288002768-The-Memory-Palace-of-Matteo-Ricci.pdf

JONATHAN D. SPENCE

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MEMORY PALACE OF

MATTEO RICCI JONATHAN

D.

SPENCE

ELISABETH SIFTON BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

#

M

——

ELISABETH SIFTON BOOKS • PENGUIN BOOKS Viking Penguin Inc., 40 West 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Limited, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 1B4 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin Inc. 1984 First published in Great Britain by Faber & Faber Ltd, 1984

First

Published

in

Penguin Books 1985

Reprinted 1986

© The Jonathan

Copyright

D. Spence Children's Trust, 1983, 1984

All rights reserved

A

portion of this book appeared originally in The Yale Review under the

title

"Ricci."

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA Spence, Jonathan D. The memory palace of Matteo Ricci. Viking Penguin, 1984. Reprint. Originally published: New York, N.Y. :

"Elisabeth Sifton books."

Includes index. 1.

4.

—Missions —China— Biography. — Biography. China—

Ricci, Matteo, 1552-1610.

China.

3-

—

Missionaries

Jesuits

Italy

BV3427.R46S66

History-

5.

Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644.

ISBN

2.

Missionaries

I.

Title.

266 '2 '0924 [B]

1985

85-6584

14 00.8098 8

Grateful acknowledgment

is

made

to the following for permission to reprint copyrighted

material:

Columbia University Press: Selections from Dictionary of Ming Biography, L. C. Goodrich 1976 by Columbia University Press. and C. Y. Fan, eds. Copyright Harvard University Press: Excerpts from: Institutio Oraloria, by Quintilian, translated by

©

H. E. Butler, vol. IV, 1936; Ad Herennium (Anon), translated by Harry Caplan, 1968; Epitome of Roman History, by Lucius Annaeus Florus, translated by E. S. Forster, 1929. Loyola University Press: Excerpts from The Spiritual Exercises, by Ignatius of Loyola, transby Louis J. Puhl, S.J., Loyola University Press, 1951. Penguin Books Ltd: Excerpt from Rabelais, Gargantua & Pantagruel, translated by Cohen (Penguin Classics 1955), p. 658. Copyright 1955 by J. M. Cohen. lated

Random

House,

tion copyright

©

Inc.:

From The

J.

M.

Aeneid, by Virgil, translated by Robert Fitzgerald. Transla-

1980, 1982, 1983 by Robert Fitzgerald.

Universitat Salzburg, Institut

fur Englische Sprache und Literatur: Excerpt from The Vita

of Ludolph of Saxony, by Charles Albert Conway, from Analecta Cartusiana 34 (editor: Dr. James Hogg, University of Salzburg), 1976.

Christt

Maps by David Lindroth Calligraphy by

Wang

Fang-Yu and

Wang Sum Wai

Printed in the United States of America by

R.R. Donnelley

&

Sons Company, Harrisonburg, Virginia Set in

Except

in the

shall not,

United States of America,

Garamond

this

by way of trade or otherwise, be

book

is

sold subject to the condition that

lent, re-sold, hired out,

it

or otherwise circulated

without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

FOR HELEN

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

owe thanks

all

at

all

some time or

for helping

me

with

this

book.

I

hope they

I

The same was

at Yale,

where the

my naming them

will accept this collective

true for those in the

first

and

other, with requests for information,

responded cheerfully and helpfully. Without

individually,

tude.

many people

badgered numerous members of the Yale history department,

I they

to

draft

was written.

mention of grati-

Whitney Humanities Center I

would

like to

thank

all

the

fellows there for their guidance and encouragement.

Among

the scores of people from other departments at Yale

also helped

with advice,

I

am

especially grateful to

Wayne Meeks and Thomas Greene

for

Ricci's four prints,

I

am

Herbert Marks,

making what turned out

crucial suggestions at the right times.

For helping

grateful to Egbert

who

me

track

to be

down

Haverkamp-Begemann and

Jennifer Kilian, as well as to the staff of the Department of Prints and

Photographs

at the

whose guidance

I

Metropolitan

at last

Museum

of Art in

New

held two of the originals in

York, under

my

hands. Leo

Steinberg gave help with interpretations. Charles Boxer, at a ble luncheon, charted

my

course for

vii

Goa and Macao.

memora-

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I

would

also like to

acknowledge the constant help of the

staff in the

Beinecke Rare Book Library, the Divinity School Library, the Art brary,

and the Sterling Memorial Library,

those

who

Yale.

all at

My

Li-

thanks, too, to

provided copies of rare materials from Berkeley, Chicago,

from Cambridge University Library, and from

Cornell, and Harvard,

Comunale

the Biblioteca

Macerata, where Aldo Adversi and Piero

at

Corradini were of key assistance.

At the China Jesuit History Project

in

Los Gatos, where

spent a val-

I

uable week early in 1983, kind hospitality was offered by the rector, Father Joseph Costa,

S.J.,

and the

librarian, Father Carrol O'Sullivan, SJ.

Theodore Foss and Brother Michael Grace

George Ganss, Christopher

Jesuit fathers

liam Spohn ciously

gave

all

me

in Chicago, as well as the

Spalatin, Peter

useful advice, and so

—did Father Edward

Malatesta,

kai,

I

Ch'en Jo-shui, Sylvia

Le,

struggled in turn to decipher

many, but

my

and

gra-

Italian, Latin

and Chi-

thank Carla Freccero, Claudia Brodsky, Cheng

particularly

K'ang

— repeatedly

S.J.

For help with translations from Portuguese, nese,

Hu, and Wil-

special thanks to

Yu

and

Yu

Pei-

who

Ying-shih. Those

my opaque and troubled drafts were the typists who suffered the most and

the longest, Katrin van der Vaart with the

first

draft

and Elna Godburn

with the second.

The

calligraphy for Ricci's four

pressly for this

her

skill

and

and undertake the

Time

to

work out the

initial research

genheim Memorial Fellowship,

testa, S.J.,

written ex-

book by Chang Ch'ung-ho, and my thanks

sensitivity.

readings of the

memory images was

first

draft

basic

was provided by

for

which

I

to her for

scheme of the book a

John Simon Gug-

thank the

trustees.

Helpful

were offered by Michael Cooke, Father Mala-

and Jeanne Bloom, and of the second by Harold Bloom,

Robert Fitzgerald, Hans

Frei,

and John Hollander, to

all

of

whom my

thanks. Elisabeth Sifton, as twice before, provided the careful reading of

everything at

all

stages

which encouraged

me

to keep trying.

happy to have the book appear under her imprint.

vin

I

am

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii

MATTEO

RICCI:

A

CHRONOLOGY

xiii

ONE

BUILDING THE PALACE 1

TWO THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS 24

THREE

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES 59 IX

CONTENTS

FOUR

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI 93 FIVE

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS 128 SIX

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST 162

SEVEN

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM 201

EIGHT

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE 232

NINE

INSIDE THE PALACE 266

ABBREVIATIONS 269

NOTES 270

BIBLIOGRAPHY 319

INDEX 339

Illustrations appear on pages 25, 61, 94, 129, 163, 202, 263, 264.

Maps

appear on pages xi

and xv

MATTEO RICO: A CHRONOLOGY

1552,

October 6

Born

in Macerata, Italy, in the papal

1561

Becomes pupil

1568

To Rome,

1571,

August 15

Enters

St.

domain

in Jesuit school, Macerata.

to study law.

Andrew's Quirinale

in

Rome,

as

novice in the Society of Jesus.

1572-1573

Studies at Jesuit college, Florence.

1573, September-

Studies at Jesuit college in

Rome.

1577,

May Summer

To Coimbra,

1578,

March

Audience with King Sebastian.

,

March 24

Leaves Lisbon on the

,

September 13

Reaches Goa. Studies theology, teaches Latin

1577,

——

Portugal. Studies Portuguese.

5"/.

Louis.

and Greek. 1580

Lives in Cochin. Ordained priest, late July.

1581

Returns to Goa.

1582, April 26

Departs

,

,

June August

Goa by

sea.

In Malacca. 7

Arrives in Macao.

Xlll

CHRONOLOGY 1583, September 10

Zhaoqing, China, with Michele

Settles in

Ruggieri.

Unauthorized copies of

October

his

world

map

are

printed in Zhaoqing.

Expelled from Zhaoqing by hostile mandarins.

1589 August 3

1591

August 26

Settles in

December

Begins draft translation of Chinese

Shaozhou. classical

Four Books.

Shaozhou residence

1592 July 1594

November

attacked. Ricci injures foot.

Jesuits change to Chinese literati dress.

Leaves Shaozhou for Nanjing.

1595 April 18

mid-May

Shipwreck and drowning of Barradas.

June 28

Settles in

November

Composes

Treatise on Friendship.

1596 Spring

Composes

draft of Treatise on

1597 August

Named

1598 September

7-

November

5

1599 February 6 1600

November

1601 January 24

First trip to

Settles in

Eunuch

Arts.

Peking; residence not permitted.

Nanjing.

Ma Tang

seizes crucifix.

Enters Peking for second time.

Composes eight songs

May

Peking residence permitted.

28

Mnemonic

superior of China mission.

February

1602 August 1603

Nanchang.

for emperor's court.

Publishes revised version of world map.

Autumn-

Publishes True Meaning of the Lord of

Winter

Heaven.

1604 mid-August

Plantin polyglot Bible reaches Peking.

1606 January

Gives four prints and commentaries to

ink-maker Cheng Dayue.

May

Publishes translation of

first six

books of

Euclid's Elements of Geometry.

January-February

Publishes Ten Discourses by a Paradoxical

Autumn-

Starts to write his Historia.

Winter September 8

First

Marian sodality founded

May

Dies

in Peking.

11

xiv

in Peking.

Man.

Riccrs

L^PA^

CHINA

NanchangRJk Boyang

ZHEJIANG

J>

Easf

chma

Sea

FORMOSA

South China Sea

TT-TF

MEMORY PALACE OF

MATTEO RICCI

ONE

BUILDING THE PALACE

In

1596 Matteo Ricci taught the Chinese

how

to build a

He told them that the size of the palace would depend on how much they wanted to remember: the memory

palace.

most ambitious construction would consist of ings of

all

said Ricci,

shapes and

less

hundred build-

"the more there are the better

it

will be,"

though he added that one did not have to build on

a grandi-

ose scale right away.

build

several

sizes;

One

could create modest palaces, or one could

dramatic structures such

government

offices, a

as a

temple compound, a cluster of

public hostel, or a merchants' meeting lodge. If

one wished to begin on

a

still

smaller scale, then one could erect a sim-

ple reception hall, a pavilion, or a studio.

mate space one could use temple, or even such a In summarizing this pavilions, divans solid objects to

just the corner

homely object

memory

And

if

one wanted an

of a pavilion, or an

as a

altar in a 1

wardrobe or

a divan.

system, he explained that these palaces,

were mental structures to be kept in one's head, not be

literally

constructed out of "real" materials. Ricci

suggested that there were three main options for such tions. First, they

inti-

could be drawn from

reality

—

that

is,

memory

loca-

from buildings

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO that

one had been

eyes

and

in or

RICCI

from objects that one had seen with one's

recalled in one's

memory. Second, they could be

products of the imagination conjured up in any shape or they could be half real and half

knew door a

fictive, as in

well and through the back wall of as a shortcut to

mental

new

staircase that

lead

totally fictive, size.

Or

third,

the case of a building one

which one broke an imaginary middle of which one created

spaces, or in the

would

own

one up

to higher floors that

had not

existed before.

The

real

purpose of

these mental constructs was to provide stor-

all

sum of our human knowledge. To everything that we wish to remember, wrote Ricci, we should give an image; and to every one of these images we should assign a position where it can repose peacefully until we are ready to reclaim it by an act of memory. Since this entire memory system can work only if the images stay in the assigned positions and if we can instantly remember where we stored them, obviously it would seem easiest to rely on real locations which we know so well that we cannot age spaces for the myriad concepts that

ever forget them.

But

that

would be

make up

a mistake,

the

thought

Ricci. For

it is

by expanding the number of locations and the corresponding number of images that can be stored in them that

we

increase

and strengthen

our memory. Therefore the Chinese should struggle with the task of creating fictive places, or

them permanently

in their

mixing the

fictive

minds by constant

that at last the fictive spaces

become

with the

practice

difficult

real,

fixing

and review so

"as if real, and can never be

erased."

How

on earth had such

a

system

first

evolved, the Chinese might

well have asked, and Ricci anticipated the question by

summarizing the

ancient Western tradition that ascribed the idea of

memory

training

through precise placement to the Greek poet Simonides. As Ricci explained (giving the nearest approximation he could provide in Chinese for the poet's

Long ago

a

his relatives

name):

Western poet, the noble Xi-mo-ni-de, was gathered with and friends

for a drinking party at the palace,

among

a

BUILDING THE PALACE

When

dense crowd of guests.

he

the

left

crowd

came tumbling down

outside, the great hall

in a

moment

for a

to step

sudden mighty wind.

man-

All the other revelers were crushed to death, their bodies were

gled and torn apart, not even their

and friends had been

one the

mnemonic method

was

sitting,

and

as

was transmitted

that

this general facility for

had been elaborated into

to later ages.

way

and religious subjects, and since he himself was

a

for ordering all one's

born in the

mnemonics

Jesuit order in

a

to ask

him about

mne-

the religion that

long road in order to win

Rome

in 1552, Ricci

became

chance to

this

to a scholarly Chinese audience.

town of Macerata

hill

a Catholic mis-

possible.

Matteo Ricci had traveled present his

knowledge of

that once the Chinese learned to value his

monic powers they would be drawn

made such wonders

3

remembering the order of things that

secular

hoped

his

can see the birth of

time

sionary Ricci

which

system over the succeeding centuries; by

a

had become

we

Ricci's

it

in

he recalled them one by

be identified. From this

their bodies could

It

families could recognize them.

remember the exact order

Xi-mo-ni-de, however, could relatives

own

An

Italian,

a novice in the

in 1571 and, after extensive training in theology,

humanities, and science, followed by a five-year apprenticeship in India

and Macao, entered China in 1583 to undertake mission work. In 1595, by which time he had become fluent in the Chinese language, he took

up residence Nanchang,

in the prosperous administrative

in the eastern province

and commercial center of

of Jiangxi. At the very end of 1595

he gave expression to his newfound confidence in his skills

by writing out,

friendship

in

drawn from various

He presented this house who was living

classical

authors and from the church

manuscript to

ing

in

his theories

3

on memory with

palace can be found in a short

which he wrote out

in

Ming

rul-

frequently invited

At the same time he was begin-

and to give lessons in mnemonic techniques.

memory

of the

a prince

Nanchang and had

to his palace for drinking parties.

ning to discuss

language

Chinese ideographs, a book of maxims on

fathers.

him

own

6

local

Chinese scholars

His description of the

book on the

art

Chinese the following year and gave

of

memory

as a

present

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

Lu Wangai, and

to the governor of Jiangxi,

RICCI

Governor Lu's three

to

7

sons.

The

family that Ricci was seeking to instruct in

mnemonic

skills

stood at the apex of Chinese society. Governor Lu himself was an telligent in the

Ming

dynasty

at various

in the north,

main

areas

military.

ernor,

who had served in a wide variety of posts bureaucracy. He knew the country well, for he had

and wealthy scholar

been stationed

and

in-

times in the

southwest, on the east coast,

far

and he had performed with distinction

of Chinese administration: the

Now he had

in

each of the

judicial, the financial,

and the

reached the peak of his career, as a provincial gov-

and was preparing

advanced government

his three sons for the

examinations; he himself had passed these exams with distinction twenty-eight years before, and that success in the

knew along with

exams was the

the imperial Chinese state.

all

surest route to

his

contemporaries

fame and fortune

Thus we can be almost

in

certain that Ricci

was offering to teach the governor's sons advanced memory techniques so that they

would have

chance to pass the exams, and would

a better

then in gratitude use their newly

won

prestige to advance the cause of

the Catholic church. In the event, however, though the governor's children did extremely

seem

well in the exams, this does not

mnemonic methods but

rather because of diligent study along tradi-

tional Chinese lines of repetition

mnemonic poems and rhyming nese eral

memory

practice.

9

to have been because of Ricci's

and

by the

recitation, aided perhaps

jingles that

As Ricci wrote

were part of current Chi-

later that

same year

to the gen-

of the Jesuit order, Claudio Acquaviva, the governor's eldest son

had read the memory book with

care,

but had remarked to one of his

confidants that "though the precepts are the true rules of has to have a remarkably fine

memory

in a letter to a friend in Italy

with

to

make any

whom

he had

memory, one

use of them." first

And

written out the

memory palaces, Ricci observed that, although the Nanchang "all admired the subtlety of the system, not all of

rules for building

Chinese in

them were willing Ricci himself

to take the trouble to learn

saw nothing odd or

how

1

to use it."

particularly difficult in building

BUILDING THE PALACE

memory

palaces.

He

had grown up with them, together with

a

whole

range of other techniques for fixing the subjects of one's schooling in the

memory. Moreover, these

skills

were

a

fundamental part of the cur-

riculum that Ricci had studied in his classes on rhetoric and ethics

Rome.

the Jesuit College in

memory

of

palaces by

book on the torka,

at

Ricci was probably introduced to the idea

way of the

basic lessons of rhetoric

was required reading

whose

scholar Cypriano Soarez,

text-

and grammar, the De Arte Rhe-

for Jesuit students in the 1570s.

1

After

leading his readers through the fundamentals of classical usage and

sentence structure, and giving

them examples of

metonymy, onomatopoeia, and bole, Soarez introduced

them

metalepsis, allegory, irony,

to the art of

memory

he ascribed to Simonides and called the root of saurus eloquentiae."

He

noted

tropes and metaphors,

how

all

and hyper-

placement, which

eloquence, the "the-

the system held words in order as

well as things, and could be used for an "infinite progression" of terms.

The students should

practice creating dramatic images of various kinds,

and designing locations churches would be

among

them:

for

the best.

palatial

buildings

But such vague suggestions would hardly give one the

memory

or

spacious

full

range of

13

techniques, or even the principles behind them. Ricci

have learned the details from several other authors.

would

One would

have

been Pliny, whose Natural History Ricci also read in school, and whose passage

on the great memory experts of the past he

nese in his 1596 ers

of the

first

memory book.

Others would have been several writ-

century B.C. and the

of a Latin work on rhetoric called

wrote about

memory

detailed information

translated into Chi-

first

century A.D., such as the author

Ad Herennium,

or Quintilian,

who

in his

handbook on

oratory.

These books gave

on how

to construct

memory

buildings and the

images one would place in them. As the author of

Ad Herennium

ex-

plained:

We ought,

up images of a kind that can adhere longest in the memory. And we shall do so if we establish likenesses as striking as possible; if we set up images that are not many or vague, but doing then, to set

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

we

RICCI

them exceptional beauty or singular ugliness; if we dress some of them with crowns or purple cloaks, for example, so that the likeness may be more distinct to us; or if we somehow disfigure them, as by introducing one stained with blood or

something;

if

assign to

soiled with

mud

striking, or

by assigning certain comic

too, will ensure

Such

or smeared with red paint, so that effects to

our remembering them more

its

form

is

our images, for

more that,

15

readily.

a description carried particular force, since

throughout the Middle

Ages the author of Ad Herennium was believed to be the revered Cicero himself.

Quintilian elaborated on the same topic by explaining what sort of places

The

one would use to store the images one had chosen:

first

thought

is

placed, as

it

were, in the forecourt; the second,

let

room: the remainder are placed

in due order all round the tmpluvium and entrusted not merely to bedrooms and par-

us say, in the living

lours,

the

but even to the care of statues and the

memory of

ited in turn

like.

the facts requires to be revived,

and the various deposits

are

This done,

all

as

soon

as

these places are vis-

demanded from

their custo-

dians, as the sight of each recalls the respective details. Consequently,

however all

large the

are linked

number of

one to the other

these

which

like dancers

it is

hand

required to remember, in hand,

and there can

be no mistake since they join what precedes to what follows, no trou-

committing the memory. What I have spoken of as being done in a house, can equally well be done in connection with public buildings, a

ble being required except the preliminary labour of

various points to

long journey, the ramparts of a

city,

or even pictures.

Or we may

even

imagine such places to ourselves.

Despite these attempts

at explanation, the

system sounds elusive and

we digress a moment to provide a modern focus and context, perhaps we can sharpen our view of how Ricci sought to interest the Chinese in his memory theories by creating comabstract to readers today.

But

if

binations of images, fixed in place, which through an association of

BUILDING THE PALACE ideas or a specific

mnemonic

would

rule

in turn yield, instantly, a re-

quired piece of information. Let us imagine a facing an oral examination that reviews her

The student

nerves.

out

modern medical student

work on bones,

memory

has in her head a whole

containing

in wards, streets, lanes, houses,

and

cells,

neatly laid

city,

the knowledge she

all

has acquired so far in her schooling; but facing the examiners she pays

no attention mechanics.

House

in

to the

wards of history, geology, poetry, chemistry, and

Her energy

is

concentrated on the three-story Physiology

Body Lane, where,

in separate

rooms, the disparate, powerful,

evocative images she has been creating in each evening of study are in

—around the

place

between the windows, on

walls,

Three questions are

fired at her:

she must

name

chairs, beds, tables.

the bones of the upper

and the order of nerves

limbs, the stages of cell division in meiosis,

passing through the superior orbital tissue in the skull. to the floor,

Upper Body Bone Room, on

figure tied to the horse's crupper: a

top of the

stairs

on the second

second to glide to the Cell

his horse

with a manacled, distraught

from there

Room

in the

it

takes her only a fraction

basement where, near the

furnace, a magnificent but savagely scarred African warrior a

look of ineffable boredom on his

face, despite

swiftly the student's

reclining

on

thoughts wing to the top floor Skull

a bedspread patterned

on the

of France, a voluptuous naked

woman

crumpled stack of dollar

The

come

quickly.

bills.

The image of

once given her the sentence /toyal

carpals,

list

of scapula,

girl;

Room

and

as

where,

and colors of the

stripes

reclines, her little fist

the

5ome

clavicle,

standing,

flag

clutching a

student's answers to the three ques-

Canadian Mounted Police, the

the correct

is

the fact that he grasps

with each huge hand the upper arm of a beautiful African

tions

races

where, in the third position from the door, a Canadian Mountie

in a brilliant scarlet jacket sits

of

at the

Her mind

Mountie and

his captive has at

Criminals

Have Underestimated

first letter

of each word yielding

humerus, ulna,

radius, carpals, meta-

and phalanges. The second image, of the Lazy Zulu Pursuing

Dark Damosels, gives the student the as leptotene,

stages of cell division in meiosis

zygotene, pachytene, diplotene, and diakinesis.

The

third

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

image, the Lazy French Tart Lying Naked In Anticipation, yields the order of nerves in the skull's upper orbital tissues, to wit, the lacrimal, frontal, trochlear, lateral, nasociliary, internal,

and abducens.

17

In a medieval or late Renaissance world similar techniques would

have had a different focus, and the images would have been appropriate to the times.

As

Martianus Capella writing that Psyche,

—"in

Memory bound

speed, although

it

chains." These were the chains of force of intellect to be a a

travel

and weighed

memory

it

millennium

for

any idea of

later,

at

18

stasis.

must have been

memory image of Rhetoric

who

held

memory

in her

gift

an astonishing

down with golden

as

soul; they

And how

were not

sharp

and

for Ricci

still,

his con-

Capella painted her, that

with "so rich a wealth of diction, so vast a store of

recollection,"

— the

that stood for the stabilizing

and imagination on the human

metaphor

temporaries the

woman

her birth, had been given the

at

which she could

was Mercury's idea

more than

finds the philosopher

presents, including "a vehicle with swift wheels"

most lovely

meant

one

early as the fifth century a.d.

memory and

domain. Here was fifth-century

Rhetoric:

A woman woman

of the

stature

tallest

of outstanding beauty; she wore

wreathed with royal grandeur;

in her

used either to defend herself or to brightness of lightning.

robe

wound about all,

rarest colors

helmet, and her head was

wound

her enemies, shone with the

her arms was covered by a

her shoulders in the Latin fashion; this robe was

kinds of devices and showed the figures

all

while she had a belt under her breast adorned with the

of jewels.

Each decoration of her robe

—

ferred to aspects of rhetorical

by the student

a

a

hands the weapons which she

The garment under

adorned with the light of of them

and abounding self-confidence,

who

contrast between this

—

light, devices, figures, colors, jewels

re-

ornament and would be retained forever

kept her in his head.

19

And how

perfect

glowing figure of Rhetoric and the

was the

terrible figure

of Idolatry, given her lineaments by the fifth-century theologian and

BUILDING THE PALACE mythologist Fulgentius and then updated into a Latin gle by the fourteenth-century as a prostitute, a

her condition.

monk

trumpet blaring above her head to give notice to

Summoning up

jin-

was depicted

Ridevall. For Idolatry

all

of

from her resting place when

this figure

the topic of idolatry had to be broached, salient points

mnemonic

one would

at

once

recall

the

of theological argument: she was a harlot because the

unfaithful have

God and

abandoned

fornicated with idols; she was

blind and deaf because Fulgentius had taught that the

first

idol

had

been a dead son's likeness made by slaves to lessen the grief of the

and she was blind and deaf to the true belief that should

child's father,

have banished such superstitions.

How many memory

such images could one or did one seek to retain in the

palaces of one's

running through

a list

mind? Ricci wrote quite

of four to

grams and then repeating the

him

described

as

startling:

feats

script draft

memory

arts either in

of Panigarola's

on memory method

—was described by acquaintances

Macerata library

told

own

As

fixed space.

Governor Lu Wangai,

Ricci, it

memory

still

reposes

in Florence as

images, each

echoing the past books on memory,

was the order and sequence of the places

ready for images inside each building that were crucial to the

monic

mne-

art:

Once your places are door and make your As with the

all

fixed in order, then

start.

Turn

as

with

fish

you can walk through the

to the right

practice of calligraphy, in

ginning to the end, is

have

or in Macerata

being able to roam across a hundred thousand in its

who may

—the manu-

Rome

little tract

classics

were not particularly

Francesco Panigarola, an older contemporary

taught Ricci

in the

But such

ideo-

while Chinese friends

volumes of the Chinese

recite

scanning them only once.

after

hundred random Chinese

in reverse order,

list

being able to

five

casually in 1595 of

and proceed from

there.

which you move from the

who swim

everything arranged in your brain, and

be-

along in ordered schools, so all

the images are ready for

whatever you seek to remember. If you are going to use a great many [images], then

let

the buildings be hundreds or thousands of units in

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO extent;

if

you only want

just divide

up by

it

then take a single reception hall and

a few,

corners.

its

23

work on medieval and

In her wonderfully erudite and comprehensive

mnemonic

Renaissance

mused over "what like"

The Art of Memory, Frances Yates

theory,

a Christianized artificial

and regretted the

to say

is

totally

traditional

fill

out

rarely sets

Matteo

their places."

cannot

it

Ricci's

memory might have been

"an Ars memorativa

fact that

a

system of

Chinese version

these lacunae, but

treatise,

though

it

any concrete application of the

will always give the rules, rarely gives rules, that

RICCI

it

mnemonic images on of a memory system

does give us a sense of

memory system could be adhered

on the

to

how

the

of the

far side

globe.

Furthermore, Ricci has explicit

group of images, each

sequence.

The

first

Chinese book on memory, one

left us, in his

fixed in

its

own

place and described in

image was two warriors grappling, the second

tribeswoman from the west, the third

a peasant cutting grain,

fourth a maidservant holding a child in her arms. True to his

junctions about a simple

way

to begin a

memory

place these images in the four corners of

was

I

take to be the entry

nor Lu or any beginner difficulty

on

way

who was

this first

to the

memory

memory

walking together to the door, entering the right,

perusing the images one by one.

Once one grew

supported by

familiar with the

in-

pillars,

palace proper. Gover-

stroll;

hall,

own

room. This room

reading Ricci could follow

mental

the

system, Ricci chose to

specific

a reception hall, a fairly large formal space

which

out

one

a

we

him with-

can see them

and, turning to their

25

methodology, however, one did not

have the sole choice of building ever larger and larger clusters of rooms

and chambers. placing ever

One

more images within them. The only danger here was

the space might the images articles

it

could increase the content of given structures by

become too

cluttered for the

mind

to seize easily

that

on

all

contained. But with that one caution one could introduce

of furniture into the room, place small decorative objects of

10

BUILDING THE PALACE gold or jade upon occasional 26

One

glittering colors.

tables,

and paint the walls themselves

could also use specific "pictures" to evoke the

images, wrote Ricci, just as Quintilian had urged in the a.d., or as

Ludovico Dolce had

mind

in

in

1562

by students interested in

clearly

show

knew

mnemonic

classical

all

as

their in-

mythology.

Ricci

illustrations,

and

his letters

was not only aware of religious books

like

Jeronimo

the

that he

century

first

when he suggested

an example that certain works of Titian be remembered in tricate details

in

of vivid

effect

Nadal's Commentaries on the Gospels, copiously illustrated with woodcuts,

which the Jesuits were publishing with the aim of making every

important

moment

but he even had his

own copy

to friends in Italy that

Just as Ricci

four

left

and vivid

in Christ's life fresh

mind,

in the viewer's

of Nadal with him in China and wrote

he found

it

invaluable.

memory images

for his reception hall, so

he

left

four religious pictures, each with a caption in his calligraphy and three

of them embellished with his

and Peter

at

Emmaus, of

commentaries: these were of Christ

the Sea of Galilee, of Christ and the the

men

Sodom

of

Lord, and of the Virgin tures

own

is

disciples at

falling blinded before the angel

Mary holding the Christ

have been preserved

two

due to

Child.

Ricci's friendship

That these

a

mutual friend

lish a collection

in

Peking

in 1605.

who was introduced Cheng, who was about

to include samples of

Western

handwriting, and requested Ricci to contribute some. elaborately self-deprecating, confessed to

Cheng

to pubtitle

art

Though

that only

him

to

of Chinese calligraphy and graphics under the

"The Ink Garden," was eager

pic-

with the publisher

and inkstone connoisseur Cheng Dayue, by

of the

of

and

Ricci,

"one

ten-

thousandth part" of Western culture could be of any interest to the erudite Chinese, he nevertheless consented, with the result that the

lowing year

his four pictures appeared

Cheng's elegant volume. expected to

fix in

29

Such

along with his commentaries in

religious pictures could be confidently

Chinese minds the details of dramatic passages from

the Bible, whether these were from

antecedents in the

fol-

Book of

moments

in Christ's life or

from

Genesis. If arranged in rigorous sequence,

11

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

memory

like the

and

images, they could be used to supplement the storage

mechanisms of the memory palace

retrieval

RICCI

itself.

