extraordinary memory and for his knowledge of astronomy. Matteo Ricci S.
Ricci arrived at the Portuguese settlement of Macau in where he began his missionary work in China. He became the first European to enter the Forbidden City of Beijing in when invited by the Wanli Emperor, who sought his services in matters such as court astronomy and calendrical science. For best results enter two or more search terms….
Dean Rusk and Charles H. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. He arrived first in Portugal where he studied at the University of Coimbra for a while. Then, in , he sailed to the Portuguese city of Goa on the west coast of India. In Goa Ricci studied for the priesthood, and he was ordained in Two years later he sailed to China. Ricci lived in Beijing from for the rest of his life, teaching western scientific knowledge and preaching Christianity.
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