Despite Ricci's apparent self-confidence about the value of his

memory

system, such structures were beginning to be challenged in Europe well before he sailed to the East in 1578. In the 1530s Cornelius Agrippa, despite his interest in magic and in scientific alchemy, wrote in his

book Of the natural

cocted

Vanitie

and Uncertain tie of Artes and

Sciences that

he

the

felt

memory of men was dulled by the "monstrous images" conin mnemonic arts; the attempt to overload the mind with infi-

nite pieces of information often "caused

madness and frenzy instead of

profound and sure memory." Agrippa saw

a

kind of puerile exhibi-

tionism in this flaunting of knowledge. In the English translation of his

work

"It

is

in al

a

that appeared in 1569, this disgust

shameful thinge, and

mens

a

sighte, the readings

theire wares: whereas in the

comes through

strongly:

shamelesse mannes propertie to

of

many

thinges, like as Marchantes

meane while

the

howse

is

emptie."

gious thinkers like Erasmus and Melanchthon saw these

had used

memory

his arts.

no

practical use.

31

do

Reli-

memory

systems as going back to an earlier age of monkish superstition and that the systems were of

out

set

felt

Rabelais, also in the 1530s,

marvelous powers of mockery further to discredit the

He

described

how Gargantua was

taught by his tutor

Holofernes to memorize the most abstruse grammatical works of his time, along with their full panoply of learned commentaries by such

and Claptrap. The upshot, wrote

scholars as Bangbreeze, Scallywag,

Rabelais gravely, was that though Gargantua could indeed repeat the

books he had learned "backwards by heart," and "became

man baked from him

from

a

in an oven,"

"it

when one wanted

was no more possible to draw

dead donkey."

spite his fascination

32

a

intelligent

By the end of the century

with the power of natural

Though he acknowledged

wise

as

any

commentary

word from him than

a fart

Francis Bacon, de-

memory

analyze data, had developed a definitive critique of the devices.

as

to organize

artificial

and

memory

the surface impressiveness of feats

12

BUILDING THE PALACE that could be attained with

tion prodigious," tally

"barren." "I

memory

Bacon concluded

them "of ostenta-

training, calling

make no more estimation of repeating

a great

of names or words upon once hearing," he wrote, "than tricks

I

number

do of the

of tumblers, funamboloes, baladines: the one being the same

mind

the

fundamen-

that the systems were

that the other

worthiness."

in the body, matters

is

in

of strangeness without

33

But most Catholic theologians of

Ricci's time, like Ricci himself,

were not dissuaded by these dismissive arguments. They concentrated

on the

growing body of

positive aspects of the system, ignoring the

which proved that the key

scholarship

Ad Herennium,

had

make

tinuing to

it

in fact

on memory systems,

early text

not been written by Cicero

at all

fundamental part of their curriculum.

a

and con3

It

was

Thomas Aquinas himself who had firmly implanted the idea that systems of memory were a part of ethics rather than merely an aspect of rhetoric, as they

had usually been considered previously. In

his

com-

mentaries on Aristotle, Aquinas described the importance of "corporeal similitudes"

and

tle

— or memory images

spiritual things" falling

Aquinas strengthened

his

memory

The our

memory

Aquinas's in

preventing "sub-

Oddly enough,

soul.

of memory-place systems

had

said

we need

mnemonic images had

memory

said

meaning we

images, and thus

to devotional

we need

and

"solid-

made

it

scriptural uses.

"solitude" to pick out

And quoting from memory

images, not "solicitude," was not noted for centuries.

slip

—

any case

in

images; Aquinas interpreted this as

Ad Herennium

fact that

for use

Ad Herennium

should "cleave with affection" to our possible to apply

—

form

away from the

arguments

by pointing out that Cicero in tude" for our

in bodily

—

ironically,

he had probably been

led to the strengthening of a Christian

tion that focused

on memory

arts as the

means

mnemonic

tradi-

to marshal "spiritual

intentions." Such an interpretation spread widely. For instance, the idea

memory systems were used to "remember Heaven and Hell" can explain much of the iconography of Giotto's paintings or the structure that

and

detail

of Dante's

Inferno,

and was commonplace

published in the sixteenth century.

35

13

in scores

of books

*

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO In the time of Aquinas, and in the following

RICCI

two

centuries, there de-

veloped a whole tradition of texts that sought to sharpen Christian devotion through evoking the imagination of believers, some of the most

important of which, like William of

Paris's twelfth-century Rhetorica

Divina, reached back to Quintilian for inspiration.

whom

ony, a fourteenth-century devotional writer

was

later to read

36

Ludolfus of Sax-

Ignatius of Loyola

with fascination, used language of exceptional

Ludolfus compelled his Christian readers to be present

pounding

ion,

his

words into the

through Christ: "After

all

force.

at the Crucifix-

reader's ears as the nails

pounded

the nerves and veins had been strained, and

the bones and joints dislocated by the violent extension, he was

tened to tne cross. His hands and feet were rudely pierced and

by coarse, heavy

nails that injured skin

also the ligaments of the bones." is

made

37

and

flesh,

fas-

wounded

nerves and veins, and

In such moods, where "gospel time

to suffuse present time," Ludolfus could

tell

the believer to

proceed "with a certain devout curiosity, feeling your way, [and]

touching each of the wounds of your Saviour,

you"

—wounds of which, according

to Bridget of

Ludolfus drew on, there were 5,490.

38

lying

walking along and in standing

down,

in eating

and

when alone and when with century, the author of a

at

all

still,

others."

Sweden, whose work

and

in

down and

keeping

By the middle of the

book of devotions

Monk,

times be applied to

in sitting

in drinking, in talking 39

has thus died for

Ludolfus, a Carthusian

urged that the active imagination must Christ, "in

who

for girls

in

silent,

fifteenth

was urging them

—not excluding Christ himself—the

to give to characters in the Bible faces

of friends and acquaintances, so that they would be fixed in their

memories.

He

told his

young audience

to place these figures in their

own mental Jerusalem, "taking for this purpose a city that is wellknown to you." Thereafter, "alone and solitary" in her chamber, each girl

could undertake her devotions, reliving the Bible story by "moving

slowly from episode to episode."

This vivid restructuring of

memory was

also a

fundamental compo-

nent of the edifice of discipline and religious training that the converted Spanish soldier Ignatius of Loyola developed for the

14

members of

— BUILDING THE PALACE the Society of Jesus,

arguments

his

that his followers tius instructed

might

them

form eight years

its final

a given event

tive representation"

to Jerusalem

would

In order

later.

call

to

At the simplest

mind

those

level,

the physical setting in

took place, or what Ignatius called "an imagina-

of the place:

on which Christ

which he held

Exercises,

to apply their five senses to those scriptural pas-

they were contemplating.

that

he had been marshaling

live the biblical narrative in all its force, Igna-

practicing the exercises

which

in 1540;

writing the early drafts of the Spiritual

in

to be published in

which was

sages

which he founded

l

for

example, the road from Bethany

traveled toward his passion, the

his last supper, the

in

garden in which he was betrayed, the

house in which Mary his mother waited these contexts, said Ignatius,

room

Within

after the Crucifixion.

one could then move to

by adding the sense of hearing: "Listen to what

is

a sharper picture

being said by the

people on the earth's surface, talking to each other, swearing and blas-

pheming." Contrast with

this the

the Trinity, and listen to

them

words of the three divine persons of

as they say,

demption of mankind." After seeing and of the

to involve the rest

"Let us bring about the

one can proceed

listening,

five senses in the act

re-

of memory: "Smell the

indescribable fragrance and taste the boundless sweetness of the divinity.

Touch by

walk or

sit,

the past in

kissing and clinging to the places

always trying to profit thereby."

its

diversity

into the present, that have the

it is

and bring

If the five senses

— contextually primed, memory,

as

it

when

the subject matter

said Ignatius, the "picture will

imagination, that

my

self,

soul

is

body and

be the

idea,

is

is

of an awareness of

produced by an

condemned

were

is

to live

will

being

not something

visi-

sin.

Here,

effort

of the

a prisoner in this corruptible soul,

evoke

and

reason,

burden of deepening the significance of what

ble in a conventional sense, as in the case

my whole

where these persons

it

the three faculties of

contemplated, especially

that"

3

body and

amongst

ani-

mals on this earth, like someone in a foreign land." (Though this was

not written expressly for missionaries, one can guess the force the passage

must have gained

for Ricci as

he lived out his

life in

gling for periods of leisure to reinforce his spiritual

15

life.)

China, strug-

As Ignatius

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO phrased

it,

memory

each of the three faculties could be employed in turn, with

leading the way:

By an next,

RICCI

effort I

of my memory,

will use

my

I

will recall the first sin, that

reason to think about

it;

then

my

of the angels;

will, striving to

remember and think about all this in order to develop in myself a sense of utter shame, as I compare my numerous sins with the angels' one sin: that one sin brought them to Hell: how often have I deserved it for all my sins. The memory's part is to recall how the angels were created in grace, but refused to make the most of their free-will in honoring and obeying and

pride,

their state

their Creator

were plunged from Heaven into way,

I

will think

and Lord: they

fell

of grace was perverted to one of evil

about

all

hell.

Using

my

this in greater detail:

victims to

will, as they

reason in the same

by

my

will

try to

I

evoke the proper sentiments.

As each person practicing the placing

them

in the

exercises reflected

his personal relations

sitions

own

at different times,

sins

by

—seeing

thinking of

with others, and reflecting on the various po-

of service or authority he had held

contemplation of the angels'

sin to a

first

spiritual battle that pitted Christ

the devil.

his

most domestic and intimate of contexts

himself in the houses where he had lived all

on

and

—

so he could

move from

the

panoramic vision of the great

his forces against the armies

of

4

The urgent

calls

of Ludolfus and Ignatius that the faithful Christian

should incorporate these "memories" of an unlived past into the itual present

echoed not only Thomas Aquinas but also the

spir-

Confessions

of Augustine, written eleven hundred years before Ricci was born, for it

was Augustine

who had

said:

"Perchance

it

might be properly

said,

'there be three times; a present of things past, a present of things

present,

and

a present

of things future.' "

Yet

Ignatius's

own

Catholic

contemporaries worried that he or his followers might be going too in their invocation

of claims to special insight into the divine realm.

The bishop of Valencia complained little

far

better than "mystery

that the Spiritual Exercises

was

mongering" and was written under the 16

in-

BUILDING THE PALACE fluence of Illuminist ideas prevalent at the time.

who

Six priests

claimed, in 1548, that through the exercises they could obtain a "di-

communication with

rect"

quisition: the inquisitors

Holy

Spirit 48

tles."

tius

were called

for

were worried by the

might come upon them

Some Dominicans,

was "notoriously

in 1553,

examination by the Inpriests'

claim that "the

he once did upon the apos-

as

went so

far as to

suggest that Igna-

charges that prompted Ignatius's

a heretic,"

Nadal (author of the Contemplations that Ricci introduced to

friend

China) to

insist that Ignatius

direct channels. as

God

49

drew

from Scripture, not from

his ideas

Conscious of these controversies, Claudio Acquaviva,

general of the order during Ricci's China service, was to

Ignatius's views of the "application of the senses" a "very easy

mode," not

to be

compared

to

and

downplay

refer to

them

as

more complex forms of

contemplation and prayer.

The

precise line

between religious experiences and

powers has always been

a difficult

so-called magical

one to draw. Some scholars have

re-

magic

al-

cently suggested that interconnections between religion and

ways

lay in the

words and incantations of the Mass

music, the lights, the wine, the transformations that Ricci's experiences in

China show that there was,

natural presupposition that his skills derived

October

13, 1596,

he wrote from the

city

itself,

and

in the

lie at its heart.

in the public

mind,

from magical sources.

a

On

of Nanchang to General Ac-

quaviva in Rome. After recounting briefly the

difficult negotiations

he

had followed in order to get permission not only to reside in Nanchang but also to buy a house there, Ricci described the crowds of distinguished Chinese

literati

who were now

flocking to his house to con-

gratulate him. Ricci listed the three major motives that he believed the

Chinese had for these

mercury into pure

visits: their

conviction that the Jesuits could turn

silver; their desire to

and their eagerness to learn

his

mnemonic

pletely believable in the context of the

gious

life

of Ricci's time,

numerological

skills

give the adept a

study Western mathematics; system.

European

when memory

52

The

list is

intellectual

com-

and

reli-

systems were combined with

and the arcane semiscientific world of alchemy to

power over

his fate that mirrored the

17

power of con-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO ventional religion.

makes sense only

RICCI

We must remember that if at one level

in the context

Ricci's career

of an aggressive Counter-Reformation

Catholicism, as part of an "expansion of Europe" in the later sixteenth

century that took place under the guns of Spanish and Portuguese men-of-war, sance in

Ages to

also

it

many

makes sense only

in a far older context, pre-Renais-

aspects, a context reaching

worlds where the priests of the Christian

classical antiquity, to

religion shared the tasks of consoling

men" who The

back through the Middle

mankind with the "cunning

cosmography, and astrology.

dealt in magic, alchemy,

53

protracted and complex debates held by order of the Papacy at

the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563

may have

solved

some of

the most difficult problems raised by the leaders of the Catholic church,

who were

responding both to their personal awareness of the church's

internal decay

and to the searching questions of

their Protestant

oppo-

nents, but these "solutions" reached only a fraction of the people.

Others continued to hold their

own

God

of chaos

had emerged from

earth, water, Italian miller

fire,

and

air

a state

idiosyncratic interpretations: thus in

which the four elements of

were already present, according to one North

"Who

questioned by the Inquisition in 1584.

moves the

chaos?" the inquisitor asked, and the miller responded, "It moves by 54

itself."

same

"My mind was

lofty

miller, explaining that

and wished

much of his

for a

disquiet

new world,"

said the

came from the

vision

of other lands and peoples that he had absorbed from John Mandeville's tales

of his travels in Africa and Cathay.

one humble exemplar of century

who

all

those

55

The

miller can stand as

men and women

in the sixteenth

continued to search for meanings on their

own

because

neither Protestant nor Catholic reformers had succeeded in convincing

them

that they could explain either the ultimate mysteries of the

world's origins or such localized yet baffling

phenomena

as intense

mental depression, catastrophic sudden death of humans and animals, the loss of cherished possessions, or the failures of the harvest.

And

so the lines between aspects of magic and religion continued to

be blurred.

The

miller developed his four-elements theory to the point

18

BUILDING THE PALACE where

God became

water, while the

the

fire

air,

Holy

Christ the earth, and the

raged everywhere on

own.

its

57

Spirit the

His poorer con-

temporaries dreamed of a universe in which rivers were shored up with

embankments of and marzipan.

58

paschal candles of

Good Hope

Rome

made of

wax from

the

into the stormy seas as they rounded the

and outside the walls of Peking

in 1578,

him some

kept always with tiny cross

ravioli

Ricci and his friends, even if they denied any magical

force to the objects, tossed tiny talismans

of

down

heavens rained

ricotta cheese while the

grains of soil from the

the

Cape

in 1601 Ricci

Holy Land and

a

made, he believed, from fragments of the true cross on which

Christ had died.

59

And

in ostensibly

"reformed" England, so numerous

were the magic practitioners that in one county during the reign of

Queen

Elizabeth

miles away from

it

has been proved that

no one

lived

more than

ten

some "cunning man."

In a world used to looking carefully at the sky, each phase of planetary

motion, each waxing of the moon, each

carefully tracked,

human

fate.

and

as carefully

the Catholic church while

one historian has

still

appearance was

analyzed for possible significance on

men and women

Educated

stellar

could be devout members of

keeping room

called the alternative systems

in their

minds

these systems

the individual

who

it

was

Within

truism that special strengths accrued to

a

could fuse the forces of the cosmos with the mne-

monic prowess of his own

among

what

of "undiscovered occult

influences" that "pulsated" in their Neoplatonic universes.

many of

for

brain.

Quite

the poor and uneducated, was

a

strong level of memory, even

still

taken for granted in a cul-

ture that remained largely oral. Montaigne, for instance,

on

journey of 1581, described a group of peasants in the

his Italian fields

near

Florence, their girl friends at their sides, reciting lengthy passages of

Ariosto as they

strummed on

session of too strong a

their lutes.

memory could

62

Yet

at the

same time, pos-

swiftly lead one's neighbors to

suspect one of having magical powers, as happened with

Tilh in southern France during the midsixteenth century. speare's audiences

it

would

still

63

have been commonplace to

19

Arnaud du For Shake-

know how

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO to use

memory and how

to strengthen

When

it.

RICCI

Ophelia, after Hamlet

has killed her father, walks in front of her brother, Laertes, and

cries,

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember," she

is

not simply mad; she

is

also steeling Laertes for an act

geance by invoking the widely held

belief, carried in

of ven-

many mnemonic

of the day, that rosemary was the sovereign herb for strength-

treatises

ening the memory.

While

Ricci was a schoolboy, several charges of practicing black

hometown of Macerata, some misuse of mnemonic

magic were brought against the clergy of

his

and these might have been connected to arts,

though we don't have the

trying to accomplish.

'

details

of what the practitioners were

What we do know

teenth century "astrologically centered

is

that

all

through the

six-

mnemonic systems" were being

constructed with extraordinary care in such

cities as

Venice and Naples

home but also exported by their eager creators to France and England, among other countries. These systems organized the forces of the universe into "memory theaters," concentric diagrams, and not only used

at

or imaginary cities in such a

that those forces could be consulted

and drawn upon, making the practitioner of the

directly

magus" of markable

potentially great power.

Camillo

Italian scholar

foreground were piles of

with

way

all

little

The

art a "solar

"theater" created by the

re-

in the 1540s suggests the range: in the

boxes, intricately arranged and

jammed

the works of Cicero; rising away into the distance were arrays

of cosmic images designed to show the "universe expanding from

First

Causes through the stages of creation," so that the theater master

man gazing down upon

would be

like a

at last to

understand both the individual

a forest trees

from

a

high

hill,

able

and the shape of the

whole. As Camillo explained, "This high and incomparable placing not only performs the office of conserving for us the things, words and acts

which we confide

to

it,

so that

we may

find

them

at

once whenever we

need them, but also gives us true wisdom."

Nor was such wisdom ran

on

a score

of

trails

confined to the world of words or the stage.

It

throughout the theory and practice of Renais-

20

BUILDING THE PALACE sance architecture, where the "hidden lines" that dictated the perfect

meaning

spaces could give

to a building by expressing ideas of gravity

or love, and where the perfect proportions of the

be transposed with cosmic force into stone.

which had inherited

naissance music, strength,

first

human

It lay at

figure could

the heart of Re-

by which mnemonic

a process

manifested in the alphabet and rhyme, was fixed firmly in

the melodic line and in

which the two

ber-mysticism and as science theorists, either into realms

— could

attributes of

flow,

music

—

num-

as

the minds of serious

in

of sexual force and regeneration or into

those of a specific international discourse. So Kepler, at the same time that he

was making

immersing himself

remarkable discoveries on planetary orbits and

his

in the

work of alchemists

court, could develop an interpretation that

major third in

a

Emperor Rudolph's

had the interval of the

given piece of music representing male sexual

ment while the minor Nicolo Vicentino,

in a treatise

fulfill-

whereas

third stood for the receptive female;

new six-manual harpsinew instrument would be

of 1555 on his

chord, the archkembalo, could write that his able to

at

produce the sounds of German, French, Spanish, Hungarian,

and Turkish. "The inflections and intervals that

all

nations of the

world use in their native speech do not proceed only in whole and half tones,

but also in quarter tones and even smaller

the division of our harpsichord the world."

9

Ricci,

on

first

we

intervals, so that

can accommodate

all

with

the nations of

seeing Chinese ideographs in

Macao

in

1582, was to be similarly struck by their incredible potentiality for

serving as universal forms that could transcend the differences in pro-

nunciation that inhered in language.

70

Disparate though these images and examples

they can serve to

are,

underline the fundamental variety of thoughts about literal

and transformative powers that coexisted

called the

in

Counter-Reformation period. They make

that, as Ricci

used his

scientific learning

mnemonic methodologies

and

his

it

memory and what

is

its

loosely

hard to believe

alongside his Western

profound theological training to woo the

Chinese people away from their amalgam of Confucianism, Buddhism,

21

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

and Taoism, he was unmindful of the powers over man and nature that his

European contemporaries ascribed to mnemonic

The

four

memory images

arts.

that have survived in Ricci's treatise are but a

memory

tantalizing hint of the riches stored in his

palace, just as his

four religious pictures represent but a fraction of the Catholic iconog-

raphy

at the heart

nese.

But since

of the religion to which he tried to convert the Chi-

it

so astonishing that even this

is

much

has been

preserved, and since Ricci chose with care the images and pictures that

have come

down

to us,

I

my

have chosen in

turn to build this book

around these eight distant fragments. Ricci told Cheng Dayue

down

"the whole point of writing something

in 1606,

that your voice will

is

then carry for thousands of miles, whereas in direct conversation fades at a

hundred paces."

dental survivals that Ricci

we

would approve

He

was

right,

and

can enter his past.

this procedure,

it

We

for as

is

through these

it

acci-

can be confident that

he also said to Cheng

Dayue:

Those who and

I

will live

cannot

tell

one hundred generations

what

sort

after us are

not yet born,

of people they will be. Yet thanks to the

existence of written culture even those living ten thousand genera-

my mind as if we were contemwho lived a hundred generations

tions hence will be able to enter into poraries.

As

for those

worthy

figures

ago, although they too are gone, yet thanks to the books they

left be-

hind

we who come

their

grand demeanor, and understand both the good order and the

after

can hear their modes of discourse, observe

chaos of their times, exactly

To

late

as if

we were

Renaissance humanists, the

days of the

Roman Empire

were the models for

words on memory, and there

a gentle

of

them.

71

lived in the great

this discourse

and

which Quintilian had written

in

is

among

men who had

meanor. Those were the days

fact that Ricci's cycles

living

echo of that familiarity

memory images began with two

dehis

in the

warriors

grappling, while the pictorial cycle began with the sea of Galilee:

22

BUILDING THE PALACE Quintilian had suggested war and the sea as the

two things one

first

could remember, through the images of a spear and an anchor.

As we

travel

between

with Matteo Ricci, we should remember one other link

his classical past

Roman memory

and

such

with

as a a

one must put

text stated that

flow of images, signposts, as

Chinese present. The best-known

his

certain

like

Decimus

to evoke the

number

ten.

73

with his central Christian goal of conversion

lectual ingenuity

was directed

—by

a stroke

—

five or a friend

Ricci was able to

integrate this idea into the flow of his Chinese images it

in one's

were, at every fifth or tenth grouping,

it

golden hand to remind one of the number

name

marks

and to combine

which

to

all

his intel-

of linguistic brilliance that

was made possible only by the nature of the Chinese ideographic Instead of the golden

hand or the man named Decimus, he proposed

the Chinese that at every tenth a

memory image of

memory

came from the

to

place they should simply insert

the Chinese ideograph for "ten."

elegance of this idea

script.

7

The wonderful

ideograph for ten,

fact that the

many other with a wooden

written -)- in Chinese, was used by the Chinese to express objects or places in

which two

lines

were crossed,

frame or a crossroads. For

this reason the earliest

who had come

in the seventh century,

their

word

to

China

for the cross

of Christ,

usage

a

made

as

Nestorian Christians,

had taken "ten"

official

as

by the Mongol

conquerors of China in the thirteenth century and adopted by Ricci

and the sixteenth-century Jesuits the

Ming

in their turn.

75

Thus

as the

Chinese of

dynasty followed Matteo Ricci through his reception

past his pictures,

and on into the

recesses

of the

memory

hall,

palace, they

were guided not only by the logic of the decimal system but also by the implacable symbolism of the sign of the cross

23

itself.

TWO

THE FIRST IMAGE THE WARRIORS

For

the

image

first

memory

in his

palace, Ricci decides to

To

build on the Chinese ideograph for war, pronounced wu. present

will

remember, he

nal axis

wu

in the

first

form of

a

memory image

cuts the ideograph into

running from upper

left

two

lower

a

sections

—

the

word

among Chinese

a tradition that

for war, the possibilities,

Ricci draws from these

terconnected image:

A

two

by the

ideas

frail,

buried inside

of peace.

and recombines them into one

wrist, striving to stop the in

blow from his

in-

falling.

memory book, how such

images should be formed, placed, and lighted

human memory.

see,

al-

enemy; that second warrior grasps the

Ricci describes to the Chinese,

our

wit-

scholars reaching back

allowed one to

however

—whether

warrior, the very picture of martial vigor, holds

a spear, poised to strike at his first

word

word with the sense of "to stop" or "to prevent."

a tradition

most two millennia,

a diago-

represents the

In dividing the ideograph in this fashion Ricci follows tingly or not

on

to lower right. This dissection yields

two separate ideographs, the upper one of which for spear, the

that the reader

if

they are truly to help

In the rules for the images themselves, he explains

24

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS

W&XBii

25

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO that they

must be

and not too

lively

RICCI

must arouse

that they

static,

strong emotions, that the figures must wear clothes or uniforms which clearly

show

cupation.

their social station

The

and the nature of their business or oc-

between figures

differences

composite image must

in a

be exaggerated, their features distorted by joy or pain; they ridiculous or laughable,

if

may even be

and they must be kept

that seems advisable;

separate and distinct/

As

where

for the location

the Chinese a

number of

a

given image

The

further rules.

but not so crowded with images that trate's all

yamen,

a

busy market, or

to be stored, Ricci gives

is

place should be spacious,

a single

a school

one gets

jammed with

lost: a

magis-

students would

be unsuitable. The light must be clear and even, though not bright

enough lest

level

The

to dazzle.

spaces

must be

clean and dry, and kept covered

They should be

the images be streaked with rain or dew.

or just above, not balanced on a

which would make them

closer to their

should be firmly planted, not fixed

—

a pulley

feet

it

so that

eye should be able to

nor farther than

at

once to the

it

hall

of his

memory

placed, he can forget about

there locked in combat, killed, for as

long

as

two

them

palace along

faces south, in deference to the Chi-

right. It

the building, that he puts the

They

should never be suspended from

nese tradition that gives greatest honor to that direction.

door and turns

six feet.

3

So Ricci constructs the reception these lines and orients

roof,

in unstable attitudes susceptible to

for example, they

or balanced on a wheel.

on the

to the next, so they should never be

neighbor than three

sudden movement

or perched

The mental

inaccessible.

roam completely from one image

beam

at floor

is

enters the

here, in the southeast corner of

warriors.

for a while.

one striving to

kill

Once they are securely The two men will stay

and the other not to be

he chooses to leave them.

26

He

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS Ricci's

childhood world of Macerata was encircled by war and suffused

with violence. In the narrow stone

streets that

men

during the 1550s and 1560s the young

he walked to school

of the Alaleona and

Pelli-

cani families had been stalking each other for years, pursuing a feud

some had been stabbed

that reached back to the 1520s: light, others cut

their

down

as they said

bloody company, for other noblemen

wreaking

to other cities after

fight as soldiers until their

Ricci was three years old ily

gave

delli

new dimension

a

with

killed a at the

the

And

Mass.

member of

time the

same

those two families had

to

masked

killers,

or fled

long terms of exile were up.

when

three

members of the Ciminella fam-

to this violence

by killing Francesco Ciappar-

when

five

a

Benedictine

monk

city

the Floriani family in Macerata; and he was eleven

resounded to the story that

Floriani clan

out of his

broad day-

of vengeance, there to wait or

their acts

of pistol bullets; he was

a rain

fell

in

had knifed

a

from

a sixteen-year-old

young man who had taken

a bite

man and though we do not

In the spate of murders and fights, at least one

ear.

woman bearing the Ricci name lost their lives, know if they were close relatives of Matteo. Despite one

recurrent efforts of

the clergy and the city fathers to end the violence, such murders were still

commonplace when Matteo

law in Rome.

Ricci left Macerata in 1568 to study

5

Outside the walls of Macerata the ravaged

cities to

rural poor, refugees

from the war-

the north, and deserters from the myriad mercenary

armies that had been fighting on Italian

soil

coalesced into bandit

groups that roamed the countryside almost with impunity. Every kind of bounty was offered to local troops bandits,

need for

and the Macerata jail

city records

who

could

show

kill

or capture the

a steady increase in the

space as well as for interrogation rooms where torture

could be used to extract further information from the captives.

6

Yet

these local initiatives were not enough, and general order was restored

only after 1568,

when

area hired armies to

the papal legates

who

had jurisdiction over the

conduct sweeps of the countryside and house-to-

house searches and registration

drives.

7

(Macerata was within the belt

of territory in central Italy that constituted the papal domain, and the 27

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO Vatican's legates shared

Even

power with Macerata's own government.) the Macerata countryside remained

so, for years after, travel in

and despite the impressive speeds of the couriers claimed

unsafe,

some

Rome

communication with

sources,

The

of the Macerata

commune who

gave

and provided storage bases

De Vico

Francesco

demned

1554,

in

illicit

8

military officers

sanctuary to robbers and

for stolen goods.

like

If,

Captain

they were exposed, arrested, and con-

to death, they could regain their

of their crimes by

profits

in

was slow and uncertain.

compounded by

bleakness of the situation was

killers

RICCI

skillful

freedom, and even the

life,

use of a local statute offering freemen

of the city pardon in exchange for bandits they or their friends had

wrote Macerata's historian, Libero Paci, could

killed. So,

come once on the

Being

all

of his rapine." Indeed,

De

Vico lived prosperously

Ma-

in

the years of Ricci's upbringing there and finally died in

which time Ricci had been

1584, by

be-

again an honored citizen, living for the longest span of years

fruits

cerata for

"De Vico

a year in

China.

9

key city in the administration of the papal domain, Macerata

a

could not hope to stay free from papal

politics,

whether international

or local. There had been war scares in the city during 1555 struggles between

when

the

Pope Paul IV and the powerful Colonna family

threatened to spread to Macerata, but these faded to insignificance the

following year iards,

who

when Pope

Paul's

mounting

troubles with the Span-

controlled southern Italy from their base in the

Kingdom

Naples, brought the Spanish general the duke of Alva into papal tory.

izens

Macerata was assessed for military rather belatedly

levies

hiring a military architect to draw fications.

Pope Paul sought

up

a

master plan for the

to counter Spanish

local mifort,

and

city's forti-

power through

a

and the Maceratans were ordered to prepare supplies

French

alliance,

for the

French army

would be

cit-

saw to the town's defense, buying up one

converting an old mill tower on the nearby river into a 10

terri-

by Pope Paul, and the

hundred arquebuses to swell the armory, distributing pikes to litia,

of

as well as to repair the roads

over which the troops

traveling and to send draft animals and supplies to the front.

The French

troops,

under the

command 28

of the duke of Guise, reached

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS

March 1557 with an army consisting of twelve thousand

central Italy in

Guise was

infantry and six thousand cavalry.

and the

April,

May,

after

failed to

ish troops

cerata

were on

his heels.

now

it

was believed that Alva's Span-

But peace came

was spared an attack by one of Philip

II's

greatest generals,

two decades

Enmeshed with lay the

later

and duplicity

these local manifestations of the current

Muslim

that looked for trade

nearby outlet to the the markets of attack.

for intolerance

whose was

in the

of France.

religious wars

drama

duke of Guise's

December, and Ma-

in

reputation for military terror in the Netherlands to be as great as the

his return in

capture the strategic Spanish-held fortress of

of Rome, for

Civitella, southeast

Macerata during early

was uneventful. More alarming was

visit

he had

in

European

of the Ottoman Empire. Macerata, a town

forces

and economic

life as

much

to the east

through

its

the rich Adriatic harbor of Ancona, as west to

sea,

Rome, was constantly aware of

the dangers of Turkish

During the 1540s the Maceratans had

to provide

money

to

strengthen Ancona's defenses as well as their own, and in 1551, the year before Ricci was born,

new

threats of Turkish coastal attacks led the

papal legate to order a complete listing of those in Macerata aged eighteen to forty

and

eligible for military service, a

bers of the clergy

list

Such musterings of

were not to be excluded.

Catholics against the

Muslim menace

call to

from which mem-

mind

the passions aroused

by the Crusades four centuries before, even though in the midsixteenth century religious passions did not always transcend international diplo-

macy. Thus the French, campaigning against the Holy peror Charles

V

in 1544,

had not hesitated to

offer the

Roman Em-

Ottomans

the

use of Toulon harbor for winter anchorage in exchange for the pressure the Turkish fleets could put the threat of the

IV had

on

duke of Alva

Spain; and similarly in 1556, faced with

to

Rome

and the Papal

States,

Pope Paul

sent secret emissaries to the French king asking his help in get-

ting the Turkish fleet to disrupt Spain's military shipments in the

Mediterranean.

The well

13

vagaries of Maceratan

enough by events

life

in this confused situation are

in the mid-1 560s:

29

by

this

shown

time changes in the

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI military politics of the

Ottoman Empire had

led to corresponding

changes in diplomacy and had renewed the threat of Turkish attack the Adriatic.

The

fective city walls,

tion

to provide

citizens of Macerata, desperate to rebuild their inef-

had done so by getting dispensation from the obliga-

money

to

Ancona, even though Ancona's strong

defense was essential to Macerata's

on the

some

coastal

town of Gargano

of the

threat.

own

in the

distance to the south, were

reality

still

But Turkish

survival.

summer of

near

1566, even

enough

who

filled all five

from the extra guests. At other times

cerata took part in the defense of Malta or fought

Hungary

against the

though

home

to bring

the

inns in the

to be billeted also in the local monasteries,

fited financially

attacks

Macerata became the base for an emergency force

of four thousand infantry and cavalry,

town and had

in

Ottoman

which pro-

citizens of

on the

ruler Suleiman's forces;

some

Ma-

fields

of

served in

the galleys of the Mediterranean fleets in response to papal orders that

Macerata provide four rowers for each one hundred registered families;

some who had campaigned on various Turks and became

slaves

fronts were captured by the

— the more fortunate ones being ransomed by

their families.

In these years of Ricci's youth, military technology was changing swiftly,

and these changes necessitated

military tactics. Im-

shifts in

proved and lighter firearms altered the relationship between infantry

and cavalry and gave dominance to the cohesive infantry square, where musketeers (protected during reloading by pikemen) could fight off

any traditional cavalry charge. As a sixteenth-century English theorist

of the

art

of war noted, "It

is

rarely seene in

our dayes, that

often to hand-blowes, as in old time they did: For

shot so employeth and busieth the lute stand of pikes) that the

most

field

now

men come

in this age the

(being well backed with a reso-

valiantest

and

skilfullest therein

do

commonly import the victorie, or the best, at the least wise, before men 15 come to many hand-blowes." While the number of "hand-blowes" thus decreased, the need for intensive

drill

and technical training

brought greater rewards to those professional troops their lives to war, as

opposed to

who would

devote

rustic conscripts: the Spanish regular

30

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS troops

came

to excel at this style of warfare, while the mercenaries of

German

the

principalities

and of Switzerland became the spines of

dozen armies, from the Netherlands to Africa and nary troops fought for

money and could be

of the usefulness of

walls came, not in the face of the Turks, but

4,200 Swiss mercenaries, hired by the Spaniards in

The

Naples, passed by in the spring of 1566.

These merce-

Italy.

the scourges of any coun-

tryside they passed through: Macerata's first test

new

a

its

when an army of the Kingdom of

Swiss were intended to

boost Naples's defenses against the Turks, but the Maceratans clearly

might attack the towns they passed en

feared they

firmly closed their gates.

ceratan

commune

feared as the

From

this panic-stricken reaction

seems that these potential

it

route,

enemy they would

allies

and they

of the Ma-

were

as

much

fight against.

Faced by the mixture of threats against them, the Maceratans had turned to a military architect in the late 1550s, and here they were in

tune with the accuracy,

spirit

of the times. As cannon developed in range and

and siege warfare grew more complex, old

yielded to a

new

design of smooth-walled pentagon-shaped fortresses

with projecting redoubts

maximum open

fortifications

fields

of

at fire

each of their

five corners,

which

offered

along two defensive axes. Italian military

designers had the greatest prestige in Europe at this time, and major cities

competed

for the best

of them: the elegant modern

merely was sought for defensive reasons but had cathedral as an index of a city's prestige.

17

to replace the

prices,

and the Macera-

were distressed to find that their choice, the Florentine expert Bas-

tiano, required an expensive

Ricci was

annual contract.

enough aware of these trends

viewing warfare

as a scientific operation,

1

to join his contemporaries in

and

his longest passage

of

sus-

—written 1607, when he had been China more than two decades— appears suitably enough the introduc-

tained reflection for

not

But of course the designers

responded to market demand by raising their tans

come

fortress

tion to

on war

in

in

in

one of

his

own most

spectacular scholarly achievements, his

translation into Chinese of Euclid's Elements of Geometry.

There Ricci

wrote that mathematical precision was even more important for the 31

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO military officer than

the merchant. successful,

the

for the farmer, the statesman, the doctor, or

Without mathematical the

it,

and

— the

skills,

the general

army required

precise skills for three

main

reasons:

and calculate

all

the elements

on

his line

distances involved, the type of terrain in terms of ease

a circular

mation to make

from harm

safe

it

formation to make his army look small, look numerous, or

encompass the enemy, or

a

a crescent

moon

a

horn

all

for-

formation so

wedge-shaped one to rout him

Third, he checks the effectiveness of

as

utterly.

weapons of attack and defense

varying circumstances, and explores every

in

As Ricci

Second, he estimates the best way to deploy his military units:

whether

to

be.

to estimate the availability of food supplies

his horses,

of movement, and the chances of his troops being there.

would be un-

knowledge and valor might

his

good general has

for his troops

of march

was

however great

summarized

First,

it

RICCI

mode of improving who has

them, adding new technique to new technique. For anyone carefully read the historical records

the

man who

develops

new

of various countries knows that

offensive

weapons

have the means

will 1

either for victory in battle or for a secure defense.

But

makes Ricci seem more complacent and

this particular passage

The new technological and perhaps to a somewhat similar

deterministic about war than he really was.

velopments of war tent in Asia, levels

of

Europe

inasmuch

artillery

horrors that

in

it

—

as the

de-

ex-

Portuguese and Spaniards brought new

—introduced new

and naval gunnery to the Far East

was hard to avoid confronting. In one pessimistic

sage Ricci wrote of that same quest for novelty in war,

pas-

which he had

praised in his Euclid introduction, as inevitably being destructive in self.

He expounded

this

view

on the course of human

in the context

it-

of a philosophical dialogue

existence, initially written in

1601 at just

about the same time he reached Peking and republished during 1608:

Members of the human race bring destruction on each other: make murderous instruments that can sever hands and feet and limbs from torsos. Most of those not killed by fate are killed by fellow men, and since nowadays

men 32

disdain the old ways of

they slice

their

war

as

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS inadequate,

they

dreaming of ways

thinking up

constantly

are

new techniques and

damage they

to increase the

cause.

has truly

It

reached the point that in every stretch of countryside and in every

town the

killing never stops.

It is difficult,

perusing this passage, not to believe that Ricci had read

some accounts of the 1585

when

had built

terrible

moment

in Spain's siege

of Antwerp in

the defenders, trying to dislodge the Spanish troops

who

of boats across the River Scheldt to block supplies

a bridge

from reaching the

city,

downstream

floated

a

new

type of

mine

de-

signed by their consultant, the Italian engineer Frederico Giambelli.

This "mine" was in

fact a seventy-ton ship

bricks and filled with an admixture of

whose hold was

gunpowder and

sal

lined with

ammoniac,

over which were placed layers of tombstones, marble shards, metal boat hooks, stones, and

nails.

The

vast

mass of explosives and projectiles was

covered by a roof of heavy stone slabs so that the blast would be forced sideways and outward instead of upward.

The

vessel

exploded when

a

moment the Spanway. Though the ca-

carefully prepared fuse reached the hold, just at the ish troops

sualties

were trying to maneuver

it

out of the

could not be counted because the bodies were so mutilated,

between four and eight hundred men were

some kind of new benchmark

establishing

But the wars tional ways.

eval

modes

One was

more

that touched Ricci

They

killed in the

one explosion,

in the history

of war.

nearly were fought in tradi-

represented, indeed, the pinnacle of those very medi-

that were at last being superseded by a higher technology.

the battle of Lepanto, fought in 1571 in the

where the Ottoman Turks were defeated by by Spain, Venice, and the Papacy, virtually the last)

of

all

this

a

Gulf of Corinth,

"Holy League" formed

being the most decisive (but

great encounters between fleets of

armed Medi-

terranean galleys; the other was the battle of Alcazarquivir in Africa, in 1578, in

Saadian ruler of

North

which King Sebastian of Portugal was routed by the

Morocco

after a brutal

melange of close-range cavalry

charges and hand-to-hand fighting with sword and dagger.

Men from

Macerata fought in the galleys 33

at

Lepanto, and priests

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

from Macerata ministered to the troops, one of them

wounded

But Ricci was

in the battle.

novice at

St.

Andrew's Quirinale

from the action, living

far

Rome when,

in

being

at least

news was received of the Catholic commander

in

as a

October 1571,

Don John

in chief

of

Austria's decisive victory over the Turks. In this gigantic naval engage-

V

ment the Holy League assembled by Pope Pius

and the Turks had around 250

galleys backed by 100 support vessels,

war

galleys.

parties that

long-range

The outcome of

had mustered 208

the battle was decided by the boarding

fought through the day rather than by naval

fire

Don John's

power.

ties

out of

ish

dead (among

a total

forces suffered at least 20,000 casual-

of 80,000 soldiers,

whom

tactics or

and galley

sailors,

slaves; the

Turk-

was the Ottoman commander, Ali Pasha)

were believed to number 30,000, and 8,000 more were taken prisoner.

Though

came

the victory at Lepanto

up adequately,

the Turks and was not followed rectly perceived

just after the loss

by the Catholic forces

it

23

of Cyprus to

was nevertheless

cor-

major setback to Ottoman

as a

expansion and was celebrated with colossal pomp. Triumphal arches soared above the processions that

Te Deums were sung

in all the

filled

European

major churches, and

Don

congratulation sprang from scores of pens.

of the Emperor Charles V, became

moments he had

in the face

sailed past his

massed

of the advancing Turkish

wrote

prayer. Francesco Panigarola

—Don John's two great

images

over the converted Muslims

Some

lier."

artists,

galleys,

how

who had

self-

as

poets

heroic,

exhorting his troops

one

at

book on mem-

— through punning

Lepanto and the other

rebelled in Spain

two

years ear-

searching for models to encapsulate the victory, did

Roman

tactics or

legions' defeat of

near Carthage in 202

world

of

while the troops knelt in

to recall

but merely changed the labeling and some

War

of legend,

more poignant than

fleet

victories,

not even bother to study the actual

pictures of the

a literature

a brief passage in his

ory techniques to teach his students

rang out,

John, the bastard son

briefly the stuff

recorded his heroic exploits in battle and, the

streets, bells

—versions of these

B.C.,

so that

methodology of the trifling details

Hannibal

in the

on heroic

Second Punic

bemused viewers around the

prints, in exquisite detail,

34

battle

had reached Japan

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS century

late sixteenth

by the

— could Rome,

rying the insignia of ancient ruffs

see legionaries in short tunics car-

few of them wearing Spanish

a

or carrying muskets, hurling themselves against the elephants of

the infidel.

The Punic Wars

were, in

Rome who

Reformation

The summary of

were striving to destroy the forces of Islam.

Roman

ancient

scholar Lucius Florus,

which

history by the second-century a.d.

— thanks

—we

forgotten recording clerk

when he

analogy for those in Counter-

fact, a fine

know

to the precise

mind of

a long-

that Ricci had in his luggage

registered at the Jesuit novitiate in

Rome

in

August 1571,

caught in the confrontation of Hannibal and Scipio the echoes of

Don

John's battle with Ali Pasha:

In the

Roman Empire

whole history of the

when

occasion than

two

the

the one the conqueror of

armies for

a

no more notable

generals, greater than any before or since, Italy,

pitched battle. But

them about terms of

there was

the other of Spain, drew

up their conference was held between

first a

peace, and they stood for a while motionless in

mutual admiration. When, however, no agreement was reached about peace, the signal

was given

for battle. It

agreed from the admission

is

of both sides that no armies could have been better arrayed and no

more

battle

obstinately contested; Scipio

acknowledged

this

about

Hannibal's army and Hannibal about that of Scipio. But Hannibal had to yield,

and Africa became the prize of

soon followed the

It

was

a

sunny

fate

day,

victory;

and the whole world

of Africa.

December

4,

1571,

of the papal contingent in the Lepanto

Colonna, returned to his native

city.

He

when

fleet,

the victorious admiral

the

Roman Marcantonio

rode a white horse (a gift from

the pope, Pius

V) and wore

a cloth-of-gold tunic, a black silk

mantle

lined with fur,

and the decoration of the Order of the Golden

Fleece;

on to

his it

head was

by

a

black velvet cap, with a trailing white

a pearl clasp.

Even

if

fastened

Ricci was kept at his lessons and did not

see this exquisite figure of martial glory, lery salvos

plume

and the trumpets that blared 35

he would have heard the at

the hero's return, and

artil-

would

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

have seen the triumphal arches of Constantine and Titus decked out

with fresh inscriptions. The churches where he prayed were decorated with great tapestries of Scipio's victory over Hannibal, visually forcing those famous speeches which he

knew by

heart. Perhaps, too,

he saw the ingenious mechanical statue of

a

Roman

hand and the head of

a

Turk

sword blood

in his right

—

in

its left,

which some grateful

would not have escaped him

soldier,

as

quished Turkish

holding

a

—gushing imitation

citizens placed in the street. It

that the Virgin

Mary was

Lady of Victory, and that in the subsequent paintings

was portrayed

rein-

hailed as the

in her

honor she

standing on the crescent moon, symbol of the vanstate.

Even more moving

for Ricci,

however, must have been the outcome

of the battle of Alcazarquivir and the death there of the Portuguese

king Sebastian. From early in his reign Sebastian had been

a

backer of

the Jesuit missionaries traveling to India and the East, giving

money

for the journey, ordering airy cabins for

ships that sailed annually

from Lisbon

them with wine allowances and white

to

them on the Portuguese

Goa, and even providing

flour for the

could supplement the dry ship biscuit with bread a

brooding young man, profoundly

Jesuit confessors, to break the

eyed,

power of the Muslims

voyage so they 29

rolls.

Sebastian was

religious, deeply influenced

who encouraged him in

them

in his passionate

North

by his

commitment

Africa. Fair-haired, blue-

he was desperately self-conscious about his slightly deformed

body, which he would never allow his valets to see naked and which he

sought to strengthen by

a Spartan

regimen of constant fencing and

jousting practice and protracted hunts on horseback. Sebastian in

March 1578

at the king's

30

Ricci

met King

winter palace near Lisbon,

when

the twenty-four-year-old Sebastian gave an audience to the Jesuits pre-

paring to leave for Goa. Ricci was so charmed by the young king's graciousness and bearing that he often spoke of fellow missionaries.

Even

as Sebastian

him

thereafter to his

31

speeded the missionaries on their way with

flatter-

ing words on their prowess, he was planning the great African cam-

paign that he hoped would bring Morocco back under Portuguese 36

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS control, reversing the pattern of foreign policy pursued by his father,

who had

lukewarm Spanish support,

India. Despite

and

zil

chosen to concentrate on Portugal's newer possessions in Bra-

troops, a depleted treasury,

no

clear plan

a shortage

of campaign, and the warnings

of his senior military advisers, Sebastian sailed with a

hundred

vessels

from Lisbon

June 1578

in

in

of some eight

fleet

almost a carnival atmo-

on the northwest African

sphere and landed at Arzila,

of trained

coast, in July.

His leisurely approach to the campaign had given ample time for his adversary, Abd-al-Malik, to raise a formidable

army

outnum-

that far

bered Sebastian's in cavalry and arquebusiers. Abd-al-Malik also

knew

the country intimately as Sebastian did not, and had the correct equip-

ment

for fighting in the blinding desert

so hot that he had to have water

and the sufferings of

plates,

ury,

sun

—

poured over

his troops,

must have been extraordinary.

32

who

Sebastian's

his

armor grew

body under the metal

could not afford this lux-

Furthermore, Sebastian's army was

slowed by the huge royal coaches he had insisted on bringing, by the lavish pavilions of the nobility that eral

had to be stored and

portable chapels, and by thousands of

camp

priests

followers

by

sev-

whose ranks

two senior bishops,

included, besides the papal delegate and

hundred

carried,

and crowds of page boys, musicians, black

several

slaves,

and

supernumerary entourage numbered perhaps ten

prostitutes; this entire

thousand or more, or one for every active soldier in the regular line of march.

33

Perhaps nothing so

war gust

as the crazed yet

typifies

one

conscripts died, as did the

who

cenaries

Walloon, German, Dutch, and English mer-

fought alongside them. After charging again and again on

in the chaos

retainers

found was

his

corpse,

who had

began, died as he tried to

And

King

Sebastian lost his

of the fighting no one saw him die

wounds. Abd-al-Malik,

troops.

at

Thousands of Portuguese nobles and

horseback into the Muslim ranks,

though

Counter-Reformation

deadly battle that subsequently took place on Au-

1578, at Alcazarquivir.

4,

side of the

mount

stripped

own

ill

horse to

al-Mutawakkil, to save whose throne

37

all

life,

that his

naked and covered with

been desperately his

—

own

before the battle

rally his dispirited

King

Sebastian had

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO gone

ostensibly

others

on the

left

drowned while

to war,

of

field

RICCI

fleeing the fighting.

and Moors locked

some on top of

dying,

the

an observer wrote that "the dead

battle,

[were] on top of the living and the living on top of the dead, pieces, Christians

Of

all

cut to

in each other's arms, crying

and

the artillery, others dragging limbs and entrails,

caught under horses or mangled on top of them, and everything was

much worse what

than

can describe to you

I

went through grieves me

I

so."

now

Only

memory of

because the

hundred people from the

a

Portuguese host managed to avoid death or capture and to make their

way back

Two

anchored off the

to the fleet

specially

commissioned

news of the catastrophe

3

vessels left Lisbon late that year to carry

Goa and

to

coast.

the other Portuguese dominions in

the East, for Sebastian had died unmarried, without an heir. This that

one of the main claimants

King

now

Philip

II

The news

there joined in the

such

crown would be

to the Portuguese

of Spain, and so the future of the Portuguese empire

doubt.

lay in

reached

solemn Masses

pomp and genuine

Goa

for the

sorrow that those

in

May

1579, and the Jesuits

dead king, Masses held with

who had

attended the other

ceremonies considered those for Sebastian to be no obsequies for the emperors Charles V, Ferdinand 35

II.

Ricci's

meant

emotions

at

less fine

I,

than the

and Maximilian

the receipt of the news are not recorded, but

perhaps one can catch a hint of an epitaph for the dead king in the few lines that

posed

in

Chinese around 1584) and appended to the area of the Atlas

Mountains that

strange thing

is

that

men

call

of the

without dreams."'

6

A

homage can be gathered from

clearer sign

the fact that

he looked for Chinese ideographs that could

in the early 1580s,

serve to represent the

this the axis

sleep here

of Ricci's sense of loss and

when,

"One cannot heavens. And the

circled the deadly battlefield to the south:

summit, and men

see the

map (com-

he wrote across northwest Africa on his world

first

syllable

"ma" of his

Christian

name Matteo,

from among the many Chinese characters that could be so pronounced he chose the one which combined two simple and unambiguous com-

ponents

One

—

a

king and

dangerous

a horse.

effect

of King Sebastian's death, 38

as

various Jesuits

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS noted in 1579, was that at

it

decreased the prestige of the Europeans just

the time they were trying to shore

Muslim

rulers

up

of northern and western India.

the comparatively small

community

their 37

From

number of Portuguese

against the

Goa

their base in

sailors

and

had

soldiers

the prodigious task of protecting the coast and the sea lanes from Hor-

muz

Gulf down

in the Persian

sistent

Muslim

hostility

and

to Ceylon,

monsoon

a

and

of con-

this in the face

pattern that

left

the Indian

harbors unusable by deep-draught sailing vessels for almost half the year.

— served— was Goa

a city the size at

once

of Pisa

at this time, as

an Italian merchant ob-

a crisis center, an international trade mart,

and

a

luxurious fleshpot, as one of Ricci's contemporaries there noted with

becoming economy

This

just after their arrival in the port:

the place for merchants to

is

come

center and hither

all

fill

their sacks, for this city

is

at the

the goods from both north and south.

Here

Jews and Gentiles, Moors, Persians, Arabs, Venetians (who come here overland through Turkey), Turks themselves and also Italone

ians.

finds

There

is

no

better place for soldiers because here armies are being

formed every day to go to one area or another, by land or military forces are based here. For those

loving

good.

life is

so

good here

that

it

who

sea,

and

all

are lazy or pleasure-

were better for them

if it

were not so

38

Ricci echoed this praise in general terms, writing that India "has the best

goods

in the world: fine cloth, gold, silver, spices, scented roots,

incense, medicines,

and malachite, so

at all seasons the

merchants from

the eastern and western oceans trade here." Ricci did not add that

was

also a central

market

for the

opium

trade,

— one contemporary merchant

gantic scale

2,100 ducats in sixty parcels of Indian

counted

for

major consignments.

and in

conducted there on a

casually

opium

39

—which

prosperity, since dues

39

may have

Goanese

Rome,

ac-

as well as for

were collected on

Ricci wrote that he found the

his earliest surviving letters to friends in

gi-

mentions investing

some of the indolence of the population,

some of the Portuguese

Goa

all

"soft,"

written either

— THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

from Goa or from Cochin to the south, though he did argue against those

who

were incapable of absorbing advanced Euro-

said the Indians

pean education, he showed

sympathy or

little

interest for the Indians

In this he was echoing the negative feelings of the formi-

themselves.

dable visitor of the Jesuit order in the East Indies, Alessandro Vali-

gnano,

who had come

Valignano was

a

to

Goa

in 1574.

man whose

remarkably talented and vigorous

views

about foreign races and mission procedures were to have an immense effect

on Matteo

town of Chieti

Ricci.

He

was born

in the southern Italian Abruzzi.

friends of the local bishop, as

1539 to a wealthy family in the

in

Gian Pietro

Carafa,

His parents were close

who

later

became pope

Paul IV; after Valignano had obtained a law degree, Pope Paul's

favor brought

him an abbacy

at

eighteen and ensconced

him

canon

as a

of the cathedral in Chieti by the age of twenty. Suddenly bereft of his patron by Paul's death in 1559, Valignano feet tall,

coast

—

more

who

in

clearly

in a

:

a

powerful

man

over six

1577 was to walk across southern India from coast to

got himself into youthful scrapes and spent

a year or

Venetian prison on the oddly violent and hotly disputed

charge of having

wounded someone

in the face

with his sword. By

1566, he was apparently a reformed character, however, entered the Jesuit order,

and became

a

student in the

Roman

college.

There he studied

mathematics under Clavius, along with physics, philosophy, and theology, and by 1571 he was appointed master of novices; in this role, dur-

ing the

autumn of

that

same

year,

he administered the

examinations to the young Matteo Ricci.

1

first-year

Valignano then served

for a

year as rector of the college in Macerata before the general of the Jesuit order, Everard Mercurian,

summoned him

in

1573 to be visitor to the

missions in India, an assignment which, by the nature of the church's organization at the time, gave the thirty-four-year-old Valignano at one

swoop powers equivalent Jesuit missions

to those of the general himself over

from the Cape of

Good Hope

all

the

to Japan.

Valignano's mission was to reinfuse the Asian missions with spiritual ardor, to bring extra

manpower

so that

40

some

respite

from

field

work

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS and refreshing of missionaries,

spiritual resources

would be made

possible for the

and to handle the thorny problem of whether to establish

separate mission bases in India north of the Ganges, in the Moluccas, in Malacca,

Japanese,

and

in Japan.

whom

He

was biased before

he described

in

a

and not intemperate

many

position to be

to the Indians,

fair

all

are poorly off

a similar predis-

of such leanings had van-

when he had completed an

ished by the end of 1575,

as

baptism they are quite

he had

If

trace

They

vices.

in eating. After receiving

capable of appreciating spiritual things."

toward the

General Mercurian

to

letter

"a gifted, reliable people, not given to

his departure

initial

year's

residence in Portuguese India. In a report of that year, Valignano

described the future of India in the darkest terms: he described a gov-

ernment system so bad that the Jesuits hesitated to hear the confessions of the

civil

soldiers,

and military

poorly armed

and depicted

officials,

forts,

shabby

fleets,

and

a society

of badly paid

a vilely unfair

system of

44

justice.

Even though Valignano, despite

of affection for the Indians,

his lack

developed language courses for the Jesuits and ordered instruction in the faith to begin in the local dialect in Sao

many lest

Tome,

it is

apparent that

missionaries were in fact reluctant to master an Indian language

condemned

they be

countryside rather than to transfer to the

to

work

among

forever

among poor

Indians in the

the Portuguese and never have a chance

more exciting and promising

north, at Bassein, he was content to

let

field

the Jesuits

of Japan; so in the

work through

inter-

45

preters.

En route

to,

and

in,

Goa, Valignano wrote

Malacca his

most

His experience of Indian heat,

lump

in 1577, a year before Ricci arrived in

careful assessment of Indian realities. disease, vice,

and lethargy led him to

the peoples of India with those of Africa as

little

better than the

He added, "A trait common to all these now of the so-called white races of China

"brute beasts."

peoples (I

am

not speaking

or Japan)

is

lack of distinction

and

serve rather than to

talent.

As Aristotle would

command."

Yet only two

41

say,

a

they are born to

years after this, in 1579,

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO Valignano began to

realize that

RICCI

he had been misled by Jesuit reportage

from the Far East and that the Japanese were not to be trusted

He now

claimed that the Japanese,

"white" and

as

whom

either.

he had previously praised

"simple pious folk," were in

fact

as

"the most dissembling

and insincere people to be found anywhere." With reference to further mission work in the East, Valignano

anxious uncertainty and

at

my

felt

himself to be "in a state of

wits' end, at a loss for

an answer."

47

The

Japanese mixture of cruelty, dignity, depravity, and hypocrisy was so

complex that he despaired of analyzing

accurately: even after conver-

it

sion they seemed "tepid" in the faith. Perhaps

no Christians than Christians of

it

were "better to have

that type!" Besides, a little Christian

learning might prove to be a dangerous thing, as Valignano noted,

speaking

now

as a leader in the

Counter-Reformation: since many Japa-

name of Amida Buddha

nese believed that by invoking the

be saved, one had to confront the melancholy justification

they

fact that "their

would

views of

resembled those of the Lutherans." Thus tepid congrega-

tions led by poorly trained priests

might

lead to a situation in

which

Protestantism would begin to flourish.

As Valignano began and character, he the Chinese in

can see for

how

a

to

reflected

grow

disillusioned about the Japanese nature

among words we

back on the ten months he had spent

Macao during 1577 and

1578, and from his

sequence was being repeated: in the mid-1 570s euphoria

Japan had succeeded the disillusion with India; by the end of the

decade China, unsullied by too

much

personal knowledge, was becom-

ing the focus for euphoria as dejection about Japanese ened.

He

noted in

a report to the

new

realities

deep-

general of the order, Claudio

Acquaviva, the Chinese love of learning, their neat dress, their delicate eating habits, their banning of weapons in public places, the shyness of their

women,

their

good government

attributes with negative images

out somewhat

way

tartly that

— contrasting every one of these

from Japan. Even

if

Acquaviva pointed

people insisted on being baffled by Japan in a

that they never were by Transylvania or Poland,

those lands things were different

enough

also,

though

surely in

he was impressed by the

opportunities for evangelism offered by China and encouraged Vali-

42

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS gnano

to bring

Macao

more

Jesuits

— one

of

whom

so that they could prepare there for

was Matteo Ricci

China

service.

—

to

9

Ricci never visited Japan, and his few declarative statements

on

that

country seem to echo Valignano's judgment, encapsulating the whole island nation

with the phrases that the Japanese "revered force" and

war rather than

"liked

sent Chinese ways by

civil

culture."

30

He was

means of simple

inclined initially to pre-

1583 posting to the town of Zhaoqing, not

men

wrote about Chinese king

in

and

contrasts, far

a year after his

from Canton, Ricci

to the Manila-based agent

of the Spanish

terms that seem designed to contrast them not only to the Japa-

nese but even

more

men

to the rough-and-tumble

in the Macerata of

his youth:

To

you the

tell

truth,

about the Chinese

both

I

whatever

would not

I

might write

say that they

outward appearance and

in

else

were

to

your Honor

men of war,

because

in their inner hearts they are just like

women: if one shows them one's teeth they will humble themselves, and whoever makes them subject can put his foot on their necks. Each day the men take two hours to do their hair and to dress themselves meticulously, devoting to this

among

these

sults, as

they

men

is

would be

pull each other's hair, friends again. Rarely

all

the sweet time they can. Flight

not a matter of shame, nor are injuries and to us; rather they

and when they

do they wound or

in-

womanly anger and weary of that they become show

kill

a

each other, and even

if

they wanted to they don't have the means, because not only are there

few

soldiers,

but most of them don't even have a knife

in the house.

one has no more to fear from them than one would have from any large crowd of men; and though in truth they have plenty of In short,

fortresses,

and their

cities are all

walled against the attacks of thieves,

they are not walls built along geometrical principles, and they have neither traverses nor ditches.

In this particular letter

it

is

hard to sort out Ricci's personal views

from the views commonly held about China by Europeans. Several of his points

—such

as

those about the elaborate coiffures of Chinese

—had already been made

and their penchant for hair-pulling

43

men

in the ear-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO reports to be published

liest

on China, those by the

Venice

leote Pereira, published in

Gaspar da Cruz, published

RICCI

and by the Dominican

in 1565,

in Portugal

East.

Ricci

may

also

friar

during 1569, either or both of

which Ricci had ample opportunity to read before he 52

Ga-

Italian trader

sailed to the

have been playing up to his audience here, for the

Spaniards were particularly interested in China's military capabilities,

and general discussion of the

of conquering China

possibilities

—how

—

how many men was widespread among both the missionaries and those who saw themselves as descended from the conquistadors who had so swiftly conquered the vast territories of Mexico and Peru. Especially in Mexico and the Philippines, among long

it

would

take,

churchmen of

all

and

the religious orders, Franciscan, Dominican, and

Jesuit, a lively debate raged

about the morality of an attack on China

and whether such an attack could be viewed light of China's intransigence

as a "just

war"

in the

toward foreign missionaries, her con-

tinued resistance to opening ports for foreign trade, and the harshness

with which her

civil authorities

often treated baptized Chinese Chris-

tians.

But Ricci was not posing when he found the Chinese ambiguous about warfare, and he reflected on the particular paradoxes in Chinese views of physical violence for the

rest

of his

life.

In his account of his

time in China, which he wrote between 1608 and 1610 and entitled Historia, Ricci

ried

found

it

praiseworthy that the Chinese almost never

arms unless they were bodyguards

car-

the entourage of a great

in

mandarin, soldiers going to the training grounds, or travelers on a particularly

dangerous journey,

comments seem almost

who might

carry daggers.

Once

expressly designed to contrast the

again, his

China of

middle age with the hurly-burly Macerata of his youth: "Amongst is

held to be a fine thing to see an armed man, but to

evil,

and they have

a fear

them

of seeing anything so horrible.

have none of the factions and tumults that

we

And

always have, as

it

his

us,

it

seems

so they

we

take

our revenge for some insult with weapons and with death. They consider that the

most honorable man

harm another."

is

54

44

he

who

flees

and does not wish to

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS

The Chinese

army

regular

At some

baffled him.

levels

he noticed dra-

matic efficiency, as "the military captains in each area, but especially on coasts

and the borders, patrol

numbers by day and night and

in great

guard the walls and gates, harbors and

forming

their drills in proper unison."

forts, as if

He

they were at war, per-

noted that army

officers

were

excused from the rule applied to other bureaucrats that prohibited

them from serving

in their native provinces so as to avoid graft

Army

fluence peddling.

officers, it

ferocity to defend their

own homes.

made

zhou, which had been

in

"The minister was

In the garrison

with extra

town of Gan-

major southeastern provinces, Ricci

at the martial display

mandarin

visiting

fight

in-

the central headquarters for a special zone

to suppress banditry in the four

was astonished

was believed, would

and

put on in the spring of 1595 for a

whose entourage he happened

to be traveling:

pomp, more than

received with great

three thou-

sand soldiers coming two or three miles out of the city to greet him, in their uniforms,

who

arquebusiers

and made river,

a

with banners and arms; fired off their

grand sight

among

among them were

arquebuses and muskets as he passed,

at their various stations

the leafy trees."

6

summer of

often seemed to be taken

on each bank of the

Equally imposing was the great armada

of supply boats and war vessels he found near Tianjin in the

stationed

the rivers and canals

Yet the pomp and the

1598.

more

filling

display

seriously than active combat. For in-

stance, Ricci believed that because the

Chinese had considerable trouble

breaking in horses they tended to use only geldings and that these geldings,

whose hooves were never shod with

over stony ground and tended to

flee at

iron,

could not gallop

the sound of an approaching

and he never got used to the paradoxical way that the Chinese

enemy;

loved to use gunpowder:

Not

so

much

bombards and

for their arquebuses, of artillery

which

which they have few, nor

are also in short supply,

for

but for their

firework displays, which take place every year at their festivals with

such ingenuity that none of us ever saw them without amazement.

They

created fantastic

ning through the

air,

shows of flowers and

every one

fruit

and

battles

made out of these same 45

all

spin-

fireworks; and

— THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO one year when

RICCI

was in Nanjing [1599] I estimated that in the Year celebrations they used up more saltpetre and gunpowder than we would need for a war lasting two or three years. 59

month-long

The

I

New

admired martial display and had been im-

side of Ricci that

pressed by the military prowess of European armies could never accept

the ultimate fact that the elite Chinese civil bureaucrats seemed to despise

both the military

officers

who

in subservience to civilian

was only

one

parallel the

for civilian

shadow of the other and never taken

a pale

seriously by youthful candidates seeking careers.

our people the noblest and bravest become vilest

con-

doled out their pay and rations. Even the military ex-

amination system, allegedly established to officials,

The army was

their troops.

and was kept

stantly watched, he noted, authorities,

and

who

and most cowardly

60

so

"Whereas amongst China

soldiers, in

it is

the

attend to matters of war." Such men,

wrote Ricci, were motivated neither by patriotism nor love of king nor search for glory, but sought only sustenance for themselves and their families.

Treating soldiering as a job,

as

they did,

they were treated without respect and had to

it

work "in base occupa-

tions" as baggage carriers, muleteers, and servants.

"no one of

virile spirit

In writing this Ricci

showed

his

taken place in southeastern China

pomp

he had so delighted in were

people were

killed,

first

and that

was that

61

life."

his-

and

had

pirates that

two decades before he

of the garrison center

at

result

ignorance of the extraordinary

at

arrived,

some

It is

true

serious pirate raids

resided in China, in in 1582, just

and of

Ganzhou which

once the legacy and the symbol.

that during the 1570s there had been

Zhaoqing, where Ricci

The

chooses the army over civilian

tory of military success at suppressing bandits

which the troops and

was not surprising

on

which hundreds of

one year before he

arrived, a

smaller group of water-borne bandits had attacked the area, only to be

driven off by local villagers.

But these were minor disturbances

comparison with the scourge of massive Sino-Japanese pirate

—

often striking deep inland

and 1560s

as

badly

as

that

in

raids

had ravaged China during the 1550s

Protestant corsairs had harried Spain in the At-

46

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS lantic or the

ranean.

63

Muslim

fleets

The Chinese

disrupted Venetian shipping in the Mediter-

generals responsible for ending these raids had

forged remarkably disciplined armed forces out of a complex

Dai and Miao tribesmen from the southwest,

original

released prisoners, displaced

such unlikely

allies

Buddhist monks, and

they had

managed

and close key harbors and

side

one by one.

bases

64

salt

local peasants,

smugglers; with

to reimpose order in the country-

mopping up

rivers to the pirates,

They introduced new forms of

firearms,

fortifications,

rise

precipitously

and wheeled

owing

vehicles,

their

military accounting

and taxation to cope with the mounting price of war, which

Europe was beginning to

mix of ab-

just as in

to the high cost of

the larger

numbers of

troops on fixed pay, and the increasing circulation of silver bullion,

which pushed the country into an erals tics

introduced

new

techniques for drilling troops,

against cavalry, and

as well as instituting

new weapons

Yet the

fates

like

new

defensive tac-

complex multibladed

spears,

innovative gunnery techniques, signals, and infor-

mation-gathering systems which

guang— might have

These same gen-

inflationary spiral.

—under

brilliant leaders like

new order in the Ming of Qi and many other generals, who led to a

Qi

Ji-

polity.

often ended their

careers disgraced, imprisoned, or even executed, could only reinforce Ricci's sense that the society,

and that the

nipulative

skills, if

Chinese army lacked respect and focus within the civilian bureaucracy,

through

its

factional

and ma-

not for any superior learning, played havoc with the

A

military officer's chances for success.

ing ironic in describing General

Qi

supervising censor found noth-

as a

man who

"has given up

ture for a military career, but understands syntax thoroughly,"

litera7

the

implication being obviously that such officers were usually boorish louts.

But beyond such mild

slights,

what Ricci noticed constantly was

the tension between the alleged martial

life

of soldiers and the

they were subjected to humiliating beatings ian magistrates

who had

was elaborating on an

fact that

— on whim—by the

civil-

ultimate supervision over them. In this Ricci

earlier analysis

by Valignano

that,

whereas the

Japanese found satisfaction in killing with their swords, the Chinese preferred to beat people

and watch the blood flow. 47

68

Ricci paralleled

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

the moral effect of these beatings of the Chinese people by their mandarins to that of schoolboys by their teachers in European schools that

was not

a

random metaphor, but one he returned

so that the trembling child and the victimized adult his accounts.

At

to several times,

become

as

one

in

69

these levels of personalized physical violence the last veneers of

mutual respect were stripped away. Though both Galeote Pereira and Gaspar da Cruz had offered vivid descriptions of Chinese beating pro-

moved beyond

cedures in their earlier works on China, Ricci's language theirs

and took on an astonishing precision

scene.

The blows seem

The

to

as

thud out of the page

he described one such he writes:

as

victims are beaten in public audience, on the back of the thighs,

on the ground; they

lying stretched out

with a pole of the

are beaten

hardest possible wood, the thickness of a finger, four fingers wide,

long

as one's

ment hold

now

ten,

two arms outstretched. The dispensers of the punish-

now

the pole with both hands and use great force, giving

now

twenty,

that with the

first

other blows the

The

fact that

ians

more or

showing great

thirty blows,

blow they often take away the

flesh,

piece by piece.

ruthlessness, such

skin,

and with the

From which many people

70

die

such punishments were given to both soldiers and less

on

a

mandarin's

whim

—

civil-

might

a magistrate

kill

twenty or thirty people in such a way and receive only mild censure

seemed

to Ricci a

major reason for

poor subjects have such

fear

and of the death to which

it

of

criticizing the

this

Chinese

can lead, that they will give everything

wrote Ricci, was that the Chinese lived constantly in 71

erty."

charged, so that

He was

fully

the reasons for saying

"The

shameful and cruel punishment,

they have to free themselves from the mandarins' hands."

falsely

state:

"no one

in

China

is

The

fear

master of his

result,

of being

own

prop-

aware of the force of what he was saying and of it.

He

had come within an inch of getting such

a

beating himself, in 1584, on the orders of an enraged mandarin in

Zhaoqing, and never forgot the

fear the possibility

occasions Chinese officials forced

him 48

induced; on other

to be present

when

others

re-

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS ceived similar beatings, and with his Jesuit colleague Michele Ruggieri,

who was with him during his first years in China, he had nursed one criminal who had been subjected to eighty such blows, though the 7 man died after a month despite their ministrations. More poignant Martines's death,

still

to Ricci

must have been the news of Francesco

which occurred

witness, but he reconstructed the his Historia. Francesco

schools,

who

grim events

in

was not

in a heartfelt passage

name of

Macao and educated

served his novitiate with Ricci in

entered the Jesuit order the following year. this

in 1606. Ricci

Martines was the baptismal

Huang Mingshao

Chinese, born

Canton

in

Shaozhou

in

a

of

young

a

in Jesuit

1590 and

The Portuguese name of

young Chinese Jesuit had been anything but randomly chosen, but

was the same

as

name of a Jesuit missionary known to Ricci whose between Mozambique and Goa he had mourned in

the

tragic death at sea

1581. This Chinese Martines had served the church long and faithfully, partly as a Chinese-language instructor for other

but also

as the

Western

missionaries,

nurse to the dying Father Almeida and as a formative

influence in the final conversion of the alchemist and scholar 73

Martines was arrested by the authorities in Canton, after

kuei.

brating

being

how

Qu

Holy

a spy

Week

from Macao

who had

jeering crowd,

cele-

with the Chinese Christians there, on charges of in the

Martines was dragged

servants

Ru-

pay of the Portuguese. Ricci described

at night,

with the youthful acolytes and the

been with him, through

streets filled

with

a hostile,

illuminated by the flickering light of torches, and

thrown into prison. The marks of the tonsure under and the Portuguese

shirts

and drawers

evidence of guilt, a guilt confirmed

his

in his luggage,

when

a

long dark

hair,

were taken

as

Chinese acolyte confessed

under torture that Martines dealt in guns and gunpowder and was planning to foment insurrection. legs,

First tortured

by heavy bars on his

and then stripped and beaten on two successive days with heavy

poles, in an

attempt to make him confess, denied

nourishment, Martines died on March Ricci noted that death three years old

—

a

came

all

water or any other

74

31.

at 3:00 p.m.

when Martines was

time and age that for Catholics would have

49

thirty-

at

once

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO recalled at

Mark's notation

(Mark

3:00 p.m.

in his gospel that Christ's crucifixion

15:25)

making

thirty-three. In

RICCI

—by

when

Christ

received

occurred

wisdom

was thirty-eight

a slip here (Martines

—was at

the

time of his death) Ricci but underlined the scriptural context in which This scriptural context was reinforced by

he placed such sufferings. the acts of

memory demanded of all Jesuits by

were designed to force the

Spiritual Exercises. Several exercises

back to presence

the acts of Christ's

at

Ignatius of Loyala in the

life

faithful

and passion, so that they

and saw every blow that the soldiers landed on Christ's body questioned him, saw his pitiful nakedness and the mockery, place,

felt its

felt

as they

shame, flinched

at

the cold air of winter in which the suffering took

felt

saw the blood soak through the thin clothing with which Christ

sought to cover himself once again. So that the worshiper might draw

God's purpose

closer to the mystery of

through

his

own

in

son, Ludolfus of Saxony,

of Loyola drew so richly

in his

own

enduring such suffering

from whose work Ignatius

meditations, urged the devotee to

"turn away thine eyes for a while from His Godhead, and consider him

simply

as a

No

man."

violent detail

to

is

item of pain and humiliation glossed

be avoided, said Ludolfus, no

as the

blows

"Piled on top of

fall:

each other, repeated again and again, close together, stroke over stroke, bruise over bruise,

wound

over wound, blood over blood,

tormentors and the spectators are wearied out."

The

missionaries in China

upon them

knew

all

till

both

his

7

about the crowds that pressed

in

so constantly, surrounding their lodgings, peering through

the doorways, both by day and by night, sometimes merely curious but

more often mocking or

hostile.

and for Chinese converts

To

be

in

China meant,

alike, to learn to

for

Westerners

be hated, and danger could

spring from the mightiest clashes between nations or from petty clashes

over a few coins.

When

tomi announced

his decision to

in 1587 the Japanese general

the Chinese emperor himself, living in

China were suspect

olic fathers fell

under

it

Hideyoshi Toyo-

conquer Korea and thereafter to crush

was not surprising that any foreigners

to the Chinese bureaucrats.

special suspicion because

of Hideyoshi's troops were more than 50

fifteen

among

But the Cath-

the most feared

thousand Japanese Chris-

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS

battles in years,

who

by the convert general Konishi Yukinaga,

tians led

Korea

when

1592 and again in 1597 and 1598.

in

78

fought major

During

these

alarms of war were constant and imperial edicts fulminated

against foreigners, Ricci

no one willing

to give

would

find

him lodging

whole

cities

nervous

at his

coming,

or to deliver the messages in which

he protested his plight.

The war

scares

continued into the seventeenth century, and Ricci

wrote that the 1606 death of Francesco Martines was mainly due to the fact that

troublemakers in Macao had spread a rumor that an alliance of

Dutch, and Japanese was planning to use the

Jesuits, Portuguese, as a

city

springboard for an invasion of China; before this invasion, they

warned,

all

Macao could be massacred. Many Chi-

the Chinese living in

nese did indeed

flee

from Macao

1606 since, unlikely

in

as the

nature of

now

sounds, a

the threatened alliance of Western religions and nations

massacre of Chinese had in fact occurred in the Philippines in 1603. In

October of that

year, after a protracted series

and eunuch meddling

of arguments over

in foreign policy, the

money

Spanish authorities had

panicked over the threat of a violent uprising by the Chinese congregated in Manila and, in a preemptive strike of appalling savagery, had killed close to

The far

reality

twenty thousand Chinese

settlers

and merchants.

of the tens of thousands of corpses in Manila shows

the Chinese in

how

Macao were from paranoia when they brooded about

Westerners' intentions toward them, and the fear naturally increased

when other Westerners an Augustinian

friar,

deliberately played

Michele dos Santos

on

it.

— once

It

seems to have been

a Jesuit

himself before

changing orders and rising to be the acting administrator of the church in

Macao following

the death of the bishop there

—who

spread the

alarm to the Macao Chinese about his former mentors' martial intentions.

Behind dos Santos's wild charges

struggles between the Jesuits

The dominant

role played

lay

many

years of

complex

and members of other religious

by the Jesuits

seventeenth centuries should not

let

in the late sixteenth

orders.

and

early

us forget that their forerunners in

exploring China had been Augustinians, Dominicans, and Franciscans,

and there was often

little

love lost between the groups. In one of his

51

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

works Ricci praised the personal holiness of Francis of

religious

and

RICCI

his followers,

but elsewhere he expressed no admiration for the

brash mission tactics of the Franciscans themselves to have seen

Assisi

them almost

as

—indeed, he seems

enemies, since their forceful approach to

preaching to the poor so irritated the Chinese that the Jesuits inevitably felt

the backlash.

81

As

to Ricci's feelings concerning the Augustinians,

they can be gauged by his depiction of dos Santos's peccadilloes. Ac-

cording to his Historia,

it

was

a

complicated story involving dos

Santos's bitterness at his former confreres and at least

two public

putes with the Jesuits, one over his decision to confiscate a large silver

being brought

Macao from Japan, the other over a abuse by one of the Macao priests. These disputes

had led the Westerners in the streets, in

New and

in

Macao

what Ricci

financial bickerings that lay

could only assess them

hundreds of Macao Chinese were put on

a

bidden. It is

clearly

there

and

called "a great scandal to gentiles

and

the ecclesiastical

behind the charges, the Chinese auat

what seemed

fled across the border,

As

to be face value.

Canton armed

forces

wartime footing: the homes of the poor, huddled along-

side the city walls,

on food

to fight each other with swords

With no knowledge of

Christians alike."

thorities

sum of

illegally into

case of alleged clerical

guns

dis-

sales to

were destroyed to provide

Macao was imposed; and

all

a

ban

Portuguese trade was

for-

a clear field

of

fire;

83

not surprising that the Chinese authorities could not work out

which foreigners were enemies and which were

must have been

nior Chinese

official

a certain sourness in the

made

become king of China?" equation.

The Dutch

84

friends,

and

bantering remark a

to the Jesuit Cattaneo:

se-

"So have you already

Consider the three elements in dos Santos's

Protestants, enemies of the Catholic Portuguese,

were out to wreck Portugal's Far Eastern empire and

seize control

of

the spice trade for themselves, determined in so doing to keep supplies limited and prices high, while at the

same time they engaged

in a cal-

culated violence toward the Chinese inhabitants of Southeast Asia and

the Pescadores as harsh as any perpetrated by the Spaniards or the Por-

52

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS tuguese.

85

made peace with

In contrast, the Japanese not only had

China over Korea following Hideyoshi's death but had that they

might soon extirpate Christianity from

gether, if

one could deduce

Christians,

grim

domains

maximum

for

months, forming an

in

1597

—

publicity since the bodies were left

irresistible spectacle for

contemporary

harbor and a popular motif in the decoration of

visitors to the thriving textiles in the

alto-

of twenty-six

their crucifixion

both Japanese and Westerners, outside Nagasaki

act that attained

hanging

from

this

their

also indicated

ensuing decade.

Yet

at the

same time, because of the

long years during which Japanese pirates had attacked China's coasts, the Cantonese

still

held the sentiment (and inscribed

long

their city) that "as

and Japanese cannot water."

87

the sun and

as

moon

give light, the Chinese

under the same sky or drink the same

live

who had

Furthermore, Japanese Christians

secutions in their

homeland or been brought

receive training in

Macao, were

on an

in stone in

it

now

firmly

and showed

island near the city,

either fled the per-

earlier

though

by the Jesuits to

illegally

a willingness to

ensconced

defend their

"property" in the face of Chinese attempts to evict them.

As

for the Portuguese, the

their pockets. Ricci

Shaozhou and

a

Chinese believed they had the Jesuits in

when he was

living in

Chinese submitted a written

affidavit

had experienced

group of

local

stating that Ricci and his colleagues

much

this in 1593,

"came from Macao, and have had

dealings with foreign countries, contrary to China's laws.

have built here forty people

a

house with

who

walls, like a castle,

where they

have also come from Macao."

89

shelter over

Chinese in

If the

Shaozhou had worried that the small new Jesuit house there was tified castle, it is

Macao

of silver, on a

hill in

The Chinese

officials

after their first

later, at a

church was destroyed by

of Xiangshan county,

Macao

city, tried to

who

new

cost of 700 ounces

technically

still

fire.

had

prevent this construction: as Ricci

analyzed their reasons, they did so "either because they fear tress

a for-

not surprising what they thought of the spacious

stone church that the Jesuits built a decade

jurisdiction over

They

it is

a for-

disguised as a church or because they are trying to get as

many

53

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

scudi* as they can before they grant permission."

church (the word foot

is

Ricci's),

with

its

90

The "sumptuous"

l60-by-84-foot dimensions, 50-

columns and three naves, may indeed have been

a religious struc-

ture,

but the Chinese could hardly be expected to distinguish

tions

from those of the equally substantial Jesuit

place that

all

its

func-

which was the

college,

the wealthy Portuguese used to shelter their silver plate

and their families the

moment

91

Dutch

they sighted

sails.

In addition,

the Portuguese had further defied Chinese bans by building

what Ricci

disarmingly called "a bit of a wall and a sort of a fortress" in response to the stepped-up

danger of Dutch attacks

By the end of his

life

Ricci had learned

definition of Chinese motives his

and

former teacher Fabio de Fabii,

in 1604.

enough

attitudes, as

whom

92

to attempt a

he wrote in

he had

last

working

a letter to

seen thirty years

before: It

remains hard for us to believe

how

such

many

soldiers could live in continual fear

much

smaller, so that they fear

no pains

to protect themselves

some from

a

huge kingdom with so

of other

states that are so

great disaster every year and spare their neighbors either

with troops

or with deceit and feigned friendship: the Chinese place absolutely trust in

and

any foreign country, and thus they allow no one

at all to enter

reside here unless they undertake never again to return

the case with us.

In this

life

no

home,

as

is

93

sentence to service, Ricci could only observe and wait,

drawing what consolation he could from

his order's founder, Ignatius

of Loyola, whose metaphors in the supplement to the Spiritual Exercises as to

terms.

how

the devil might strike were couched in suitably military

The enemy of

* Ricci used "ducats"

Christ, Ignatius wrote, acts "like a leader intent

and "scudi" interchangeably

in his writings.

about twenty-nine grams, or approximately one ounce, of equivalent to the Chinese unit called a "tael." baiocco

and

a bolignino

were each 1/100 of

A

"giulio"

a ducat.

The

silver,

Each ducat was

which made

was 1/10 of

it

a ducat, a

basic gold:silver ratio in

the 1570s in Europe was about 1:11. Full details of coins and exchange ratios for this period are

given in Jean Delumeau, Vie economique

seconde moitie du XVV

siecle,

2/657-65.

54

et sociale

de

Rome dans

la

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS upon

A commander

seizing and plundering a position he desires.

army

leader of an

encamp, explore the

will

fortifications

the stronghold, and attack at the weakest point."

new

that the

94

and

and defenses of

might

Ricci

feel

theological formulations of the Council of Trent provided

the "fortifications" that could brace and prepare one for such an assault.

But the enemy was

also "like a

woman," wrote

Ignatius, yielding if

sure of being overwhelmed, but full of "anger, vindictiveness, and

rage"

if

the

man began

to waver: "If

one begins to be

afraid

and to lose

courage in temptations, no wild animal on earth can be more

enemy of our human

than the

intentions with

consummate

He

nature.

malice."

will carry

fierce

out his perverse

95

This battle could not but be more lonely and protracted than the

major sieges launched during at the levels

of endurance Ricci needed

itual attrition,

the enemy.

crew on

campaigns; one can only guess

full-dress

He

a river

when tells

in this protracted

so often the Chinese en masse

us of

how

he watched

schoolboys from the felt after a

on the roof of his house

commanding

his

in

9

of the sound of an

Zhaoqing, thrown by

elevation of a nearby tower;

cries

smashed

his doors,

newly erected garden

small harassments that the devil

which Ignatius spoke?

of the

showed

fence.

that

If so, the challenge

windows, and furniture 98

Was

it

through such

"consummate malice" of

became

Aquinas had argued with Perfection

his usual

good

own Thomas

to place one's

within the context of the whole community,

aphor in The

97

Chinese crowd playing musical instruments and

shouting their victory

priorities

must have seemed

boat joined together in throwing his baggage onto the

endless rain of stones

and tore down

spir-

Chinese passengers and

as

shore because his travel papers were not in order;

dejection

war of

as

sense and sharply chosen met-

of Spiritual Life: "The

common good

is,

accord-

ing to right reason, to be preferred to one's proper good. As a result, each

member of the body

ural instinct.

An

is

directed to the

indication of this

is

good of the whole by

that a person uses his

a nat-

hand

to

block a blow, in order to protect his heart or his head, on which his

whole

life

may depend." 99

That, too, was fine as long as natural instincts truly converged on a

55

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

common

goal that could be agreed to by

RICCI

was the divisiveness and

all. It

uncertainty that grew wearying, and though Ricci did not allow the

language of quiet despair to mar the polished language of his Historia, it

does break through in certain

friends.

"This

land" (questa

sterile

Fuligatti; to other friends

veled,

he

felt

"abandoned" or

teachers,

and

he called China to Giulio

sterilita)

he described China

and the Chinese

deserto si lontano, "

whom

letters to his family,

or

as "questa rocca"

un

among

as "questa remotissima gente"

"cast off" (bottato).

u

The Chinese mar-

he told his brother Orazio, that he was white-haired and while

"not yet advanced

in age

know," he added, "that 100

hairs."

In a letter of

should already look so old." "They do not

it

is

they

who

August 1595

to his superior in

God

tuguese Edoardo de Sande, Ricci observed chat

him twelve

years

Macao, the Por-

had chosen to give

of hardship and humiliation.

Most of the language and images here had obvious tones that

all

Ricci's correspondents

in deserts or

wastelands

New

Testament

"cut off from home," and he held up the three central

withdrawal

flight or

scriptural over-

would have caught. Ludolfus of

Saxony had often written of Christians living

examples of

white

are the cause of these

— the Holy

—

the Baptist's to the desert, and Christ's to the wilderness subjects for contemplation that available for thought.

The

John model

Family's to Egypt, as

must be pursued with every element

hardships had been bravely endured by

and young mother" and by "the very old Joseph,"

Christ's "very tender

through "a wooded way, dark, covered with bushes, uninhabited, and

The contemporary

way indeed very long."

who

Christian could do

Roman

no

a

less.

Gian Pietro

Maffei,

1560s before

moving

seafaring

while he prepared his history of the Portuguese in India,

life

taught rhetoric at the

college in the

to Lisbon so he could be at the heart of

European

wrote in a similar vein. In the introduction to his lengthy history, a draft

of which he sent to Ricci, with

whom

he had been corresponding,

Maffei wrote of the mission workers being lost

and ravaged

103

forests."

Ricci,

who admired

modesty about drawing similar

parallels,

among

"sterile

Maffei greatly, had

and

in a letter to

bushes

no

false

General Ac-

quaviva he was brave enough to echo Paul's famous lament to the 56

THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS Corinthians in referring to the hardships he had experienced in China:

"In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils

own countrymen,

by mine

in perils

by the heathen, in

perils in the city,

among

in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils

brethren."

false

104

From overlapping accounts that appear both in his personal letters and in the Historia, we can detail one of the brief conjunctions, a few minutes nese

caught the overlays of violence in Ricci's Chi-

in duration, that

life.

Around midnight,

some young men who had

in July 1592,

been gambling in the suburbs of Shaozhou, near the boat bridge that connected the main town to the rural area to the west where the Jesuits decided to raid the Jesuit residence. They seem to have been

lived,

in-

cited to

make

this attack

by the priests in a nearby Buddhist monastery,

and the

priests furnished

them with rough and ready weapons, but the

Buddhists need not take full

all

the blame.

The Shaozhou

region had been

of rumor and dissatisfaction since bandit raids led by a

self-styled

"magician" had coincided with a bad drought in 1589, and the Jesuits

might well have been seen

as harbingers

gang of youths came over the

pound of

A

yard.

Ricci's house,

a

malevolent

105

fate.

bridge, gathered outside the walled

The com-

and tossed ropes over the wall into the court-

few of them climbed into the yard and opened the main gate

from the

inside,

dies held staves;

Two

of

admitting some twenty companions. Most of the row-

some

carried unlighted torches; others

had small

axes.

of Ricci's servants, going downstairs to investigate the noise,

blundered into the group in the dark and were badly hurt. Father Francesco de Petris, hastening to their aid, was

came out of

Ricci

his

room

wounded on

the head.

As

the invaders lighted their torches, perhaps

preparing to explore or loot the residence; in the light of the flames Ricci

saw them surge through the outer doors of the house, which the

servants and Petris ing.

He

called his

tried to close

it,

until a

left ajar as

own group

they went to see what was happen-

back to the door of the inner house and

but the attackers jammed their staves into the opening.

Shouting, shoving

ments

had

at the

crowd, Ricci held them back for

a

few mo-

blow from an axe caught him on the hand; then he 57

or-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO dered

the

all

rooms and bar

members of

his

their doors.

One

group

RICCI

to retreat to their

own

private

of the servants clambered onto the roof

own door and jumped through the window into the garden to summon help. Twisting his ankle, he lay helpless on the ground, unable to move and began to hurl

but

still

tiles at

shouting for

aid.

the heads of the rowdies; Ricci barred his

The

attackers, bruised

by the

tiles

and

ing from the shouts that Ricci had reached the road and was ing

aid,

broke and

residence,

fled.

believ-

summon-

In their haste, they took nothing from the

and one of them

left his

This hat was to be important

hat lying in the courtyard.

later, a

key piece of evidence against

one of the young men who had instigated the attack on the Jesuit dence.

As

for Ricci, his

hand healed quite

covered completely; and though he if

made

resi-

rapidly but his foot never a special trip to

Macao

re-

to see

the Portuguese doctors there could help him, they advised against

any operations which might only make things worse. For the eighteen years

remaining to him, whenever he had to walk long distances, the

pain would return to haunt him, forcing

58

him

to limp.

THREE

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES

The

first

of the pictures that Ricci gives to Cheng Dayue to

publish in the "Ink Garden"

is

the apostle Peter floundering

of Galilee. In his mind, Ricci carries the passage

in the Sea

from the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter describes

what occurs

loaves and

two

fish

after Christ has fed

and has then

pray, sending his disciples ahead

When

passage that

14, the

the multitude from five

mountains to

retired alone into the

by boat, across the

sea:

evening came, he was there alone, but the boat by

this

was many furlongs distant from the land, beaten by the waves;

wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night he came

to them,

time

for the

walking on

the sea.

But when the

disciples

fied, saying, "It is a

ately

saw him walking on the

ghost!"

And

they cried out for

he spoke to them, saying, "Take heart,

And

Peter answered him, "Lord, if

the water."

He

said,

sea,

it is

it is I;

you, bid

they were

fear.

terri-

But immedi-

have no

me come

fear."

to

you on

"Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked

59

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

when he saw the wind, he was and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me." Jesus im-

on the water and came afraid,

RICCI

to Jesus, but

"O

mediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him,

man of little

faith,

why

And when

did you doubt?"

wind ceased. And those "Truly you are the Son of God." boat, the

they got into the

boat worshiped him, saying

in the

1

Within the bounds of discretion, he chooses, for there

as yet

is

Though many Chinese have

no

Ricci

free to render this story as

is

translation of the Bible into Chinese.

him

asked

to undertake such a translation,

he has constantly refused, pleading pressures of work, the the task, and the need to secure papal approval before

But since Cheng Dayue wants

a text written

out

in

difficulty

commencing.

own

fate.

2

Chinese to go with

each picture, Ricci starts off with the Bible story and adapts his

of

it

to suit

views of what will best appeal to Chinese ideas of morality and

(To render

Peter's

name he chooses

the ideographs pronounced

"Bo-do-lo," the nearest he can get to the sound of Pietro, Pedro, or Petrus.) Ricci entitles his brief essay "If

you

believe,

you

will

walk on

the sea, but once you doubt you will sink."

After the Lord of

form to spread

Heaven was born on

his teaching to the world,

with twelve holy followers. The day Bo-do-lo was on a boat

first

earth,

he

and had taken human

first

shared his teachings

of these was called Bo-do-lo.

when he saw

One

the distant outline of the

Lord of Heaven standing on the seashore, so he said to him, "If you are the Lord, bid

up the waves,

me walk on

But

instructed him.

as

his heart filled

Lord reached out

his

the water and not sink."

The Lord

so

he began to walk he saw the wild wind lashing

hand

with doubt, and he began to sink. The

to him, saying,

"Your

faith

is

small,

why

did you doubt?"

A man who water

as if

on

has strong faith in the solid rock,

water will go back to

When a

the wise

man

its

but

if

Way

can walk on the yielding

he goes back to doubting, then the

true nature, and

how

follows heaven's decrees,

fire

can he stay brave?

does not burn him,

sword does not cut him, water does not drown him.

wind or waves worry him? This

first

60

Why

should

follower doubted so that

we

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES

JCcra*-

to

ms vmaSr

dxtmntfr filer* Setfjycc

61

x-dfltradr

oi

t°rminr.

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO might

RICCI

one man's moment of doubt can serve

believe;

who come

to

end the

doubts of

all

made

doubt, our faith would have been without foundation.

to

Therefore

those millions

we

after

give thanks for his faith as

him. If he had not been

we

give thanks for his

3

doubts.

The second paragraph of this passage is entirely Ricci's creation. Ricci's "wise man" is here like the sages in China's own philosophical tradition

who were

so purified by their contemplation of the

they could withstand the forces of water and

But

fire.

story. Ricci's

that

Ricci's use of this

interpretation does not explain the differences between his

graph and the exact words of the gospel

Way first

para-

Chinese Christ

is

"standing on the seashore" and "reaching out a hand" to Peter; the Christ in Matthew's gospel as

he sinks. In

this

a universe

might seem

is

"walking on the sea" and "catches" Peter

embattled over subtle doctrinal distinctions

to have interpretative significance, but for Ricci

it is

a

matter not of interpretation but of necessity, caused by the demands of

when using

mnemonic purposes. If he had had the picture he most wanted at hand when Cheng Dayue gave him the chance to make his prints, he would not have had to make these

visual precision

pictures for

changes. That picture was in Jeronimo Nadal's Images from the Gospels, a

book

that Ricci treasured

China. As he wrote in varez,

"This book

while

we

is

are in the

clear."

It

given to

for

many

years in

1605 to General Acquaviva's assistant, Al-

of even greater use than the Bible in the sense that

middle of talking we can also place right

their eyes things that 4

May

and carried with him

with words alone

we would not be

in front of

able to

make

was picture number 44 from Nadal that Ricci would have

Cheng Dayue some

to illustrate Peter's story:

it

showed the

some tugging

fright-

ened

disciples,

sails,

others raising their hands or crying out in fear at the sight of the

straining at the oars,

at

the furled

breaking waves and the Christ figure they believed to be a ghost.

On

the edge of the boat was Peter, prepared to step out, his robe hitched

around

his knees, and, in the foreground, Peter again, this

frightened face sinking under the water.

62

The

time with

figure of Christ

dom-

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES inated the picture, as he walked the waves with firm and level step; he

was portrayed

as

gently grasping Peter's right wrist with his

own

while holding his Unfortunately,

when Cheng Dayue came

He

the Nadal volume. uel Diaz,

work

hand open and

right

had lent

and Diaz had taken

there. Ricci

had made

left

hand,

aloft in blessing.

to call, Ricci

no longer had

it

to his Jesuit confrere Father

it

to

Nanchang

Emman-

to use in his mission

with Diaz by which Ricci would

a deal

keep a beautiful eight-volume Plantin polyglot Bible (which had just arrived in China) in his

He

soon repented

Peking residence while the Nadal went south.

and sent

this decision

Europe asking

a letter to

for

replacement copies, but none were yet forthcoming.

Confronted by Cheng's request, which

is

over, Ricci chooses to juggle the images.

wood

dence, a set of twenty-one

This second

of prints

series

starts

salem and ends with the Ascension; in Christ's life

ticed that

such

number

He

has, in the

Peking

who

it

did

many of

the Nadal

with Christ's entry into Jeru-

does not illustrate earlier events

walking-on-water episode. But Ricci has no-

as the

19 in this series represents Christ appearing to his

disciples after his resurrection,

while they were fishing in the Sea of

Galilee. In the gospel story of that event,

found

ing to John, chapter 21,

John who recognizes

the apostle

is

it

who

but the ever-impetuous Peter himself, for he side.

Though sea,

work over

Peter at least

Christ

leaps into the water (first clothing his lord's

is

their nets rather than terrified at night in the

water and Christ

If the original text in

on the shore

rather than

haps, rather than holding as for

Gospel accord-

Wierix's picture shows the waves rather small and the

hand toward him. Christ

in the

had been working stripped down) to hasten to

apostles hard at

stormy

resi-

engravings of the Passion of Christ,

engraved by that same Anthony Wierix prints.

too valuable to be passed

Matthew

is is

amended

to have

to Peter, per-

— then imagination can do the

him

a

reaching out his

—gesturing

on the water

on

rest.

And

the fact that Wierix's original print clearly shows the nail holes

of the stigmata in Christ's hands and

Roman

soldier's spear

made

Ricci has the Chinese artist

feet,

and the wound that

in his right side, that

who

is

a

swiftly remedied.

copies the print cover over the telltale

63

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI signs that the Christ here portrayed had already suffered his crucifixion.

So Ricci adjusts the gospel

When

the right work.

text

in order that the

and picture are together,

the outside of the expensive inkcakes that sells

to the wealthy literati of China, or in

also print to generate

But when the picture

picture

as they will

be on

will reinforce each other.

alone, evoking Chinese faith

through memory,

prior to the application of reason and will, the burden that will

may do

Cheng Dayue makes and the book that Cheng will

more revenue, then they is

wrong

falls

upon

it

be great. The visual image will have to conjure up the missing

text,

and every

detail matters in this attempt.

which the hungry came out

to be fed.

Christ retreated to pray. There

Or

work.

rather

all

is

There

There is

is

the mountain, where

the fishing boat, with

the crew save one,

all

the city, from

save Bo-do-lo,

all

the crew at

who

leaves the

comparative safety of the vessel to struggle in his heavy robes the waves and gazes

up anxiously

at the

among

calm figure of Christ upon the

shore.

Ricci's

world was both riven and bonded by water.

from Portugal to India

in 1578, the great days

When

new ocean

seventy years in the past, and the

lay

more than

routes from Seville to

Veracruz, from Acapulco to Manila, and from Lisbon to

Macao were accepted

parts of global

mained uncertain, and most of version of his great world map,

it

life.

in

Goa and

Yet knowledge of the

was uncharted; even

done

Peking

in 1602,

showed the

entire lower section of the Southern

one gigantic subcontinent. Those of the Cape of

Good Hope

sailing even a

sea re-

in the revised

which drew on

the latest geographical discoveries and the finest cartographical Ricci

sailed

of early seaborne ex-

Gama, and Magellan

ploration by Columbus, Vasco da

he

skills,

Hemisphere

few miles too

far

as

south

or in the Straits of Magellan could confi-

64

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES dently expect to be dashed to pieces

on the rocks of inhospitable and

new euphemistic

coin-

writings; he preferred the

more

uninhabited shores. Ricci in fact never used the age "Cape of

Good Hope"

in his

own

venerable and accurate "Cape of Storms."

By

8

time habit and experience had led to certain

Ricci's

common

procedures for those traveling to India or the Far East. Since the world

was

still

nominally divided according to the 1494 papal ruling

at

Tor-

two great zones, each controlled by one of the major

desillas into

Catholic maritime powers, those sailing west to Latin America, the Pacific,

or the Philippines

would

take passage

on Spanish

vessels,

while

those traveling east to India, the Spice Islands of the Moluccas, to

Macao, or to Japan would

sail

on Portuguese. (The naval

of

forces

England, the Netherlands, and France were just beginning to contest these monopolies but had not as yet succeeded in breaking

fundamental way.)

To have

winds, the ships sailing for

down

in

any

the best chance of obtaining favorable

Goa

tried to leave

though anytime before Easter was considered south

them

Lisbon in March

fairly safe)

(al-

and bore due

the western coast of Africa before veering southwest past

on reaching the 30° southern

the coast of Brazil;

would

latitudes they

Good Hope, whence southwest monsoon winds brought them to Goa by September. If they had hopes of returning within a year they had to leave Goa bear east, passing by Tristan da

Cunha and

the Cape of

by Christmas to catch the northeast monsoons and round the Cape before the next

May.

9

There were long delays to

commence

tated by

at

any harbor, waiting for the correct

month

each leg of the journey, with sailing dates naturally dic-

monsoons or

prevailing trade winds.

— or

high-pooped Portuguese vessels could reach 2,000 tons and

mount

Some of the

finest

of the

"carracks," as they were termed

twenty-eight guns, though most

were more commonly around 400 tons with some twenty guns and a crew of 120; they were often built of Indian teak in the shipyards of

Cochin and Goa, making up building apart

wood

in

in part for the severe shortage

southern Europe by the

from changes

in size there

of ship-

later sixteenth century.

10

But

had been no great technological devel65

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO opments

since the days of the early sixteenth-century explorers,

bigger Portuguese carracks were

less

and the

seaworthy than their smaller pre-

and seamanship were not yet linked with any

decessors; science

pre-

and no benefits from the exploration of the heavens opened up

cision,

by Copernicus had yet been applied to the ing was uncertain at

little

sea,

of navigation. Timekeep-

art

and magnetic compasses were often

gauged with

itudes could be

often

RICCI

erratic; lat-

precision, but assessing longitude

And though

better than guesswork.

was

certain hardy mer-

chants like the Italian Francesco Carletti were able to draw on their ex-

dream by the century's end of opening mercantile routes

periences and that

would enable

traders to span the globe in

two

years or

himself took eight years (1594-1602) to complete his

from

Seville to

Zeeland

The Jesuits of their

letters to

ish galleons

Europe

in

Macao,

13

his

to

letters

— one

Rome

but Ricci accepted letter.

1594, this long time span original letter life

changed

on earth

more." his

1

own

Ricci.

via

time span.

a

12

dangers to send each

Mexico on the Span-

Goa on the Portuguese carracks Valignano may have been startled that

took seventeen years in

six to seven years as the

meant not only

drastically,

letters that

already dead,

I

I

that situations

transit

from

for receiving

to a friend in

prompting the

"but also that people have moved

and often when

have written about

lose the strength

In few cases was this father, the

norm

As he wrote from Shaozhou

to another sphere:

number of lengthy

who were

journey

out of Manila, and one via

an answer to a given

from

sea's

two copies

leaving Macao. Ricci's superior

one of

such

at

China knew enough of the

in

own

Netherlands by way of Mexico and Na-

in the

and few would have been surprised

gasaki,

Carletti

less,

and the

more poignant

call to

I

mind

the

this place to those spirit to write

any

for Ricci than in that of

wealthy Maceratan pharmacist Giovanni Battista

As Matteo wrote

had heard noth-

to his father in 1593, since he

ing of his parents since one letter they had sent just after his departure

from Lisbon cheer

five years before, "if

me up

Three years

to

later

know how

it is

not too

the family are and

Matteo heard from

much if

trouble

you

are

all

it

alive."

a close friend in Italy that his fa-

ther had died, and he memorialized the event with a series of

66

would

solemn

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES 16

Masses.

Alerted at

dead

all,

after

last in

1605 to the news that his father was not

warm come down to

Matteo wrote the only

(at least the only

one that has

main achievements of

family letter of his

really

us),

life

summarizing the

China and ending, "I know not

his career in

if

of mine will find you on earth or in heaven: in any event

this letter

By the time the

wanted to write to you."

letter

I

reached Macerata,

however, Giovanni Battista was dead; and so was Matteo by the time

news

the

—

Matteo

— could have reached him.

time accurate

this

of foreboding were not misplaced.

Ricci's general feelings

Marine catastrophes were frequent throughout the period of

his life in

the East, and not just because of rocks, high seas, or sudden storms.

Late departures because of bureaucratic or shipbuilding delays were gion, and ships frequently had to set

sail

weather against them. Despite the

justified

with

all

the odds of

that

one captain found

—unable

side

to

tell

his

which

—

crew

freshly recruited

side of the ship

wind and

fame of Portuguese

manship, the crews were often untrained or inept,

it

le-

sea-

being recorded

from the country-

was port and which

star-

board until he tied heads of garlic on one side and a string of onions on the other.

The

rosters

of new

sailors

included "tailors, cobblers, lackeys,

ploughmen and ignorant boys," according

—and

teau listing

many

Food and water were foul, the shortages

in short supply

made worse by

from the

among

the

through the

on occasion

vessels

Men

portman-

start

19

and soon became

prostitutes

Then

bound

for India

there were the diseases

with horrible frequency, especially

two or three thousand desperately poor Portuguese who

traveled out each year, so that

remained

historian's

the presence of stowaways or extra,

or the mistresses of the ships' officers. raced

one

senior officers were inexperienced gentry.

semilegal passengers, including

that

to

fair,

half the ship's

on some voyages, even when the weather

complement might nevertheless

descending below decks often vomited or fainted

stenches that rose from the refuse there, a noisomeness

most passengers' unwillingness jerry-rigged perches that

hung

to use the

common

at the

perish.

fearsome

compounded by toilet

facilities,

unsteadily over the ships' sides and

have been terrifying enough in calm waters, 67

let

alone in a storm.

must

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI But most important

as a

cause of disaster was the insane overloading

from which such mighty

that characterized these infrequent sailings profits

could be realized

went

if all else

were piled haphazardly over the decks,

well: great

mounds of goods

in teetering stacks,

and crew and

poorer passengers alike bartered their valuable cabin spaces for

and

slept

on deck among the goods,

And

the chaos.

nails fell

wood and

with

Bengal cane,

a

proved to his satisfaction

Some

adding to

wood could be

one disgusted Portuguese

as

after losing

most of

officer

his possessions in

a

ships sailed these terrible seas held together by ropes slung

bow and

hurriedly around

when

in his Historia that in

foul,

badly maintained, so that caulking and

out of the softened timbers and the very keel

split apart

wreck.

weather and

were not enough, many ships were built

as if all that

of poorly seasoned

in fair

money

stern, tightened

by

a capstan.

22

Ricci noted

the Jesuits were threatened by hostile officials

1587 with expulsion from China, he begged the Chinese for mercy

with

tears in his eyes, stating that there

was "no way" they could once

again pass over "all those seas that lay between China and their

homeland."

2 *

His friend Nicholas Spinola,

Goa with

safe ashore at

Ricci in September 1578, wrote to his superiors at

Rome: "Those

ous of traveling to India should not be too tied to

life

die,

having great

ready to mortify

faith in

all

Our Lord and

their senses, for here

own desir-

but ever ready to

a great desire for suffering,

one

learns to

know

oneself by

experience, not by theoretical reflection." Privateers provided a different kind of hazard, ous.

The

fleet in

which Ricci and

and one no

less

danger-

out of Lisbon

his fellow Jesuits sailed

harbor on March 24, 1578, was shadowed for days by two well-armed

French vessels (possibly Huguenot ships estant forces), trying to pick

merchant

vessels.

These

up any

latter,

The

stragglers

bound mainly

the three large carracks of the India the Canary Islands.

allied to dissident

Dutch

Prot-

from among the smaller for Brazil, sailed close to

fleet for this

part of the journey to

carracks' captains ordered the

guns run out,

while the Jesuits (though suffering grievously from seasickness) stood

on deck, clasping battle.

their crucifixes

Unwilling to

risk a

and ready to exhort the crews into

gunfight with three such well-armed ships,

68

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES the French finally sailed away with a specious story that they were not

French but Flemish grain ships that had strayed from their route.

Other ships were often

less

25

lucky, and by the late sixteenth century

both English and Dutch privateers had joined the French, adding the bitterness of religious

war

to their daring raids

On many

Havana, Mozambique, and Macao. especially

on points

as distant as

occasions the Portuguese

fought off their attackers with incredible courage, taking

heavy casualties, and even letting their carracks go to the bottom with

most of the hands and

of the cargo rather than surrender anything

all

But

to Protestant or Japanese foes.

able

and heavily gunned privateers scored some signal

huge Spanish

British seized the

1587, and the

weeks

treasure galleon

Dutch took two Portuguese

5/.

Ana

successes: the

off

Acapulco

in

carracks in the space of a few

Malacca and Macao during 1603, to mention only the two

at

grandest coups. These brought prize

thousand crowns in the lion guilders in the It

inevitably the highly maneuver-

first

case

and

money estimated in excess

at five

hundred

of three and a half mil-

second/

was the nature of sixteenth-century naval practice to devolve ex-

traordinary responsibility

upon the lone

of Spanish and Portuguese

figure of the pilot; in the case

vessels, royal regulations

gave the pilot sole

charge over the ship's course. Thus armed with whatever experience they had of winds and currents, fish

movements and

birds' flight, carry-

when

ing simple maps and the narratives of previous voyagers existed,

with compass, astrolabe, and quadrant, the pilots took responsi-

bility for vessels

of

a

thousand tons or more, with more than

sand passengers and crew

blame

for

loried in ysis

jammed

aboard.

anything that went wrong on

a

The

pilots

a thou-

were given the

given voyage and were

contemporary accounts. Thomas Aquinas,

in his

famous

pil-

anal-

of four kinds of causality, which was standard reading for any

educated Catholic churchman, had observed: the

these

same thing

may be

to

be the cause of contrary

"Nor

effects.

is it

impossible for

For instance,

a pilot

the cause of saving or sinking a ship: of the former by his pres-

ence, of the latter by his absence.'"

9

But that was written

in the thir-

teenth century, before the advent of long-range sea voyages, and most

69

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

of Ricci's contemporaries would have amended Aquinas to add a third

who

cause, the pilot

English Jesuit skills,

not

Thomas

and grateful

resist

sinks the ship by virtue of his presence.

for

blaming the

The mild

Stevens, generally so appreciative of people's

having reached

Goa unscathed

Good Hope,

with

its

could

which occurred

pilot for his only near disaster,

he rounded the Cape of

in 1579,

as

terrible reputation for

storms:

But we there found no tempest, only immense waves, where our was guilty of an oversight; never

come within

whereas

for,

commonly

all

pilot

navigators do

sight of land, but, contenting themselves with

signs and finding the bottom,

ing to have the winds at

go

their course safe

and

shot nigh the land;

will,

sure, he, think-

when

the wind,

changing into the south, with the assistance of the mountainous waves, rolled us so near the land that

we were

in less than fourteen

fathoms, only six miles from Capo das Agulias, and there

be utterly

lost.

Under

us were

huge

rocks, so sharp

we looked

to

and cutting that no

anchor could possibly hold the ship, and the shore was so excessively

bad that nothing could take the land, which besides savage people,

who

put

all

or comfort, but only in

True to

his general

strangers to death, so that

God

theme,

is full

it

and

good conscience.

a

God

was to

of tigers and

we had no hope 30

rather than to the pilot that

Stevens ascribed the ship's survival and the safe conclusion of his journey.

Many

travelers

had more dramatic

than this to

tales

tell,

and

ac-

counts by survivors of spectacular naval disasters were ever-popular items in the late sixteenth century, being published in pamphlet or

book form

after

each

new

catastrophe. Ricci and the Jesuits at the col-

lege of Coimbra, waiting for ten long

Goa

the latest fleet was assembled for the the pilot's role in the fate of the

The

St.

with

a

Paul had

left

complement of

St.

Lisbon for five

months

in 1577

and

1578

Paul, published in Lisbon in 1565.

Goa

near the end of April in 1560,

—among whom were

thirty-three

'

as

run, could have read in detail

hundred people

one hundred crew members,

early

70

women,

thirty

listed

boys under

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES twelve years of age, two Jesuit fathers, the rest being ship's

ous male passengers, and miscellaneous late for safety, as the

and

built in India, "very strong

St.

was an

sailor

ill

First hit

by

sailed

on her

when

for

and

close-hauled,

a savage storm,

known from

like a firm rock in all the

Goa with

was too the

Paul was one of the ships

blew," in the words of the chronicler of her

who

sailing date

crew and passengers must have

experiences of others, and though the

rique Dias

The

slaves.

officers, vari-

winds that

the pharmacist Hen-

fate,

medicine chest, "she

his full

and hard to

difficult

31

steer."

who "was

then misdirected by the pilot,

a

novice in this India voyage," the ship was becalmed for two months of desperate tacking or! the sick

fell

three

but bleeding, for Henrique Dias's drugs were soon ex-

The

hundred

Only

crew and passengers

Africa;

with delirium and swollen groins, with no medical help for

their pain

hausted.

Guinea coast of

rigging rotted in the incessant rains, and at one time fifty

out of the

five

hundred aboard

in late July did the ship cross the equator

after four

months of

horror; there

pany further depleted by the Brazilian gold,

loss

and groping in stormy

who

refitted.

of a hundred

amid "great arguments between the with others

was

it

lay

32 ill.

and reach Salvador

But with the com-

men who went

seas to find the

to seek

Madagascar route

captain, the pilot,

understood navigational matters," the

and the master, St.

Paul missed

India altogether and was smashed onto the shores of Sumatra in Jan-

uary 1561, despite the final prayerful pleas to ners

and holy

relics

knelt in prayer.

33

Several survivors of this voyage

their lives in various ways,

them were Francisco

when

ily

Paes,

Goa and

who was

to

still

become

young

crier at the

tleman Pero Barbosa,

boy

ship's

Goa

had

and the subsequent

Among

be made captain-major of a

lived

on

as auditor-general

Antonio da Fonseca, who married and brought up

Francisco Fernandes, a to

all

settled there, reshaping

and subsequently entered the Jesuit order

grew up

of the ban-

Ricci arrived in India in 1578.

China-Japan, voyage in 1585 (and in 1601);

in front

unfurled on the upper deck before which

desperate trek to safety had reached

Goa

God

at the

a

of

fam-

after his wife's death;

time of the wreck,

who

auction market; and the faded gen-

a verger in the

71

Goa

church, so destitute that he

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI begged daily

alms from the religious orders and from the wealthy

for

households in the town.

3

In the absence of any surviving accounts by Ricci of his 1578 voyage

Goa, we cannot be sure of

to

though we have two

his

own

views on navigational matters,

On

the positive side

we know

that in his Chinese-language theological writings he used the

image of

of indications.

sets

the ship's pilot (along with those of the archer, globemaker, architect,

and printer)

random phenomena, but Thomist

this

way

reading. Ricci argued that the

difficult seas,

by

a pilot

watching from

We

3

mankind.

"

which the

destinies even also

know

work

map of

On

altitude."

the

St.

to India crossed the equator to

that later helped him: in a note

at the equator,

shipping this

the negative side,

Louis, ran

good

a

aground

I

"When

saw

for

must have been

who

now bobbing

among

others that his ship,

Mozambique

harbor,

37

And

there

is

certainly a

men

of the sixteenth century were after a wreck; they find

the crashing waves.

Now sunk

under

up, they are tossed here and there at the will of

the wind. Each thinks of his

own

plight,

and no one thinks of saving

his fellows.

They grab onto whatever comes

ropes, debris

—they

go when

least difference in

one compounded by the very

have seen their ship break up

themselves in the wide sea the water,

to

another passage from his Chinese theological

works, in which Ricci wrote that the

"those

to his

and perhaps risking more deadly damage;

extent of the dangers already surmounted.

like

appended

myself that the North and

entrance to

a considerable shock,

heartfelt literalism in

to

do some

came from the West

I

we know from

at the very

deal of water

God

from the two occasions on

South poles were equally on the horizon, without the 6

to an observer

though sight of him was denied

the world he wrote,

China and arrived

was guided across

an analogy to the way

as

that he profited

him

vessel carrying

observational

a ship

whose existence was unknown

could be used

afar,

human

directed

Chinese

man whose skill lay behind apparently may have been simply an echo of his

an example of a

as

seize

it,

their life ends."

Ricci's contemporaries

they clutch

it

to

hand

—

planks,

sails,

to them, they will only leave

38

were attuned to the ups and downs of 72

a sea-

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES farer's life,

and poked fun

of the technical

even

at pilots

difficulty

were

as they

of their work and of the dangers to which

they were exposed. Cervantes and Shakespeare serve to

Cervantes gave to

Don Quixote

—

as

down

he sailed

make

the point.

a small river in a

convinced that he was crossing mighty oceans

skiff,

aware

realistically

—the chance

chide Sancho Panza for his ignorance of "the colures,

to

lines, parallels,

zodiacs, ecliptics, poles, solstices, equinoxes, planets, signs of the zodiac

and points, which are the measures of which the spheres are composed." traveled, since

39

Unable

celestial

and

terrestrial

to assess the exact distance they have

he has not brought his instruments with him,

Don

Quixote contents himself with the guess that they have traveled around two thousand miles (Sancho's guess five yards).

"If

I

Don Quixote

I

would

tell

moved

continues:

had only an astrolabe here with which

of the pole,

that they have

is

you

how

anything we have passed, or soon

we have

I

could take the height if I

know

shall pass, the equinoctial line

which

far

gone; though

divides and cuts the opposing poles at equal distance."

"And when we get to this noxious line your worship speaks of," asked Sancho, "how far shall we have gone?" "A long way," replied Don Quixote, "for we shall have covered the half of the three

hundred and

sixty degrees

of earth and water the

globe contains according to the computation of Ptolemy,

known, when we come

the best cosmographer

who was

to the line

I

men-

tioned."

"By God," said Sancho, "but your worship has got me a pretty fellow for a witness of what you say, this same Tolmy or whatever you call

him, with his amputation."

Shakespeare's depiction

is

at

40

once more

specific

In the opening act of Macbeth one of the witches

woman whose lusion that

know had

and more

allegorical.

makes reference

to a

"husband's to Aleppo gone, master of the Tiger," an

many among an

early-seventeenth-century audience

to apply to the fate of the English

sailed to the eastern

merchant Ralph

al-

would

Fitch,

who

Mediterranean market town of Aleppo on the

ship Tiger before being arrested in

Hormuz 73

as a

spy in 1583 and trans-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO shipped to Goa's notorious and effective detail in the l

1599.

jail,

RICCI

a story

recorded in graphic

second volume of Hakluyt's Voyages, which appeared

The continuation of

in

the witch's speech, in which she talks of

the disorientation of the navigators as they tried to gain their bearings in wildly veering winds,

would

ment from any who had

sailed

certainly have

with the India

won

weary acknowledg-

would the same

fleets, as

speech's stark epilogue:

Sleep shall neither night nor day

Hang upon his pent-house He shall live a man forbid. Weary

se'nnights nine times nine

Shall he dwindle, peak

Though Yet

it

lid:

his bark

shall

and pine;

cannot be

lost,

be tempest-tost.

Look what I have. second witch. Show me, show me. first witch. Here

Wrack'd

It is a

as

have

I

a pilot's

homeward he

thumb,

did come.

curious but not impossible thought that travel literature of the

day gave Shakespeare the idea of introducing Macbeth to the audience in the

same breath

beth, being

men

as a

brave yet harassed pilot: such pilots, like Mac-

forced by

life

to

make

under an opaque heaven that gave them

decisions of great

help, driven by stubborn

little

pride to desperate acts that destroyed both

moment

them and those

in their

charge. Europe of the Counter-Reformation was avid for such tales, and life

provided them abundantly.

We find

the historian Gian Pietro Maf-

work —whose when 1581 — not only devouring the same Portuguese historical

fei

electrified

Ricci

he

first

read

disaster tales

incorporating experiences from the group of Jesuits Ricci into the Indies.

growing

drafts

who

it

in

but also

sailed

with

of his comprehensive history of the

3

Ricci sailed from Lisbon to

consisted of three ships, the

Goa St.

in early 1578,

Gregory, the

74

with

a little fleet that

Good Jesus, and the

St.

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES

The

Louis.

groups of four or

five:

Ricci,

was assigned to the

others,

Two

had

in

This was the flagship,

commanded

but the choice was otherwise not en-

fleet,

years before, the

nightmare voyage

a

the three vessels in

along with Michele Ruggieri and three Louis.

St.

by the captain-major of the couraging.

among

fourteen Jesuits were divided

St.

Louis, despite

good weather, had

which, of the eleven hundred and forty

people packed aboard, around five hundred had died of fever and other diseases caused

succumbed

by

filth

later after

landing

But Ricci and

Goa.

at

when King

fortunate to be sailing in a period

had ordered that carracks not be so huge

crowded

mands

as to

Yet

lives.

as to

his friends

were

Sebastian of Portugal

be unmanageable, nor so

guarantee the spread of disease, and to these wise com-

— forgotten by

45

who

and overcrowding, not counting those

Sebastian's successors

space, as always,

was

costly,

many

aboard on the night of March 23

— they may have owed

their

and when the Jesuits came

sailors

and

soldiers

on the three

ships had already sold their cabin space to traders to store their goods,

or to wealthy passengers seeking extra room.

Though

Ricci's

account of

this

journey has not survived, by good

fortune the narratives of three of his fellow voyagers on the

and the

Gregory have been preserved; thus

St.

on the Good Jesus endured grim conditions, rough planks on the upper deck, just find

room

in

we know

Good Jesus

that the priests

a tiny cabin jerry-built

which the four of them could only

same time, along with

to stretch out at the

a tiny stor-

age cupboard for water and other supplies such as their stocks of

and vinegar, wine, cheese, and ship were better three

off,

makeshift waves.

Those on the

St.

latrine,

Gregory

had

directly over the water to serve as a

through which they could hear the pounding of the

moved out

it

was dawn on March 24 when the three

to sea before a favorable wind, leaving behind the din

— ultimately

of the docks where the slow building of an armada

more than eight hundred

King

oil

47

All three accounts agree ships

biscuit.

in a cabin in the stern jutting over the rudder that

windows and an opening

of

—was

ships

Sebastian's planned assault

under way

in preparation for

on the North African 75

to total

48

coast.

A

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO crowd of pleasure

craft

RICCI

scudded around them to speed them on their

way, while from above the harbor came the sound of the bells tolling in the

Church of the Wounds of

Christ, the patron

and master mariners of the India

was on

It

this sea voyage, six

twice, that Ricci

first

church for the pilots

49 fleet.

months

lived in the

long, crossing the equator

world

man

as a practicing

of the

church, though he had not yet received holy orders and was therefore

noted

in the Jesuit

dent of theology."

documents of the

50

The

"Brother Ricci," a "stu-

trip as

ship was a microcosm of the

mixture of dangers, hitherto unexperienced

its

ahead, with

life

social relations, physical

discomforts, and opportunities for austere or public devotion. Ricci's

own

training in the Jesuit college in

Rome

had prepared

his

body

for

physical rigors, but as his fellow Jesuit missionary Nicholas Spinola

wrote on board the Good Jesus, rial

all

heat and cramped conditions.

one, since

host of

The

very act of sleeping was denied

one could do was "to sweat

all

stretched out

one's patterns shifted in the equato-

on

a

plank with

all

the night through,

a tiny mattress, in a terrible stench

and bedbugs." Everything rotted or stank

lice

and

a

in the incessant

heat and damp: the ink faded out of the books, metal knives and

spoons rusted, robes smelled of rotting wool, the drinking water grew putrid and the foods insipid, as tolerably,

The

swelled, teeth

and heads thumped with pain.

sailors

strain their

swirled

gums

and jaws ached

were rough company, and the Jesuit fathers

worst behavior: intervening

among bored

in-

31

as

tried to re-

mediators in the fights that

groups, especially on hot

summer

nights, or to

abate their ceaseless swearing by an ingenious system of fines, accumulating a fund that could be used later, by

devotional purpose of benefit to confession a

new problem

solitary spot in

which

all.

common

When

agreement, for some

the sailors chose to

arose, for the priests often

—

to hear their lurid tales

it

sought

ship's

of the

who

tivities

fathers,

in vain a

52

Yet the

crew was presumably increased by other were diligent

in

ac-

rounding up and throwing

overboard playing cards and dice and confiscating the

76

to

seemed that on such

small and crowded vessels every cabin and bulkhead had ears.

boredom among the

go

many

books, in a

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES babel of languages and often illustrated, that they considered obscene

and that seem to have been

The

sailors

constant feature of shipboard

showed great ingenuity

the omnipresent flying

53 life.

remained seems to have been shark hunt-

favorite pastime that

some

ing:

a

in fashioning cloth

models of

decorating the models with two long

fish,

chicken feathers, embedding heavy metal hooks inside them, and then

skimming them up and over the waves 5

the bait.

hook on

Other

their

would catch one shark with

tough rope and,

a

throat and

sailors

throw

hands would line the ship's

ment

as the

and could be fell

the side

rails,

swam

killed in turn. Carried

into the sea

when

a

all

massive

a crudely baited

would

eyes,

its

its

on board with time on

watching with shouts of

upon the

in lazing circles

away by

slit

excite-

victim, until,

round the boat

their sport, four sailors

smashed the plank hung over

fish

on which they were standing, but they were rescued before

they themselves were eaten. In groups, each their

then

sea;

other sharks converged to gorge

unable to eat further, the feasters

once

out

after spiking

back into the

it

and took

until a shark leaped

own

on

their

55

own

ship, the Jesuits

managed

of devotion: one hour of prayer

rituals

after

sions every eight days, reading the Spiritual Exercises

to

conduct

dawn, confes-

and Jacopone da

Todi's devotional poems, or practicing acts of penance in their tiny cabins,

performing the twice-daily "examinations of conscience"

Ignatius of Loyola had seen as so important to the life,

reciting the litany at least

days there

would be

thers in vestments

the host.

58

On

spiritual

once each day and singing the

office at

crewmen

drama of the tions of

full

battle

in varied

Domini (May

between the devout and the devils

to

life at

On

a saint

sea that

relics

a

when

The

and

two-hour

in the tempta-

of Portuguese origin to whose 59

fa-

29, 1578) seventeen

costumes and acted out

vocation the crew responded with fervor.

rhythm

57

processions around the ships, with

the feast of Corpus

Anthony of Padua,

particular

knelt in the darkness.

and boy acolytes holding candles, carrying

crew members dressed

that

growth of

night in two-part harmonies, as saints'

56

saints'

in-

days gave such a

contrary winds stuck Ricci's

ship inside Mozambique's harbor, causing the travelers to fear they

77

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI might miss the favorable

sailing dates for

solemn procession with the head of

August 12 nevertheless

among

failed to

St.

new

a

Gerasina lovingly displayed on

change the wind's direction, many

complement reasoned

the ship's

Goa, and when even

that

God saw no

reason to

have them celebrate the Assumption of the Virgin (August 15)

at sea,

had already given her watery offerings on the day of her An-

since they

nunciation (March 25), on her Visitation (July 2), and doubtless

would be

(September 14 ).

On

feast

of her Nativity

60

quiet days of

to perform:

approaching Goa, on the

at sea,

still

King

weather, there were other tasks for the Jesuits

fair

Sebastian, as they left Lisbon,

had given them

a pres-

ent of herbs and vegetables, and these they stewed in pots for those

who were and then

sick

ritual prayers

orcisms.

But

torial waters,

Some

on board.

if

as if possessed,

ill,

could be followed by more thorough-going ex-

the ship were becalmed, especially in dangerous equa-

then solemn were the

as treasured relics like the

(who once

sailors fell strangely

new

processions around the decks,

heads of virgin martyrs or that of Boniface

army of eleven thousand

led an

virgins) were paraded past

the kneeling sailors, candles flickering in devout hands and the chanted liturgy rising above the altars erected tures of the Virgin directly for

own

wind

on deck where devotional

and her Son were displayed. The fathers interceded

to get the ships

moving once

again, adding to their

prayers the effective device of persuading each sailor to promise a

upon the

share of his pay or his allowance of oil to burn in lamps

of

Our Lady of Beluarte

icans

on the

island of

in the little

after

hour

in the

Mozambique.

63

And

in

stormy

seas, like

battling their

those

them hour

heaving dark, the priests heard confessions constantly

shame of fellow shipmates hearing one's

they tossed the

altar

church maintained by the Domin-

near the Cape that washed over the ships, smashing against

(all

pic-

little

own

wax Agnus Dei

sins

now

cast aside),

into the sea to calm the waves

fatigue and sickness. Francis Pasio,

one of the Jesuits

traveling with Ricci, listed as a criterion for their survival

voyages that there be

at least

turn and turn about

when

and

on these long

four priests on any one ship, able to serve

things were desperate.

78

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES In a letter written during October 1578 after arriving in Goa, Pasio

added quite casually that his ship, the

"three or four hundred blacks" while in

probably Ricci's

of slaves for

ity

St.

sale,

had loaded aboard

Gregory,

St.

Mozambique,

many more. There were "an

Louis took on as

both Muslims and

and bought by the Portuguese there

West

for use in India,

African

traffic

infin-

by one side or

gentiles, captured

Mozambique

the other in their wars," shipped from mainland Africa to

African equivalent for the

and quite

making an

that fed the mines

East

and

plantations of the Caribbean, Peru, and Brazil. Persuading these slaves to

embrace Christianity even

joyful task for the priests,

seen their if

first

comrades

as the ship crossed the

and most

die; in

slaves

many

they agreed to spit at the prophet

Indian Ocean was a

chose the faith after they had

Muslim

cases

slaves

Muhammad's name. Some

receive a swift absolution at death, for even

ideal conditions

with fresh water and provisions on board in plenty, eigh-

teen slaves died

on the

St.

Gregory, while

on the

entire voyage, out of

— one

five

hundred white passengers, only three had died

one

sailor

on board

who at

fell

journey

overboard and drowned, and one sailor

Ricci's

first

who came

experience of that chain of bases that

Portugal's overseas empire and were to

— on

boy and

ship's

Lisbon with a fever that could not be cured.

Mozambique was made up

could

on the month-long journey

from Mozambique to Goa, in what seem to have been for those days,

were baptized

to

Goa, to Malacca, and

and uninviting, the island was the

finally to

first

mark the

steps of his

Macao. Though barren

land that passengers, priests, and

crew had seen since the Canary Islands four months before, and many were

in despair at

being delayed from landing. The island had no fresh

water and grew virtually no food, everything having to be brought over

from the mainland; but there were stockpiles of wine and dried as well as fruit preserves, rice, millet,

the travelers had ever tasted. These

and fowl, and the

must have been

finest

joys

biscuit,

wild pig

enough, plus

the chance to stretch legs that had lost the facility for walking,

all

this

while refreshed by worship in the church that lay under the protection

of the

fortress's

enormous

guns, with a chance for quiet prayer or for service in the

hospital,

one of the

island's landmarks.

79

67

But these pleasures

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

faded into the background once the ships reached Goa. Just as one priest

on the

Gregory had written that the joy of sighting even a

St.

misty spit of dangerous shore after months at sea had brought passengers onto deck terra!,"

we

paroxysms of excitement, shouting "Terra,

in

and could only be compared

will feel

when our

the

all

in

human

terms of

souls reach heaven,"

8

joy to "the joy

so did another write that

the hills of Goa, washed deep green by winter rains, and the

palm

trees

and elegant homes

much

as a

tapestry in

which

could imagine."

9

at the hills' feet,

were "like nothing so

depicted every aspect of freshness that one

artifice

And who

could describe the

months of rationed and brackish

water, of

all

that

gushed from the springs and the fountains

one's clothes, splashing, splashing, splashing in the cold water in the Jesuit college at

70

The remaining long

sea voyages of Ricci's

life,

those during 1582

from Goa to Malacca, and from Malacca to Macao the same

none of the drama of last

this first one,

stage of the journey to

home.

his letters

wreck of that

71

Macao

though he was

to feel the fact

year's

repeating the ecstasy of his

at last

to

tales

ter

enough on the

worth mentioning

of their weeks )

moments

first

around two decades

in

later.

The

at

first

The

as

castaways on the

closest Ricci

Goa was on two came

came

to

occasions

in 1595, after

he was

given permission by the Chinese to travel north from Shaozhou

Nanchang and

the

had

Portuguese carrack trading with Nagasaki returned

hitherto unexplored island of Formosa.

in China,

ill

year,

(Just after he landed the few survivors of the terrible

Macao, with harrowing

to

a half

washing one's whole body

and

Goa?

and

joys, after five

first

felt

waves of nostalgia

he had seen for

home

to Macerata.

many

73

years, as

of

ice

and snow,

he told his brother in a rare

The second was

had been given permission to

at the sight

in the

summer of

let-

1598. Ricci

travel to China's subsidiary capital, the

great Yangzi River city of Nanjing, something he had long desired,

but when he arrived there by boat in early July the war with Japan in

Korea had

just flared into its

had issued edicts for the

one dared to

invite Ricci

second phase. Since China's imperial court

arrest

home

of

all

suspicious-looking foreigners,

or even to rent

80

him

no

lodgings, nor did

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES he himself dare to

travel

on land except

for brief journeys in a covered

summer months

sedan chair. Instead, he was compelled to spend the

under the broiling sun of central China

in a

cramped and

out on the water, "with the greatest discomfort,"

boat not only was small but had few

Historia, "since the

But

soon

as

as the military tensions eased, a

Zhao Kehuai, housed tures

him

invited

country residence

at

in the

facilities."'

wealthy Chinese

official,

to spend eight to ten days as a guest in his

Juyong,

in a setting that

some of

he wrote

as

boat

stifling

a day's ride

he described

the joys of the

from Nanjing. Here Ricci was

later

moment:

ground within the palace complex,

a

with a lyricism that recap-

his lodgings

were on high

chamber "beautifully made, orna-

mented and painted, with three doors, one facing south, the two

side

ones east and west; these led to a covered walkway with exquisite balustrades,

and beyond that

this lovely setting,

own

for the space

lay a

on an of

a

garden with many

altar

trees

it,

and "to

stay there

intensity of these experiences

the fact that the most significant

only one that he Historia

felt

— occurred

all

him

Nanchang, the Ricci's boat

in a covered case,

through the day,

dream of

recit-

75

may have something

— or

Ricci's life

was worth recording both

as

his

few precious days, Ricci was able to place the

ing his office and recommending himself to God."

The

made

designed for pagan gods but

painted triptych of Christ which he carried with to light incense beside

giving shade." In

to

do with

at least the

in his letters

and

in his

he was traveling by water between Nanjing and

cities that

represented the poles of heat and ice to him.

was nearing Nanchang but making

little

headway against

a

strong contrary wind blowing off the Boyang Lake, and he was brooding about the difficulties of his mission

when he dozed

off.

He

scribed the ensuing experience in a letter to his childhood friend

de-

from

Macerata, Girolamo Costa:

I

must not

forget to

tell

you one dream, which

I

had

a

few days

after

arriving in this place. I was standing, made melancholy by the sad outcome of my attempt, and by the travails of the journey, when it seemed to me that I met a man I did not recognize, who said to me:

81

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO "So

you who have

is it

to destroy

And

its

RICCI

been traveling through

just

seeking

this land,

them with the law of God?"

ancient laws and replace

astonished that this person could penetrate so deep into

I,

"Be you

heart, asked in return:

the devil but

God." So

I

God?" And he

devil or

threw myself

weeping, and

at his feet,

my Lord, know this, why up to now help?" And he answered me, "Go forward to seemed to me that he was showing me Peking

have you given

"If you,

my

"Not

replied,

said,

me no

—"and —and herehelp

you."

any

The

I

entered the city

And

difficulty.

was

this

with

filled

my

"go forward

instruction to

that city"

it

there

passing through

faith,

will

I

it

without

dream.

to that city" carried echoes of the mys-

experience of Paul on the road to Damascus, and the vision of

tical

Christ the Saviour experienced by Ignatius of Loyola in the chapel at La Storta,

awoke,

during 1537, his eyes

still full

companion on the ren, a

of

He

was surely well aware.

as Ricci

tears,

records that he

and recounted the dream to

boat, his language teacher and friend,

his only

Zhong Ming-

Chinese convert and candidate for entry into the Society of Jesus,

baptized as Sebastian,

who

had made the unpropitious journey to

Nanjing and back with him.

Much her

of Ricci's knowledge of China came from his journeys over

rivers, lakes,

and

would not venture

canals.

far

by

He

had

early learned that

sea, for sea travel

and even

had become too dangerous. As Ricci phrased loads of Japanese seize

would land on China's

towns and large

cities,

put them

without there being anyone to true

enough of the

resist

1550s, but Ricci

"Two

all

to the sack

them."

found

79

great

is

or three boat-

Certainly this had been

hard to accept the preva-

it is

and burn them,

a

matter of amazement to

he observed, "that even though the journey by sea

more convenient, so

near the coast

coast and advance inland and

lence of these fears half a century later: "It us,"

it,

life

most Chinese

is

shorter and

the fear that the Chinese have of the sea

and of pirates that they are unwilling to transport their goods by sea

though

several

have suggested

always used to do

it."

it

to their king,

and

in the old days they

Instead they had focused their energies on their

inland waterways, which were like nothing Ricci had experienced in

82

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES Europe.

He

China

as

many people

true,"

he added

quoted the

be true to those

lived

who

on water

on

as

land;

it is

and "even

enough of

a

European

might

the Historia written at the end of his its

later life

that in

strategist to

81

sea." river

to

rivers."

keep his eyes

prove of use, and so even in

we

find

him observing of

the

junction with the Boyang Lake, that despite the

rapid currents there and the danger of drowning, "it appears to galleys

not

if this is

something that appears

have only traveled by way of their

for technical details that

Yangzi River, near

among Westerners

belief

carefully, "nevertheless

Ricci was always

open

common

me

that

from the

and ships with mizzen

sails

At times he and other

Jesuits gave such careful details of their

and canal

travel that their

as far as this area

accounts could serve

had always warned

to foreigners

could get

—

—

as

as bases for military

But more often

Chinese averse

planning by

a

was

hostile

army contemplating invasion.

drawn

to the majesty of the boats themselves or to the splendid bustle

of river

life.

Writing

to his

put things into a familiar than the Po, he

said,

—with

central cabins

Roman

Ricci's eye

school friend Giulio Fuligatti, Ricci

Italian perspective: these rivers

were larger

and some of the boats were so huge that their

high

ceilings, ten or

more windows,

their

paint-

—were the

ings and other decorations, dozens of tables and chairs

Roman

of the chapel in the

college.

Such boats had other rooms

for

and sleeping, even kitchens and dispensaries: they "could be

retiring

taken for fine houses were they on land."

The boat

on the Grand Canal linking Peking and Suzhou nuch

size

Ma Tang

overlaid in gold

for the celebrated eu-

was even more splendid, with lacquered woodwork and

The crowds of

trellised

window

shades.

83

boats on East China's major inland waterway, the

Grand Canal, could

barely be

comprehended. They covered the surface

from shore to shore, piling up controlled flow levels

for days before the massive locks that

on the waterway; sometimes parting hurriedly

the boat of a grandee or court

eunuch with

through, sometimes capsizing

if

tow the loaded

special priority

as

came racing

unprepared for the sudden rush of

water released from one of the locks. toiled to

specially built to sail

On

the banks thousands of coolies

boats, while thousands

83

more stood

available,

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

Misery and plenty predictably intertwined: along

waiting for work.

the canal Ricci saw great storehouses of ice to keep the fruit and fish

from the south

fresh

on

their

long journey to Peking; he also saw more

than a thousand corvee workers in a single groaning team pulling log rafts

composed of precious wood, some of the

three thousand ducats each, he

they could be

moved only

five

was

rarest trees

told; the rafts, so

being worth

huge and heavy

or six miles in a day, were destined to be

used in rebuilding several imperial palaces that had recently burned

down and poraries

emperor Wanli's giant tomb.

for the

would have agreed with

fering: as

one of them wrote

working day

after

85

Chinese contem-

view of the barge-worker's

this

at this time, after

suf-

the coolies had been

day on the canal under the blazing sun with no ade-

quate clothing to protect them, "their backs are chapped like the scales

on

a fish."

During the long

reign of

Emperor Wanli, from 1573

to 1620,

which

included the entire period that Ricci lived and worked in China, because of the emperor's refusal to get involved in the

of administration and diaries

politics, the

eunuchs

who

mundane

matters

acted as his interme-

with the bureaucrats achieved quite extraordinary power.

rapidly learned that

Grand Canal, and fluential

eunuchs controlled the lucrative transport on the

so he traveled with

them when he could

eunuch could speed one's passage past lock

normally one might pay massive five days. Ricci

space from a

recounted

eunuch on

canal to the capital.

Ricci

how a

fees

and

still

—an

after lock

in-

where

be kept waiting four or

he and a fellow Jesuit once rented cabin

cargo boat carrying a load of fruit up the

The Jesuits

negotiated a rate with the pilot of

six-

teen ducats for the trip from Nanjing, half payable in advance and half

on

arrival.

The eunuch then threatened

to

throw them

off the ship

and baggage unless they paid him an extra eight ducats careful negotiation the Jesuits

managed

to satisfy

the balance in advance of arrival in Peking. ence,

and short of cash

by taking space on price

as well;

bag by

him by simply paying

Chastened by the experi-

money capital. The

for the return journey, Ricci tried to save

a small

boat returning empty from the

was cheap enough, but the boat was so decrepit and the 84

pilot so

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES poor that he could afford no coolie labor to speed their progress. So

made only

they

few miles a day, and ended up getting iced in

a

at the

northern river port of Linqing. After several weeks of enforced inac-

companions with the baggage on the

tion, Ricci, ever restless, left his

boat and traveled south alone, bowling swiftly

down

the side of the canal in a passenger wheelbarrow

he had never

tried before

and which he found

—

a

Suzhou along

to

form of transport and convenient.

fast

He

China's huge rivers were dangerous, as Ricci also well knew.

experienced disastrous floods

when heavy

years

rains

when he was

had

Rome, during

student in

a

89

had brought the Tiber high over

banks,

its

ruining houses and farmland and causing a doubling of grain prices,

and

riots in

when he

the streets.

witnessed a

90

But he had been

much more

in

China only three

years

of the

West

terrible flood: the waters

River engulfed the areas of Zhaoqing prefecture where he was living, causing damage

made even worse by an earthquake

same time. Local Chinese records report that ninety nities suffered

some

aged, while the crops

were

lost

to the parts of its

rifice is

that 21,759

different

on more than one hundred thousand

River Ricci

later wrote:

China through which

it

commu-

homes were destroyed or dam-

and thirty-one people drowned.

Of the Yellow and

loss,

that struck at the

acres of land

91

"This river brings

passes,

much harm

both because of its floods

frequent changes of course. For these reasons the mandarins sac-

to

silent

it,

as if to a living spirit,

with many superstitious

92

rites."

concerning the knowledge he had of these "superstitious

he read more deeply

Buddhism during

but

as

life

he might have gained an inkling of the many religious

in

men and water. great age of Ming naval

Ricci rites,"

the later years of his tales the

Chinese told of

The

last

miral

Cheng He,

sailor

who

fell

exploration (under the eunuch ad-

early in the fifteenth century) furnished the story

into the sea and was miraculously rescued because he

believed devoutly in Guanyin, the goddess of mercy. stories described events closer to

dhist fruit-merchant in the

of a

home,

like the case

93

Other Chinese

of the devout Bud-

Shen Jihuan. Shen was traveling across Lake Tai

winter of 1593 with a cargo of oranges, the story ran, 85

when

his

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

boat was caught in a sudden storm that darkened the waters and

whipped up waves big

as houses.

Oars and sweeps were

and the

lost,

boat started to sink. Shen cried aloud for help, and to the amazement of

watchers on the shore two golden figures raised his boat out of the

waves and brought crew, Shen, and cargo golden figures were guardian tion in reciting the

work and carrying in the

Lake Tai

a

area,

spirits,

Diamond

The two known devo-

safely to its haven.

touched by Shen's

morning before going

Sutra every

to

copy of the same sutra always with him. Thereafter

where Ricci had many

friends

— indeed,

it

was past

those very shores that he traveled in his wheelbarrow five years later

Shen was known

as "Fruit-seller

More touching

still,

a sick friend to

and putting

a. swiftly

whom

9

perhaps, though from an earlier time and place,

was the case of the Buddhist was prevented, by

Shen the Buddhist."

monk

Dongji: unable to swim, Dongji

flowing river in spring spate, from reaching

he sought to bring

his faith in the

solace.

But

greatly daring,

Buddha, he wrapped the sutra

in his robe,

placed the bundle on his head, and stepped out into the stream. Easily

he walked across

as if the

safely reached the

water had been only a few inches deep and

other shore. But as he reached dry land again he

found that the sutra and wrappings had vanished. Lamenting the at his sick friend's house, to

there, resting

on

sutra within

which he hastened, he saw the bundle

a table. Seizing

pings were soaked as

if

loss

it

he found that the wrap-

joyfully,

they had been in a rainstorm; but the text of the

was bright and

clear.

95

knew the pains of such loss of sacred texts and the joys of recovery. For many years of his mission to China, he had yearned to have a set of the magnificent Plantin Bible, that Bible he had first seen when Ricci

it

was brought

conversion

—

to India in 1580 as a present

for the

Muslim emperor Akbar.

—and hoped-for

9

It

ticulous scholarship in various languages that cious,

and not

was not

made

the

just its religious content. It was, rather,

tool of

just the

book

its

me-

so pre-

appearance,

the very weight of the volumes, the fineness of the paper, the delicacy

of the leather bindings, the filled

fact that there

were eight volumes, each

with type from cover to cover. The converts in China had com-

86

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES plained repeatedly of the

frail

them, and had asked the Jesuits scholars

who mocked them

dom

could be contained in

tion

some of

bulk of Christian works available to

how

they could counter those Chinese

by stating that

all

of their Christian wis-

few pages long. In despera-

little treatises a

the Jesuit fathers had printed devotional books,

still

in

Latin but with Chinese characters added to the text, so as at least to

enough

transliterate

books that they were not yet

These

remained incomprehensible to their readers, and yet were

texts

skilled

to translate.

gratefully received as a step in the right direction, since they

some added weight

The The

to Christianity's claims.

brought

97

Plantin Bible therefore provided everything they yearned

immense

eight

folio

volumes of this

Hebrew, and Chaldean, and

made by

Bible, printed in Greek, Latin,

with superb copper engravings

illustrated

the leading masters in the

for.

Low

Countries, represented a pin-

nacle of Counter-Reformation expenditure, determination, and devotion.

The

Bible had been

Plantin in

made between 1568 and 1572 by Christopher

Antwerp under contract

to

King

Philip II of Spain;

cost the king in excess of 20,000 florins to get the project

workers for

much

of the period.

It

had

under way,

and had occupied up to ten of Plantin's presses and more than his skilled

it

thirty

of

had entailed the painstak-

ing accumulation of different type fonts, clearance of the text with the doctrinal experts of

Rome

tilingual proofreaders, line-rulers.

The

and the Inquisition, and the hiring of mul-

along with batteries of skilled binders, colorers,

skins of eight thousand sheep had been needed to pro-

vide the parchment for the thirteen most luxurious sets destined for royal hands,

and 1,900,000 sheets of

fine

the rest of the edition of 1,200 copies.

At

last in late

paper were required to print

98

1603 a copy of the precious volumes, donated to the

China mission by Cardinal Santa Severina, reached Macao, and

in Feb-

ruary 1604 Father Gaspar Ferreira was assigned to take the Bible to Peking, with other supplies and presents.

and was on the outskirts of Peking wrote in a

letter to

fathers suffered a

He

in early

General Acquaviva's

reached Nanjing in April

August.

99

But

here, as Ricci

assistant, Alvarez, the

"shipwreck" of their own: Ferreira arrived just 87

Peking as cat-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO astrophic rains had swollen

RICCI

of China's northern

all

rivers,

and

in the

raging flood waters of the Beihe, which had already washed away hundreds of houses on the edges of the city and brought destitution to

thousands of families,

Ferreira's transport

boat broke apart, spilling

its

contents into the torrent. Seventy ducats' worth of wine for the Mass

sank immediately and could not be recovered. Pictures, reliquaries, and other religious articles drifted away. Most agonizing of Bible, just at the

end of

into the flooded river.

its

wooden

storage

the polyglot

voyage halfway round the world, tumbled

100

But the Plantin Bible did not their

all,

sink.

box and were

The

fished

eight volumes floated off in

from the water by some Chi-

nese in a nearby boat. Brother Sebastian Fernandez, a Chinese Jesuit

who had

from Macao

been with Ricci in many an emergency before,

saw the boatmen open the box and look with incomprehension mixture of

was

fresh

types;

at the

he bargained with them while their disappointment

and bought the volumes back from them

copper coins worth three-tenths of a ducat, or three

for a handful

giulii, in

equivalent of the Chinese currency at the current exchange

of

the Italian rate.

The

Bible was worth at least three hundred ducats at current prices, Ricci

was God's

told Alvarez,

and

our book

no more than

for

true value.

damp,"

holding.

umes

will that

we were

able to

—they

put

it

With an

—and

ransom back

three giulii," about one-thousandth of

The volumes were not ruined

as Ricci 101

"it

their gilding

was

were

in place

its

just "a little

and the bindings

eye for the dramatic, Ricci displayed the eight vol-

for the first time to his

Peking congregation

after

Mass on the

morning of the

Feast of the

Assumption of the Virgin Mary, and they

had the desired

effect:

"The

beautiful printing and the majesty of the

book

filled

[the congregation] with admiration, and they could form a

conception of the beautiful doctrine that was inside even though they could not read the words."

Flood and death were parts of aware of the dangers. The very

Zhaoqing, had

itself

river first

life,

and the Jesuits were always

house Ricci built

been badly flooded, and one of the

88

in China, in

first

serious at-

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES was

tacks launched against mission property

wanted the Jesuits to donate materials encroaching waters.

10

to shore

by angry villagers

up

commented

Ricci often

*

led

their levees against

in

of China so beautiful and

had also seen,

as

he told General Acquaviva, the

completely flattened, possessions

not help wondering

if,

for just a

effect

He

of the floods that

number of houses

collapsed, or

crowds of people suffocated

lost,

either in their houses or in the river

which make

bring such great damage."

fertile also

followed after savage rainstorms: "a vast

on the

his letters

horrors of such floods and of the paradox that "these rivers all

who

One

which flooded over."

moment,

can-

prayed with his

as Ricci

congregation beside the rescued Plantin Bible, he remembered that the

ransom the book was

three giulii he paid to

also the cost

He would

old boy during times of natural catastrophe.

of a ten-year-

have

known

the

exact price from the fact that a friendly

eunuch he met once on the

Grand Canal gave him

who had

a present

of a child

Sometimes the beauty of the natural water

travel, its

turbulence and

105

the convenience of

setting,

deadly power,

its

cost exactly that.

all

flowed together.

"Contrasts are never lacking and never will be lacking," Ricci wrote to

Girolamo Costa from Peking of

St.

Peter

Ricci was

sails

on

working

its

in

"but with these winds the ship

in 1605,

way."

Shaozhou

And at

so

tical

en route to

who was

entific skills,

fallen

ill.

sought

of 1595.

received an invi-

passing through the

assignment in Peking concerned with

in Ricci's transcription as "Scielou"

who had

in the spring

when he

planning for the Korean campaign. This

name only son

a military

was

the time,

tation to visit a senior military official city

it

Scielou, having heard

his services as a

official

—had

much

logis-

—we know

his

a twenty-year-old

praise of Ricci's sci-

doctor to cure the youth; Ricci in

turn played for time, bartering his healing knowledge for a transit pass to Peking. Scielou agreed to the deal

We

and granted the necessary permits.

can be almost certain that the cause of the young man's illness

described as "grief and

—gave

nations

shame" because of his

Ricci the idea of training

failure in the state

him

in

exami-

Western memory

methods, so he would recover his morale and be able to take the exams

89

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO again, this time with success. For Ricci

RICCI

had almost no medical knowl-

edge, and undertaking such an assignment with

no hope of

success

would have been perilous indeed. Scielou, in his suite of vessels full of costly possessions, family

and

consorts, servants and guards, headed for the north, telling Ricci to join

him

to get

as

soon

as possible. Ricci seized

chance

this splendid

out of the unhealthy and hostile environment of Shaozhou,

wrapping up the a half.

with elan

He

affairs

of his five-year Shaozhou residence in a day and

the mission in the hands of his younger associate Cat-

left

—new China, and with almost no knowledge of the language Chinese brothers of the —and of two of

taneo

to

senior

as yet

Society

Jesus. Ricci

himself took two younger Chinese novices and two of his most trusted servants and hired a boat to carry

them northward. But

they moved, they could not catch the

official

swiftly

entourage, which by

on unlimited supplies of

tue of Scielou's rank could call

though vir-

free boat-

pulling labor to haul his huge boats upstream. Ricci had

still

not managed

a

rendezvous

when he

reached the

northern town of Nanxiong, which he had visited three years before

and where he had made some converts chants. This

was the terminus point

among

wealthy Chinese mer-

for the navigable section of the

southward-flowing Bei River. Crew and passengers had to alight here

and carry

their possessions

up the

steep flights of steps carved into the

upper reaches of Meilin Mountain, over the of

a

second

river,

the Gan, which

crest, to

the loading docks

would take them north

to the center

of China. Dense crowds of travelers and merchants tramped and jostled

on the Ricci

fine stone track,

make

but several Christian converts came to help

the portage, and he himself rode in a carrying-chair through

the crowds, past inns and shops and squads of guards that remained vivid in his

memory

immense view

Once at the peak, Ricci savored province of Guangdong behind him to

a decade later.

across the

the the

south and the still-unexplored Jiangxi to the north. At the river town

of Nanan, he made yet another for

him and

Ganzhou.

On

the

two of them

transfer, for Scielou

started the long

had

a boat waiting

downstream

quiet days Ricci was invited to join Scielou in his

90

trip

to

official

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES and they talked together of science and

vessel

problems aside

son's

for a later date.

religion, leaving Scielou's

They entered Ganzhou

to the exu-

berant roar of full military salutes from arquebuses and muskets fired by

honor guards of soldiers Ricci guessed

thousand in number,

to be three

own

spread along three miles of riverbank; here Ricci rented his

and crew, to be more independent for the dangerous descent of the

where two

ids that lay ahead,

den winds,

Currents," the locals called

The

first

met

in a rocky defile

rap-

of sud-

and whirlpools. The "Place of Eighteen

currents,

fast

larger rivers

boat

109 it.

boat to have a minor accident was the one carrying Scielou's

consorts and children, which struck a rock and began to sink, but since this

was an area of shoals and the boat was built high,

bottom while the family scrambled

river

rescued with

some

ease by Ricci

and

it

settled

to the superstructure

who

his crew,

on the

and were

were following close

behind. Ricci forfeited his boat by this generosity, for Scielou forbade his consorts to transship again, in the searching light

where they were

them

to remain

their

movements;

of day, ordering

until nightfall decorously

in its place, Ricci

was given

a berth

by Scielou on one

of his baggage vessels and thus continued his journey.

He

now

was

11

alone with Scielou's hired crew, except for the

of one of the young Chinese novices,

who

as a

shrouded

boy from

a

company converted

Chinese family had studied in Jesuit schools in Macao before being sent to join Ricci in the called always

Shaozhou mission

in 1592.

This young

man was

by his Portuguese name of Joao Barradas, and was loved

and trusted by Ricci,

who

felt

personally responsible for his welfare.

The anguish of

the next few minutes pierces the hurried words of a

letter that Ricci

wrote

in

later that year to his superior

Edoardo de Sande

Macao:

We

reached the place called Tien Chutan, where the current runs

swiftly

and the water

is

very deep, at the foot of a

the thundering of the water was so great that

pray fervently that

it

when

tall I

mountain, and

saw

began to

subside. For the ships in [Jiangxi] rivers have

how

easily they

over in the thundering water; but no matter

how much

high masts and no

it I

keels,

and

I

realized

91

might turn I

beseeched

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO them, the pilot and the

sailors

into the rapids under full

sail,

were so

and

RICCI

careless that they

in a

moment our

took the ships

ship was turned

over and spun around, along with two others in which were the mandarin's possessions.

Thus did

I

and Joao Barradas,

together, get sent to the bottom.

ing

I

But

God

as

we were

me

aided

traveling

because in turn-

caught hold of some ropes dangling from our ship, which by

vine providence

I

found between

my

hands, and was able to pull

myself up onto a support of the same ship.

And

case

and bed floating there on top of the water,

out

my hand

and pull them to where

swimming back

to the boat

I

I

seeing

my

writing

was able to

stretch

some

sailors,

was, after which

and climbing aboard, helped

me

to clam-

bottom in such a way him away and he never appeared again.

ber back up. But Joao Barradas went to the the current carried

Scielou, distraught at the loss of his possessions,

produced find

no

a

good many sodden

trace

river.

that

in despair

The

divers

objects for Scielou's perusal but could

of Barradas's body. Scielou give Ricci the money necessary

"for the funeral rites," but since there was

the absence of the corpse, the cash really

money

and Ricci,

of his friend, sent boatmen to search the

at the loss

di-

for the Jesuits.

113

When

little

that could be

amounted

to

done

compensation

yet another squall battered the

boats of Scielou's that had reached the lower

river,

in

few

he resolved to con-

tinue his journey by land, since the fates were clearly against

him on

the water. Ricci also thought seriously of abandoning the whole jour-

moment decided to continue on to Nanjing with staff who were going to attend to their master's busi-

ney, but at the last

some of Scielou's ness there.

Along with the shock,

had never expected,

would choose

as

to have

his

main sense was one of surprise: he

he wrote to General Acquaviva, "that

me

shipwrecked in a

been shipwrecked on the seas although

92

I

river,

when

I

God

had never

had passed across so many."

FOUR

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI

For

his

second example of

how

Ricci chooses the Chinese ideograph yao.

graph to write but hard to to

want something or

tant,

memory

to construct a

translate:

it

to need something, or that

or that something must be done.

The

swayed by the context. Thus in the very

first

1

It is

image,

an easy ideo-

can mean, variously,

something

reader

is

impor-

must always be

translation of the

Ten

Commandments, made by Ruggieri and Ricci in 1584, yao is the first word in the first commandment, bearing the force of "shall" in "You shall

have no other gods but me."

and dogmas of the Catholic

faith,

2

In a collection of basic prayers

which Ricci published (with the

permission of the Goanese Inquisition) around 1605 under the

Fundamental Christian Teachings, yao damental."

To

used to translate the word "fun-

3

present these multifaceted ideas in the form of a

that the reader will

remember, Ricci

horizontally. This yields

two

memory image of

a

first

memory image

cuts the ideograph in

separate ideographs, the upper

ing "west" and the lower one "a the

is

title

woman."

woman from 93

two

one mean-

Ricci does not simply create

the West, however, since that

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

94

RICCI

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI would not have the resonances he

He

seeks.

does something more

complicated, creating an image the description of which can be under-

stood in two quite different ways.

By the tially

first

of

be drawn

these, the interpretation that

to,

rives at this

the Xixia territories,

who

a

is

Muslim."

lines

taught him by his

own memory

ar-

masters: the

top half of the ideograph yao has the meaning "west" and xi;

He

formulation by associating sounds and ideas and playing

with the words along

nounced

ini-

Ricci describes the image that will stand for yao as

woman from

being "a

most Chinese would

xi forms the

half of the

first

name Xixia (which

pro-

is

designates

an ancient kingdom that once flourished in China's western regions); the

bottom half of the ideograph has the meaning "woman"; the

once occupied by the Xixia kingdom

who

China's Muslims (the huihui),

is

now

home

the

drifted there over the

routes that stretched across central Asia. That, at least, tation,

and we can guess that

boots, the braided hair

But there

are other

common

location, well, ies

By

and the word huihui

is

woman from

Nestorian Christians

who

a

who

is

still

(in reference to Jacob's wrestling

rough geographical

his

own

stud-

be found there. The Jews of

who

reject the

Ming

sinews"

with the angel), while Nestorians

were called "huihui of the cross." Thus for Ricci the tribeswoman a huihui suggests a tighter link to those ideas

or obligation that inhere to the triple

a

also supplied to the scat-

China were distinguished by the term "huihui

is

is

China and to the descendants of the

in

can

image of

this

the northwest,

from conversations with Chinese scholars and from

communities of Jews

felt

not restricted to Muslims. Ricci knows

and observations, that the term huihui

tered

have an

possibility that his definition of the

Xixia simply gives

this interpretation

interpre-

to those of that harsh terrain.

image could be translated thus: "a huihui."

one

vivid dress, the

and more complex resonances to

and Ricci leaves open the

yao,

long caravan

nomads from the very edges of

would wear the

the settled Chinese borders; she

of most of

woman would

in Ricci's eyes this

exotic look, evoking the world of the

is

area

of fundamental belief

word yao. She reminds him

systems of Confucianism, Taoism, and

95

who

that if the

Buddhism have been

in-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

ternalized in China, the triple systems of Islam, Christianity,

and Ju-

daism are tolerated but not allowed to have separate

And

this

might there not

fundamental truth, since the

lie a

an underlying acceptance of the one true

latter three share

in the northeast corner, close

two warriors

who means

locked in combat. Ricci takes the tribeswoman

enough

to the

suffuses the

are

still

necessity

two men so

that she will not be lost sight of but not so close that she visually confused

in

God?

In the southeast corner of the reception hall the

and places her

identities.

might be

with them. She will stay there, in the quiet light that

memory

palace,

calm and unmoving,

long

for as

as

he

map of

the

chooses to leave her.

While

Ricci was living in

Zhaoqing

he drew a

in 1584,

world, with the names of the countries written out in Chinese phonetic equivalents, and displayed

and prosperous town

Western

—

it

in his mission house.

—and the many wealthy

visitor

One

a large

three times the size of Seville, according to

were surprised and interested to see their text.

Zhaoqing was

locals

own

who came

one

to visit Ricci

country in a global con-

of them, without Ricci's permission, copied the

map and had

wood-block prints made of it; these circulated so widely, and proved so popular, that Ricci decided to create a fuller and since the

these

first

draft

had been done

off

it

with the

latest

information on

version,

and on his

new

at

own

discov-

elaborating various sections, and adding flattering essays written

in praise

of his knowledge by local scholars

his cartographic tries,

He worked

improvements between 1584 and 1602, when he printed

version of the map, filling eries,

in haste.

more accurate

who had

seen and admired

work. Ricci's short explanatory notes on various coun-

written in small but clear Chinese characters, served to introduce

his civilization to the curious

even

when he himself was not

present. In

the 1602 edition of the map, tucked into the space off the west coast of

96

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI between the peninsula and the island of

Italy,

he appended the

Sicily,

who

information that the territory belonged to "The Holy Father,

and concerns himself only with the Catholic

celibate,

Rome.

in

him."

6

who

All the Europeans

And

Ocean

in the Atlantic

religion, residing

Roman Empire

are in the

is

revere

off the west coast of Europe, Ricci

wrote:

Here

are

more than

tion of the ancient kings.

one holds

kingdoms which

thirty

No

classes

Lord of Heaven, the supreme

ruler.

of those in authority: the highest occupy them-

selves

with religion, then come those

lastly

those

who

follow the administra-

superstitions are allowed here but every-

to the religion of the

There are three

all

who

judge temporal

affairs,

and

devote themselves to arms. These countries have

the cereal grains, metals, fruits, and wine

made from

grapes.

all

They

study astronomy and philosophy and believe in the five relationships.

Kings and people

relations with other lands, all

powerful and

alike are

and

rich: in all

their travelers

seasons they have

and merchants voyage to

the countries of the world.

In a notation placed at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, he identified

Palestine as the

"Holy Land" where "the Lord of Heaven was

born." Constantinople, Medina, and Mecca were named, though with-

out comment; a small area in northeast Persia just south of the Caspian Sea was designated as being huihui territory, but again there was

no

comment. Ricci's reticence likely to

deep

was of course

deliberate: the

Chinese would be un-

be drawn to the religion he was preaching

fissures

knew

assault in Europe, for

well

enough

knew

that

when he was

a

he had grown up

in

surroundings of

Rome

of the 1570s

novice, the church's battles were kept to the fore

ceaseless preaching.

— though

great churches

re-

that the Catholic faith

constant religious contention. Especially in the

through

they

of belief existed in the Western world from which that

ligion came. Ricci himself

was under

if

The

preachers were found not just in the

here the pope's private preacher, Father To-

ledo, the Jesuit Father Benedict, the Franciscan Panicharella, the

97

Capu-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO chin Lupus,

all

spoke with especial eloquence and had their

—but

followings in the

RICCI

out in the

also

streets

and marketplaces,

own

public

in the piazzas,

crowded public gardens of summertime, and among the swirling

who came

crowds of out-of-town laborers

and elsewhere. Some Jesuits wandered

to be hired in the vineyards

in the streets

and through the

countryside accompanied by choristers, and used "pleasant song" to spire the

workers and "eased their labor with

among the prostitutes of known usurers. The

in-

this singing." Preachers

and

worked, too,

in the brothel areas

the houses

Jesuits were particularly active in

one observer mentioned seeing them standing

these street ministries:

on convenient market

window

or

stalls

moving the crowd with

their

ledges to view their audiences,

words and handing out

free gifts

knotted whipcord so the devout could mortify themselves vate.

In

of

later in pri-

9

the Jesuits were appointed to hear the confessions

St. Peter's itself

of not only the citizens of

They

iting the holy city.

Rome

set

French, Spanish, Flemish

displayed

on

a placard

ing a white rod of

and other

up

confessors, each fluent in Italian ish,

in front of

Italians

but

pilgrims

— English,

and one other language this

Pol-

second language being

above the confessional where the

priest sat hold-

pilgrim could not find a confessor

understood him, one would be

vis-

system for the rotation of bilingual

a

— the name of

office. If a

all

summoned from

who

the nearby house of

on

the Penitentiaria, where twelve Jesuits were always

call;

and

if

the

need was for an expert in Greek or Syriac or Arabic they called upon Father Baptista

found Christian

Romanus, faith

By the 1590s the

a recent

convert from Judaism, whose new-

was matched by

his

phenomenal language

skills.

Jesuits could produce priests to speak in any of

twenty-seven different languages.

The excitement of

this polyglot

presence of foreign books.

Rome

The

were already excellent

for every

facultie,"

as

atmosphere was supported by the

libraries in all the Jesuit colleges in 1

in the late 1570s,

"ml of

the best bookes

the exiled English Catholic Gregory Martin

noted, adding in surprise that the Jesuits even had fonts of foreign 11

type.

These resources were supplemented by the remarkable Vatican 98

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI which was kept open three days

library,

a

week

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays), with ter

fires

for general readers

always lighted on win-

rooms comfortable. Montaigne,

days to keep the

(on

visiting there in

1581, was delighted at the generous access he was given to the

March

—among

books and astonished to see scripts, rare editions

manu-

the papyri and Greek

of Virgil, Seneca, and Plutarch, handwritten works

of Thomas Aquinas and an autographed copy of Henry VIII's attack on

—"one

Luther

book from China, unusual

vage], the sheets

made of some

material

in nature [le caractere sau-

much more

delicate

and

trans-

lucent than our paper; and because this cannot absorb the ink very well

the writing

is

only on one side of each sheet, the sheets then being

doubled over and folded."

1

Mission fervor was omnipresent, constantly renewing old ideas of spiritual crusade.

By

express decision of Ignatius of Loyola, in his Con-

which were amplified by Pope Julius

stitutions for the Jesuit order,

in his bull

of 1550,

vow

by a special pontiffs

may

all

Jesuits pledged as follows:

they are pleased to send us

those

who

Roman

order which pertains to the progress of souls and the prop-

go without subterfuge or excuse,

as far as in

may choose

—whether

to whatsoever provinces they

lies,

to be obliged

and future

to carry out whatever the present

agation of the faith; and to us

"We are

III

among

to send us

the Turks or any other infidels, even

live in the region called the Indies, or

among any

heretics

whatever or schismatics, or any of the faithful." This vision was held with equal force by General Acquaviva. of the

effects

when

Gregory Martin,

aware

fully

of these vows on the minds of the Jesuits, described the

mood among them period

13

in

Rome

during the years 1577 and 1578, the very

Ricci was preparing to receive his

own

assignment:

Some of them God suffereth to die, the more to declare their charitie, when the thing is so daungerous: the rest he preserveth, to shew his merciful power, and that he accepteth their

good

servants bicause he wil use their service longer. zeale

is it,

wil,

No

and spareth

lesse charitie

his

and

or greater perhaps, (the fruite undoubtedly incomparablie

more) that so many of them with the fection desire to be sent as

it

like franke spirit

and fervent

af-

were into an other world, to the barba-

99

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO them

rous Infidels of both Indiaes, to convert

thing for the great daunger

man would thinke) men to stagger.

a

Ricci gave only

time

this ter

—

one

apart,

to

many

doe great good, might

Fuligatti,

of

life,

who had

part of the

life

of faith

a

long journey in order to be

The Jesuits were probably

the time for mission service overseas.

To

good

felt at

In a

let-

on how the two of

to

of becoming

a

"untended

forests":

was

as

dramatic

a martyr,

nor need

in Italy

a pilgrim."

trained as well as

(as

school friend Giulio

China, since "one needs no thrust of steel to be

one embark on

life itself.

in the Indies,

"mighty armies" that were traveling

very

he had himself

stayed in Italy, Ricci reminisced

but he reassured Fuligatti that the as in

how

12, 1596, to his

them had dreamed of joining the missions

make

justly

of course, from the example of his

from Nanchang on October

which

to the faith,

and the smal probabilitie

waies,

clue, late in his

RICCI

anyone

15

in the

world

at

curriculum in the-

a rigorous

ology, classics, mathematics, and science was added the methodological

on Sundays

training of the "disputations." These events, usually held after dinner,

were conducted

in

one of two ways:

in one, a student pre-

sented a given point of theology and then defended

range of counterarguments by

his

it

—who

against a forceful

had been given

fellows

twenty-four hours to sharpen their arguments; in the other, a teacher presented a heretical position, leaving this "devil's

it

to the students to

advocate" by the force of their

own

skills.

undermine

Though

there

was danger that these sessions might become merely formulaic, when rigorously conducted they gave extraordinary training to the

structuring argument, analyzing their

techniques of memory. This

last

own

faith,

and rhetorical contexts

—

and sharpening

in

their

was accomplished by adapting the

methodologies taught by Quintilian and Cicero legal

young

to the

—

originally used in

domain of theology.

1

These disputations were backed by impressive displays designed to emphasize the symbolic importance of the struggle being enacted. At special services in the pope's chapel the gospel

were recited both

in Latin

and

in

Greek 100

to

and

remind

epistle for the day

all

listeners that the

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI two were

parts of the

same Catholic church and that the pope was lord

of both; but to show the faded state of the Greek church, lights were

dimmed and turning to again.

And

ritual

full

dispensed with as the Greek was read, the lights

glory only

when

the Latin text was returned to once

of the Bible

in the twice-daily readings

Jesuit seminaries, the

at -mealtimes in the

Greek variants (along with the Hebrew) were

ways discussed along with the Latin

if

al-

they were needed in exegesis to

argument.

dispel a heretical

Yet these various procedures,

amount

weight, did not

re-

enemy. Long before,

in

for

and symbolic

their ingenuity

all

to a formal training in the doctrine of the

the late thirteenth century, a courtier and

named Ramon Lull had used his experiences in the religiously mixed community life of the island of Majorca where recently victorious Catholics controlled a population containing many Jews and Musscholar

—

—

lims

to suggest that the church take seriously the task of learning

foreign languages and holding public debates with distinguished repre-

combat them.

sentatives of rival faiths, the better to his

own works

be translated into the

Lull suggested that

heretics' languages; that

should go to the Tartars and preach to them and show that there should be Tartars at Paris

language before returning with 18

try."

who

this

it

"men

to them;

and

should learn our writing and

knowledge

to their

own

In his earliest important work, The Book of the Gentile

coun-

and

the

Three Sages, Lull presented a protracted "conversation" in which a gentile

questioned

such matters

as

first a

God

Resurrection, the

Koran. Lull

Christian,

a Christian,

and

finally a

hell,

and

Muhammad

and the

open which of the three options the gentile

book on

a scene

of elaborate courtesy

and the Muslim apologized to each other

that

might have caused unintentional

fact,

Lull

moved

Muslim on

the creator, Moses as prophet, the Messiah, the

meaning of heaven and

left it

chose, closing the

Jew, then

to a position of

offense.

19

But

as the

for

finally

Jew, the

any remarks

in later years, in

extreme and public antagonism to

Islam, so that any ideas of true tolerance swiftly faded. Coincidentally, it

was

in the

preachers,

same period of the thirteenth century

who had

that Franciscan

been well received by the Mongol regimes of cen101

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO brought back

Aisa,

tral

their initial reports

RICCI

on Buddhism. These

in-

cluded preliminary accounts of Buddhist prayer, meditation, texts, and quite accurate in various aspects, but this information aroused

saints,

little interest in

Europe and was not followed up

in

any consistent way

European schools.

in

The

between Judaism, Catholicism, and Islam

idea of the parallelism

nevertheless received a further underlining in the midfourteenth century from Giovanni Boccaccio,

The

stories in the Decameron.

by the sultan Saladin,

who

into an indiscretion

Jew

which of the three

who

used this idea for one of the

story concerns a subtle Jew being quizzed

money. Seeking to

after the Jew's

is

first

which he can

religions

is

trick the

exploit, Saladin asks the

"truly authentic."

The Jew ducks

A

question with an allegorical tale of three rings:

Jew

rich

the

man, dying,

wishes to follow the family tradition of leaving an exquisite ring to the

son

who most

But

this particular

as

pleases the father

being of equal

and would head the family

dynast loves three of his sons equally, and sees them

talent.

So he

secretly has

two

perfect copies of the ring

made, and gives one to each of the sons. Only three sons find they

management of

all

have

in abeyance,

"The same

and

a ring,

after his

death do the

are therefore forced to share

the family and the whole inheritance between them.

"The question of which of mained

in his turn.

the sons was the true and rightful heir

and has never been

applies to the three laws

settled,"

God

which

re-

wrote Boccaccio.

the Father granted to

His three peoples, and which formed the subject of your inquiry. Each of them considers possesses His

with the

itself

the legitimate heir to His estate, each believes

one true law and observes His commandments. But

rings, the

question as to which of them

is

it

as

right remains in

abeyance."

This kind of acceptance of Islam seems in Italy in the

still

to have been widespread

midsixteenth century, despite the rigors of the Counter-

Reformation. The miller Menocchio,

first

investigated by the Inquisi-

tion in 1584, the year after Ricci entered China, believed the Spirit ers

had been given "to

them

all

dear,

heretics, to Turks,

and they

are

all

and to Jews: and he consid-

saved in the same manner."

102

Holy

22

It is

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI and some of

possible from Menocchio's descriptions of paradise

his

other beliefs that he had seen a copy of the Koran, or at least discussed

begun circulating

since an Italian translation had

it,

Some of Ramon

Lull's ideas

—

especially the

in 1547.

23

complex "art" he

devel-

oped, combining mnemonic, magical, and organizational techniques

—had

mastering and organizing the forces of the world

for

able

vogue

still

no consistent development of training

in the sixteenth century in France

and

Italy,

a consider-

but there was

in Arabic, let alone in the

languages of India, China, or Japan, and Ricci would have had no

chance to learn these languages in school.

Apart from the Ottoman

alarms of his Macerata childhood in the late 1550s, Ricci's

ence of the power of Islam undoubtedly came late 1578.

Goa had been

a

when he

first

reached

Portuguese possession ever since

it

it

was not surprising that

religion, war,

and

The

trade.

pointed by the crown,

was administered by

who a

it

in

in 1510,

had become such

a thriving center for

was the base

for the viceroy, ap-

city

oversaw Portugal's Indian possessions, and

municipal council of Portuguese noblemen,

and leaders of merchant guilds. These

magistrates,

Goa

was seized

from the Muslim sultan of Bijapur by Afonso de Albuquerque so

experi-

fenses of the city, supervised its

economic

life,

men saw

to the de-

managed the public

some

works, and fixed the food prices for the local population of

three

or four thousand Portuguese, scores of Catholic clerics of different nations,

and perhaps ten thousand Indian

dians in the

more than

walls but

on Goa

the East,

it

was

communities that

thirty

Yet

island.

city residents, as well as the In-

if

Goa was

also vulnerable, hard to

only tenuous connection with

its

lay outside the city

Portugal's greatest bastion in

arm and

key outposts

supply, and often in at

Mozambique and

Hormuz.

Muslim power seemed

all

of the Hindu residents on Salsette, for the

the greater in comparison to the condition

Goa

island

and the neighboring

of

Hindus had been forced into subjection by the domi-

nant Christians, their temples totally obliterated,

and

territory

feasts forbidden,

tion of property and

many of

their rites

with recalcitrant Brahmans sentenced to confiscalife in

the galleys. Other regulations forbade non-

103

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

Christians to head the commercial guilds and forced

many

without remuneration on Portuguese ships

26

laws gave almost

Goa

Paul in

all

in the docks.

Hindu orphans over

for education

to

work

Complicated

to the Jesuit fathers of St.

and fostering "until they were old enough to

decide their religion for themselves," a process that led to predictable

Accounts from the period of

pressures for their conversion.

Goa

residence in

speak with pleasure of the sight provided by the

schoolchildren of the sixteen, as they legs,

Ricci's

Goa

college,

danced before the

some

young

as

altar in the

then formed up into the ranks of

as five

and none over

church with

bells

a little "children's

on

their

army" and

passed and repassed in review across the broad square in front of the

muskets into the

church, firing off

real

Groups of

some of them orphaned

boys,

air in joyful salutes to

the Lord.

choristers shipped out

from

Lisbon, ran through the streets singing the religious songs the Jesuits

had taught them. In the nearby mission school Ricci and the other

newly arrived Jesuits watched more than four hundred

them chanting

assemble, boys in one line, girls in another, listened to aloud,

the

first

Ave

in local dialect

Maria, and the

from

signal

and then

in

local children

Portuguese, the Lord's Prayer,

Ten Commandments, and then saw them,

their priest, spit in

unison upon the ground

at the

at a

mention

of their former gods.

By contrast the increase.

to this subjection of the Hindus,

Muslim power was on

Throughout the midsixteenth century,

a

group of Muslim

Indian rulers had been steadily whittling away at the power of the great

Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar

Bijapur, the state bordering

tuguese community.

Some

on Goa, was records

Christian priests to land and hide

lim customs attacking

guese

officials

them and

who had

virons,

in the

demanding

a

Deccan, and the sultan of

constant threat to the Por-

show how Muslim

on

last

vessels forced

shore, while others describe

large dues

from traveling

their acolytes if they refused.

29

On

Mus-

priests

and

occasion Portu-

themselves converted to Islam led attacks on Goa's en-

and during the siege of Goa by the sultan of Bijapur during

1570-71 so many people died that their corpses polluted permanently

what had once been

a healthy

and beautiful 104

spot:

"From

that time

it

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI has not been so healthy here," wrote Ricci's traveling companion,

number of Moors who were

Pasio, "apparently because of the great

and must have corrupted the

killed then

The immense empire being ruler

Akbar dwarfed

30

air."

forged in northern India by the

these other dangers. Ricci shared the

all

Mogul

common

presumptions of his time about Akbar's might, writing that the ruler

had "seventy kingdoms, and could put 300,000 cavalry in the 20,000 elephants," and his

1580

in

—

surviving letter

first

—

to a friend in

field

and

Coimbra

discusses his excitement at the prospect of Akbar's rejection

of Islam and probable conversion to Christianity. this baseless

31

Ricci was led into

optimism by Akbar's favorable reception of

certain Portu-

guese priests and advisers, and his dispatch of the courtier Said Abdullah

Khan on

brought

a

Goa

diplomatic embassy to

in 1579.

The ambassador

two Catholic missionaries be sent

a letter requesting that

the capital of Fatehpur Sikri with "the chief books of the

Law and

to

the

Gospel," so that they could discuss their religion with Akbar; a promising development, "seeing that the Christians

were

how

it

was a

common

like brute animals in

standing," as one Jesuit put

32 it.

To show

two mules so the missionaries could

strain his

his sincerity

travel in comfort. Ricci described re-

welcomed the ambassador with music. He could not

re-

excitement

civil, military,

ambassador made to the Jesuit

at the visit the

pharmacy, church, and refectory,

profound veneration tive listening to the

on theology held for

Akbar even sent

and

college, library,

hope

Moors

what concerns the under-

the glittering scene as Goa's viceroy and leading ligious figures

saying of the

for the painting

of the Virgin Mary,

church choir, and

than the conversion of

less

ambassador's at his atten-

at his participation in a

honor by sixteen or more Jesuit

in his

nothing

at the

all

debate

fathers.

"We

India," wrote Ricci,

describing the departure of three priests bearing the newly arrived

eight-volume Plantin polyglot Bible

some

Akbar; though, with

prescience, Ricci added, "In saying that these are

also saying as

as a gift for

he has

what

difficulties

in the past."

we

Muslims

I

am

can expect the devil to put in our way,

33

In the event, though

Akbar scrutinized the polygot Bible with some 105

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI care (kissing each

volume

reverently, according to Jesuit accounts), in-

vited the Catholic priests to protracted debates

Muslim

promised to teach

clerics,

34

finer points

opium kind,

at their

musk

peel,

Endymion."

opium and

a certain

a

man

as to

make

Summarizing these various

Sikri

made from

drink

reports,

eventually

Ricci

in his desire for conver-

bat had been motivated to invite the Jesuits to his capital either

by "a certain natural curiosity to religions" or because he

know some new

had certain

ment Portuguese help might prove

While king

Fatehpur

us think he sleeps the sleep of

concluded that Akbar had never been sincere sion,

at

nuts and nutmeg, bhang and other things of that

which so stupefy 3

a

meetings to take in the

of what they were saying, the missionaries

observed, since he was "full of

and watched

further interest in Christian-

little

Akbar often seemed too dazed

ity.

religion with senior

his son Portuguese,

showed

celebration of the Mass, he

on

is

wrong

the Jesuits proved

political goals for

useful. in their

is

false

ued to draw solace from the jl

and very

whose

attain-

3

hope that "the

disillusioned and has realized well that

and that the law he gave

things about other

false,"

Muhammad

is

some of them

fact that at least "this

king

Mogul wrong

said

contin-

a very great

is

'

enemy of the Jews."

Akbar was

Certainly in this aspect of his thought

in line

with the policy of the Goanese Inquisition. Ricci was distressed

by the

activities

of the Inquisition against the Jews

— members of

known

families of Jewish origin

Christians," or Conversos

"New who in

as the

the years after the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal in 1497 had

been forcibly converted to Christianity General Acquaviva so in the

—and he had the courage

first letter

that he wrote to

him

to

tell

in 1581.

38

Curiously enough, the jumpiness of the Inquisition about the dangers

from Jews or former Jews probably had more

years 1578-82,

when

validity

Ricci happened to be in Goa, than at any other

time before or since. For after the defeat of King Sebastian quivir in

1578,

during the

when nervousness

in

at Alcazar-

Portugal and her dominions

reached a fever pitch because the monarch's death without issue

whole future of the country

in

left

the

doubt, fear of the Jews resurfaced dra-

106

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI matically.

As

if in

that a victorious tianity,

response to the Jews of Morocco,

King

Sebastian

would

and had exulted openly

force

in

Portugal that

—no one had seen him —and

dead

die

Pretenders to his the belief that

freedom.

name

soon

it

annually

as the battle

was over,

King

that he

feared

to convert to Chris-

at his death, celebrating

thereafter as a second deliverance, almost as

rumors began to spread

them

who had

Sebastian was not

had escaped to Europe.

appeared, and the cult of Sebastianismo was born,

one day he would return and lead

his people

blended imperceptibly with

Sebastianismo

back to

different

a

and

equally dangerous underground current that flowed from the writings

known

of one Gonqalo Anes,

maker who

earlier in the

"The Prophet,"

as

"Hidden One," an

versal

Portuguese shoe-

century had written visionary tracts on the

coming of a new messiah. His works spoke a

a

Encoberto, a prince

monarchy under Portuguese

wide popularity among the Jewish

in

bold but vague terms of

who would form

rule.

a

Utopian uni-

These writings enjoyed such

New Christians

that the Inquisition

had banned them in 1541, and Anes himself had been made to stand trial

and

When

recant.

39

the Spaniards, as of 1580, took over Portugal, Anes's writings

served to fan the excitement of patriotic Portuguese Sebastianismo,

whether Old or

New

who

believed in

Christians. In 1581 the Inquisition

once again issued an order banning the reading of his works. Furthermore,

King

sides the

Philip's other great rival to the throne of Portugal

shade of

King

Sebastian

—

be-

—was the popular Don Antonio, the

son of a Portuguese prince of royal blood and a converted Jewess

named Violante Gomes. Though Spanish

troops forced

to flee Portugal in 1581, he received moral support

Don Antonio

and some military

backing from various enemies of Spain, and in 1582 he was ing out in the Azores, despite the defeat of a small French help him. (The French supported

Don Antonio

to yield Brazil to France if he should regain his

summer of 1583 were

still

fleet

hold-

sent to

because of his promise

kingdom.) Only

in the

the Azores taken by Spain and this potentially

dangerous threat to Philip's maritime empire was removed.

107

40

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI Ricci

would have known

rope, having seen

some of it

a

good

at first

there had been a spirited assault

and

cerata,

in

1564,

deal about

hand.

When

on the Jewish

when he was

who

he was

a child

in Eu-

of eight

practice of usury in

much

twelve,

given to an attempt to prohibit a Jew

Jewish suffering

local publicity

Mawas

ran the Macerata slaughter-

house from selling meat during Lent, save under special dispensation.

Ancona had

been, at least for a time, a haven for

Spain and Portugal, and Ricci

may

also

Middle

East,

a trade

that

and worried Ancona Catholics

Jews were conspicuous,

of conversion or

else as its

of the Ancona Jews

boycott of the city by the Jews in the

tion proceedings transferred to Macerata.

Rome

Jews expelled from

have had some knowledge of

their activities there, especially since persecutions

by the Inquisition led to

41

enemies.

42

tried to

But

it

have the Inquisi-

was above

all

in

either as representatives of a policy

When

Ricci was a novice in

Rome,

the Jews there were living under the stringent laws of 1555, which forced

them

to live in a constricted ghetto

(and during Passion day, at

two o'clock

church of the

Week)

in their

—where

streets.

had to attend

the Blessed Trinity

benches in front of the pulpit, the

upper balconies

own crowded

in the afternoon, they

Company of

and to be locked

women

at

night

Each Satur-

a service in the

—the men gathered on

out of sight in one of the

they were surrounded by crowds of curious

Romans and visitors to the city. With those willing to undergo conversion (known as catechumens) in white robes and the newly baptized (called neophytes) in black sitting among the Christians, the Jews heard the Jesuit Father Possevino (or sometimes Lupus the Capuchine, or Father Francisco Maria) and a converted

monly one named Andreas) preach

to

Jew (most com-

them of the Messiah, of the

captivity,

and of the true meaning of Solomon's glory, using the very

texts they

had heard, interpreted so

that

differently, in their

own synagogues

morning. After 1578 baptized Jews were admitted to the new He-

brew Seminary, endowed by Pope Gregory XIII with 100 crowns month,

to learn Latin

and Hebrew

a

in addition to their native Italian.

Their numbers swelled even more a year

108

later

with the coming of the

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI youths

whom

the newly converted former rabbi Baptista

Rome

himself brought back to

"removed from

willing to be baptized, often

cannot abide them," cial

as

from the Middle

East.

43

Those Jews which now

their brethren

Gregory Martin phrased

it,

were trained by

when

teachers in the house of the catechumens;

Romanus

spe-

they were consid-

ered ready, they joined in one of the mass baptisms of the newly

converted held twice a year, stantine's font in St.

John

at Easter

eve and

Con-

eve, at

Lateran's under the direction, in Ricci's time,

of Thomas Goldwell, bishop of

Asaph, himself in exile from his na-

St.

Wales.

tive

The Jews of Rome of the

city.

money

at

even

past.

after the

once

a

also played an

important part in the economic

life

Because the church continued to forbid Christians to lend

high

had in the

week

interest,

Jews dominated the business of usury

They were prominent,

too, in the

garment

to the Piazza

Navona, where

they

as

trade,

ghetto laws had been passed, they were allowed to

clothing, wall hangings, and draperies were city.

Whitsun

and

come

their colorful displays of

one of the sights of the

Jewish entrepreneurs were active in trying to bring new industrial

ventures to

Rome: they experimented with

ruins of the

Colosseum were

with the manufacture of briefly

upon news

hatching

silk

briefly the base for this

silk.

Roman

that a Venetian

worms

twice a year.

interest in the silk trade soared

Jew had developed

One

a

means of

inventor in the furniture busi-

and desk

ness developed a collapsible bed

— the 'operation —and

cloth production

set (it failed to sell),

while

another anticipated the machine gun with an assemblage that mounted fifty

arquebuses in a row.

5

the Jews had to submit to

and

ecclesiastical

forces.

Whether

random economic

And

especially

needed to be constantly on guard ing, a charge that

with

all its

they flourished in business or not, exploitation by both lay

those

in case they

who had

converted

were accused of backslid-

would bring the Inquisition

to investigate them,

fearsome rigors. Gregory Martin described the Inquisition

of the 1570s

as

operating "against Heretikes, Apostataes, Inchanters,

Conjurers: where

al

meanes

are used to save their soules,

109

and

al

cour-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

them

teous release and dimission geven to

RICCI

give force to these words there were the ashes of a dozen Jews

been burned

at the stake in

Ancona

alone.

To

that wil be reformed."

who had

46

Throughout the sixteenth century the Portuguese were quite aware of the

flights

Papacy

of Jews from the country, whether to Ancona (where the

initially

promised them

Goa and Cochin. under its own grand

or to

a refuge)

Goa, the Inquisition was formally inaugurated

quisitor in 1560, but well before this (in 1543, to be exact)

claimed

New

victim, a

first

its

it

In in-

had

named Jeronimo

Christian physician

Dias, burned at the stake presumably for practicing Jewish ceremonies

By the 1560s the number of Jews

in secret.

of Cochin, was so high that the Catholic clergy mockingly

in the realm

referred to the local Indian ruler,

served, as

established south of Goa,

whom

"The King of the Jews."

48

New

the

After priests had been expressly

sent south to root out this "perfidia judaica," arrested

and sent to Goa

especially

Cochin

on watch

as a

for

49

for

"white Jews"

Jewish haven and managed to reach

"black Jews," those

who had

Jews were

Goa

via

Turkey and

more dangerous than the

intermarried with the indigenous south-

ern Indian population or natives

who had

been converted to Judaism

at

earlier date.

Life for the

favorite of

Jews grew even harder

King

Sebastian,

after

Bartholemew de Fonseca,

was appointed inquisitor

at

Goa

a

in 1571.

yet thirty at the time of his appointment, Fonseca took fanatical

He saw

delight in his assignment.

pada) by

New

India as being "undermined" (sola-

— or "God-killers"

Christians

(mata-Deus),

—and boasted often of the number of

ferred to call

them

held, of jails

he had

filled,

Ricci landed at

Goa

in

triumphantly that he had

I

have disinterred."

September 1578 one "filled the

land with

the dead bodies of heretics and apostates."

we know

as

trials

he prehe had

of those "whose fathers and grandfathers

have burned, and whose bones

ters

these

— Portuguese who had heard of

to have been considered

Not

some of

Agents of the Inquisition were

trial.

Hormuz; they seem

some

Christians sometimes

52

51

Two months

I

after

finds Fonseca writing fire

and the ashes from

From one of

his early let-

that Ricci felt uneasy at the prevalence of these deadly

110

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI must have been exacerbated by the

autos-da-fe in India. This uneasiness

two great

autos-da-fe of 1575

and 1578

—

Goa

in

in the

first,

nineteen

people were burned, two for Lutheranism and seventeen for Judaism; in the second, seventeen

more were

killed, this

time

all

for "Jewish her-

»53 esy.

The Jesuit

position

exercises in terror

on

this

all

was

were not only

delicate. Autos-da-fe

but also elaborate

social gatherings, occasions for

splendid rituals both in the churches, where investigations were carried

and

out,

in the streets,

through which long, decorated processions of

victims and judges passed

(many who recanted or confessed and were

forgiven joined the march, along with the smaller

who

faced death). Autos-da-fe were also

number of people

— through the confiscation of

—major sources of money

the property of those found guilty

church and the inquisitorial

5

The Jesuits

staff.

for the

generally served as the

confessors for those found guilty and facing death at the stake, and they

played an

official role as assessors at

sentences of the guilty.

On

the

and

trials

as

cosigners of the

the other hand, the Jesuit order

itself,

thanks in part to the intensive hunt for the most intelligent possible

new ous

recruits carried

New

out by General Mercurian in the 1570s, had numer-

Christians of Jewish origin in

(including one priest

ended up

The

who

sailed

its

own

out with Ricci on the

in India in responsible positions.

Jesuits in India directed a

Muslims or Jews but

ranks, several of

good

to the slightly

St.

whom

Louis) had

5

deal of their energies not to

more

receptive

communities of

in-

digenous Christians that were numerous to the south of Goa. Here again, as

we

can see from his

absorbed observer. These "St.

letters,

the

Thomas

monly known, presented the Catholic

young Matteo

Ricci was an

Christians," as they were fathers

com-

with both problems and

opportunities. According to traditional church accounts, the apostle

Thomas had followed

the trade routes across Asia

Minor and down the

west coast of India, making numerous converts in Cochin before traveling

on

to present-day Madras,

had long had

a generalized

where he was martyred.

knowledge of these Malabar

they were also called, and after

some 111

initial

57

Europeans

Christians, as

confusion (in which the

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO first

RICCI

Portuguese navigators to reach South India had worshiped before

images of the Hindu goddess Kali, believing them to be images of the Virgin Mary), they established contacts with the true South Indian

These Christians

Christians.

Portuguese protection against the local Muslim

most

profit

careful

cal

—

God

that they

pastoral leadership

Mary

to be the

entire output of

still

early

clearly

mother of Christ rather than

branded them

as Nestorians, a

church that had been declared

drew

their spiritual inspiration

hereti-

and

how

to proceed with these

charges, and their divisions led to extraordinary muddles.

one of the bishops of the Cochin church was condemned heretic by the

their

from the Syrian church.

Sixteenth-century Catholics divided over

new

the

58

a distinction that

group within the

—and

make

examination of the Malabar Christians' doctrines

that they believed

the mother of splinter

swift to

monopoly over the

the highly prized Cochin pepper crop.

showed

rajas;

from such an opportunity, the Portuguese promised pro-

tection in return for a virtual trade

More

by requesting

gratified their "discoverers"

churchmen assembled

in the

for

Thus

being a

Council of Goa, while

at

the same time he convinced the rulers of Portugal and the pope of his doctrinal orthodoxy, and apparently 59

dinal's hat.

By the time

whom

for a car-

Ricci arrived in India the popes had decided

to assign jurisdiction over the

both of

was even considered

Cochin Christians to two

rival bishops,

had connections with the Nestorian Syrian patriarchs

and yet claimed

total

orthodoxy within the

Roman

The

church.

Por-

tuguese were suspicious of both, for they wanted candidates loyal to their interests.

Franciscans,

One

of these bishops, Simon, had more support from

and the other, Abraham, more from the

Jesuit-supported

Abraham gained

the

upper

hand,

Jesuits.

and

The

further

strengthened his position by establishing a major seminary at Vaipikkotta with Jesuit help; here

some

fifty

students studied Latin and Chal-

dean liturgy and theology while celebrating their services in Syriac. But the situation remained so fluid that sent to

Cochin

to recuperate

from

kind of fever that proved almost

when a

November 1579

dangerous

fatal to

112

in

—

illness

it

Ricci was

was some

him, and led to the deaths of

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI several

Goa

of his fellow Jesuits in

same month

that

—he

still

found

it

hard to sort out the relative claims of the two bishops.

What

was

clear to Ricci, despite the jurisdictional tangles,

certain liturgical irregularities

was that

had been corrected. Early observers of

the Malabar priests had noted:

They wear

their tonsures reversed, hair in the place of the tonsure,

the head around

it

shaven.

They wear white

and

and turbans on

shirts,

go barefoot and wear long beards. They are extremely devout and say Mass at the altar as we do here, with a cross facing them. He who says it walks between two men, who help him, one on each side. They communicate with salted bread instead of the host, their heads, they

and consecrate thereof

sufficient for all

they distribute the whole of this as

man comes

who

are present in the church;

were blessed bread, and every

if it

to the foot of the altar to receive

from the

it

priest's

*

hand.

Ricci was able to see, however, that a gratifying change had taken place

and that

now

there were

that of language."

"no

differences

Even that could be

between our two churches save

swiftly remedied if

Rome would

send a printing press to Cochin so that the exact wording of the

Roman

breviary and missal could be transposed in a

new

bilingual

text.

We know from other writings that Ricci was upset that the more talented Indian students were denied training in advanced theology by jealous or nervous

Western

that the local Indians,

much

credit in

priests

within the

Goa community, and

"however much they know,

comparison with other white men."

guess that he was sympathetic to Jesuits

who had

63

are rarely given

From

tried to

this

we

can

prevent the

application of the Inquisition's rigors to native Christians, at least until

they had had a grace period of twenty years in which to try and adjust their differences

with Rome. But

this tolerant stance

for in the decade or so before Ricci's arrival

twenty

local

by the

Goa

some

had not prevailed,

three

hundred and

Indian Christians had been submitted to "examination" Inquisition.

Ricci obviously

113

felt

that the Indian Chris-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO changes in

tians'

wrote on January de Goes, a

ritual

RICCI

and dress were thorough and

18, 1580, to his

man who could be

Coimbra theology

He

satisfactory.

Emanuele

teacher,

expected to have a keen interest in such

details:

They

dress

now

of the Portuguese clergy (and have

after the fashion

shaved off their beards), say Mass wearing vestments made in the same

way as ours, and present the wafer at Mass, not loaves as they were wont to do; they give communion to the people "under the appearance of one substance" [sub una tantum specie], are using the whole range of sacraments more often, and have now added those of confirmation and of extreme unction which previously they never practiced. 3 They build their churches in our style.

Less than four years after writing these lines Ricci ting,

with shaved head and beard, shrouded

monk, was

in the

how

was himself

in the robes

of

a

sit-

Buddhist

southern Chinese town of Zhaoqing. Believing that this

men

religious

in

China should

dress in order to be esteemed as

holy, he had forfeited the luxury of being an outside observer

and had

himself entered the ambiguous world of cultural adaptation. His decision was calculated: with the Chinese intrigued

prisms and clocks and books to

come

enough by

his foreign

in droves to his little house,

The

could then engage them in conversation on religious matters. painting of the Virgin and Child displayed on an altar in his chapel

would give

as

I

made

the right leap.

He

November 1585 about the little Zhaoqing: "Would that you could see

his school friend Fuligatti in

group of Westerners gathered

me

little

further visual stimulus to his words.

Ricci could persuade himself that he had

wrote to

he

am now:

I

in

have become

a

Chinaman. In bur clothing,

in

our

we have made ourlike many Europeans before him seen an selves Chinese."* He had apparent parallelism between many of the outer manifestations of Budlooks, in our

manners and 7

dhism and

in everything external

—

—

Christianity: the priestly robes, the chanting of plainsorig

(canto fermo) in their services, the espousal of celibacy

temples, statues, towers, bells and even

114

and poverty, the

some of the carved or painted

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI

Thus he could joke

images.

that merely by being partly Italian (crop-

ping his hair very short) and partly Portuguese (shaving off his beard)

and by following the basic Christian the Chinese as a Buddhist

monk.

one would be viewed by

rituals,

8

took Ricci several years to learn that he had developed the wrong

It

external image. Similarity did not bring prestige, and as Ricci began to

understand the low social status of most Buddhist clergy he drifted

away from

his preliminary position. In 1592

he was writing apologeti-

we do not walk

General Acquaviva, "To gain greater status

cally to

along the streets on foot, but have ourselves carried in sedan chairs, on

men's shoulders,

men

as

of rank are accustomed to do. For

great need of this type of prestige in this region, and without

among

make no

progress

priests

considered so vile in China that

is

we

show them

Supported

in his conviction that

that

dress

and appearance both by

own

superior, Valignano, Ricci

1595.

He

We

wrote to

have

let

his friend

are

I

sallied

and other similar

as vile as their

made

the final break in the

Edoardo de Sande

Macao:

in

down

summer of

to our ears; at the

special dress that the literati

wear on

first

time in visits,

my

beard, and in this dress that

which

is

of purple

silk,

and the

of the robe and the collar and the edges are bordered with a band

of blue

silk a little less

than a palm wide; the same decoration

edges of the sleeves which hang open, rather in the style Venice. There is

own."'

opposed to that of the bonzes that we used to

out for the

mandarins use for paying their

hem

this

Chinese scholars and by his

our beards grow and our hair

their social visits (as

would

he had to abandon Chinese priestly

influential

same time we have adopted the have).

we need

not priests

it

name of foreigners and

these gentiles: for the

devices to

we have

is

a

wide sash of the purple

fastened round the

open.

same robe and

lets

silk

trimmed

the robe

is

on the

common

in blue

in

which

hang comfortably

70

In this garment, with his silk shoes decorated with embroidery, Ricci

must have cut

a finer figure

than

at

any time since he walked

schoolboy in Rome: Italian students in the 115

Roman

college

as a

(who were

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO under

and stipend) wore full-length robes of

special papal protection

blue or violet; the other students, foreign countries, or received

with simple black gowns,

RICCI

who

some

paid their

own

lesser stipends,

like the majority

way, came from

had to be content

of students elsewhere in

less

prestigious schools.

This major

China was rather slow had been

China

in

Ricci's perceptions

shift in

coming. In

in

about one

just

of relative social status in

made

his first assessment,

year,

after

he

he concluded that there were

three religions of major significance in China, those of the Confucian literati,

the Buddhists, and the Taoists. That of the

most important, he in the

was the

although they believed neither in paradise nor

felt,

immortality of the soul and thought that what the others said

about demons and the in

literati

October 1585,

the question was

be considered

as

as

afterlife

was "a joke" (una burla).

72

A

year later,

he wrote General Acquaviva, he had realized that

more complex:

holding

a cluster

in essence, the

of

Chinese

literati

beliefs similar to those

could

of the Epi-

cureans in the ancient Greek world; by contrast, the lower classes in general

could be likened to "Pythagoreans," since their belief in the

immortality of the soul was coupled with a broader belief in the transmigration of souls into both the

kingdom.

human world and

the animal

73

This analysis in turn slowly yielded to another, in which Ricci saw that within each of the general bodies of doctrine that

Buddhism and Taoism in

type of false trinity was a tradition

among

deities

were fused into one. The belief that

embedded

in the religion

of Islam had long

China prompted Ricci to observe that

here was a perfect example of the devil's work, "showing clearly all lies,

who

is

the author of

all this,

ward

state

more

and family that

meaning of

their

how

has not yet lost his

incredible pretensions of seeking to be similar to his

Ricci also acquired a

a

the Christians of medieval Europe; the discov-

ery of similar false trinities in

the father of

call

there were near parodies of the Christian trinity,

which three separate

been

one could

own

Creator."

subtle appreciation of the ethical values tolay at the heart

of Confucianism, and of the

ceremonies to ancestors and to Confucius, the Confu116

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI cian school serving in a sense as "the true temple of the literati"; but he

now saw

that just because

Confucianism maintained

a strictly neutral

stance toward the existence or nonexistence of an afterlife, so

it

was

many Confucians "belonged to one of the other two sects along 75 with their own." Thus did Ricci arrive at a quite accurate assessment that

of the

new

synthesis of China's three major religious schools, a synthe-

Ming syncretism: "The commonest opinion held here among those who consider themselves the most wise is to say that all three of these sects come together as one, that led in turn to the

sis

growth of

and that you can hold them

all at

late

once; in this they deceive themselves

and others and lead to great disorder by far as religion is

there are,

the

all

As Ricci got

appearing to them that

its

as

concerned the more ways of talking about religion

more

a sharper picture

and ethical thought

kingdom."

benefit will that bring to the

of these three basic schools of religious

in China, so did

he also discover a distorted yet

known

mirrored image of the three groupings he had

in

Europe: Islam,

Catholicism, and Judaism. Before he even reached China he had probably read

something about the prevalence of Islam

and Gaspar da Cruz had mentioned

leota Pereira

published reports, and had speculated that the

there, since

Muslims had 77

their religion.

—

this

rather wildly

arrived in the Far East

and

how

both Gatheir

fact in

— on

the ways

they propagated

After one year in China he had learned

little

more, and

though noting the presence of "Moors" added that he "had no idea"

how

they had got there.

terns of trade that led sia

Then,

as

he found out more about the pat-

Muslim merchants by overland

through central Asia to western China

jade,

in search

musk, and rhubarb, Ricci began to get

routes from Per-

of such items

a sharper picture

as

of the

strength of these hundreds of thousands of "Saracens," "Moors," or "followers of the Turkish sect," as he called 79

sions.

The

first

Ming

different occa-

time he visited Peking, in 1598, he was intrigued to

hear that two Muslims from Arabia the

them on

who had brought

a gift

of lions to

court had stayed on in the capital, loaded with honors, and

he sent one of the Chinese Christians to meet with them and learn

more about

their

background. 117

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

Because of the nature of the trade routes, most Muslims in China

were settled in the northwest, in the areas of Shaanxi and Gansu province that had once constituted the

destroyed by the tails

Mongols

domain of the old Xixia kingdom

in 1227. Ricci

could not have

known

the de-

of the collapse of the Timurid Empire, of the waves of emigration

among Muslims

that followed in central Asia, and of the fact that as

the Iranian state converted to Shiite beliefs most of those

China were Sunnis, and economic

who

thus had severed

many of

coming

to

their old political

with western Islamic lands. But he had not been

ties

how much the religion of scholar-official Zhu Shilu (who

long in China before he became aware of Islam had spread.

He

recorded that the

had originally been the source of Ricci's introduction to the inkcake

maker and publisher Cheng Dayue) Nanjing ers,

in

1599 on the grounds that

"there being such an

the religion of that

tried to

persuade him to settle in

was an area tolerant of outsid-

it

enormous number of Saracens who followed

Muhammad

living there already."

numerous Muslims were

lieved they deliberately spread

in the port city

Ricci also recorded

of Canton, where he be-

rumors concerning the wickedness of the

Portuguese so that they might disrupt the growing Western trade 82

there.

Yet Ricci

also professed to see that despite their

Chinese Muslims were comparatively weak in their

own

numbers the faith:

Since in the far western regions China borders on Persia, at various

times try,

many

and

followers of the

their children

Muhammadan

religion entered this coun-

and descendants multiplied so

families. They are residsumptuous mosques, recircumcised, and conduct their ceremonies. But

all

ing in nearly

provinces, where they have

cite their prayers, are as far as

we have

learned, they don't act as missionaries, nor try to

spread their religion,

norance of their

own

and sect,

live subject to

and

Chinese laws and in great

are held in

For these reasons, they are treated

ranks of bureaucracy.

Many

ig-

low opinion by the Chinese.

as native

Chinese, and not being

suspected of plotting rebellion they are allowed to study

abandon

that they

China with thousands of

have spread over all

much

of them, having received

and enter the offical

rank,

their old beliefs, retaining only their prohibitions against

eating pork, to which they have never

118

become accustomed.

83

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI

Ming Chinese Muslims their past practices,

did

make some important

modifications to

by building mosques in pagoda shape, for example,

abandoning the minarets and having the muezzin

the faithful to

call

But the

prayer from a post just inside the door of his mosque. cious survival of Islam in China in this period, as

tena-

shown by such evidence

the spread into central Asia of Chinese texts in Arabic transcriptions,

the slow but impressive ture,

growth of

a Chinese-language

and the development of regional power bases

were eventually to threaten the

stability

in the

of the Chinese state

point to a level of wishful thinking in Ricci's analysis.

The same was by no means

Muslim

true for the other

two

litera-

west that itself

—

all

85

religions in this

group, Nestorian Christianity and Judaism. Ricci had been surprised to find pockets

of Christians in Nanjing and elsewhere in central China,

but they amounted to only "five or lost

almost

all

six families"

making

their earlier beliefs,

and seemed to have

their churches into temples

many cases even converting to Islam. The only traces of Christianity among most of them were that they seemed to have some knowledge of the psalter and they ate pork, over which they made the 86 Local Chinese scholars also knew by firsthand obsign of the cross. and

in

—

—

servation or from popular tales

and they used

their hair long,

abandon the shaved head of

a

this

first

87

priest.

From

linguistic evi-

Nestorians in China originally

that they were migrants

Eastern church was further suggested to

Peking on which were incised

grew

information to persuade Ricci to

Buddhist

dence Ricci speculated that the

came from Armenia;

that the Nestorian Christians

from some branch of the

him by an

a church, a cross,

old bell he saw in

and some

letters in

Greek. Different informants told Ricci of persecutions earlier in the century

— or of

lies

deliberately fabricated

—

forthcoming persecutions

own

faith.

When

that

by Chinese Muslims about

had scared the Christians out of

during 1608 Ricci

finally sent a

Chinese Jesuit

brother and a recently converted Kaifeng resident to Kaifeng in to try to unravel the mystery, they

but found them

their lay

Henan

were able to locate several Christians

totally unresponsive:

"They would not admit

to the

brother that they were descended [from the Christians], either out of

119

THE -MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO fear that

RICCI

he was questioning them with the intention of harming them,

or because these sons [of the church] wished to be taken for Chinese

and were ashamed of the

which brings

among

little

honor

the Chinese."

fact that they

came from

any nation and

in

foreign origins

particularly humiliating

is

89

Even more tantalizing was the news given to Ricci tain

"Moor"

that in those

same

far

Xixia kingdom, where Muslims were "certain white

men with

Lord) and adored the Cross." accuracy of this

since

tale,

now

Mary and 90

it

1602 by a

cer-

northwest regions of the former so numerous, there were also

who had

churches with

bell

Isa (as they called Christ

our

flowing beards

towers, ate pork, worshiped

in

Ricci naturally wanted to ascertain the

suggested that these Christians had held

stoutly to their faith and pointed to a major link with the earlier

church; but the distances were huge and, as he wrote sadly to General

Acquaviva

in

we have not been

ney

able to send

and whence they came."

make

we need for find how many

July 1605, "for lack of the few scudi

It

anyone

was to be

left

to

the jourthere are

to Ricci's successor Jesuits to

the discovery that these Christians were also Nestorians, as those

in India

Much

91

had been.

of Ricci's early information on these Christians came from

Chinese Jews, and Ricci himself pointed to the irony that these same

Chinese Jews were Christians were.

92

much more forthcoming about

Discovery of Jews in China startled Ricci more than

the evidence about the

Muslims (who were

Asia and in India, as he istence in the East

their faith than the

knew

after all

strong in Southeast

well) or the Christians, about

rumors had long abounded. Both

his Historia Ricci lingered

man named summer day in

on the

fascinating

whose

in his letters

moment when

ex-

and

a sixty-

year-old

Ai Tian came to see him in his Peking residence

on

1605. After

a

some

initial

painting of the Virgin, Christ Child and

confusion

John

— Ai mistook

a

the Baptist for one of

Rebecca with Jacob and Esau and concluded that Ricci was therefore Jewish

—he

told Ricci of the seven or eight Jewish families in Kaifeng,

of their synagogue, which had cost ten thousand brothers

who knew Hebrew, and

scudi,

of his two

of the even larger Jewish community 120

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI in

Hangzhou. Ricci showed Ai the Hebrew

glot Bible,

parts of his Plantin poly-

which Ai recognized but could not

read.

93

In an attempt to

— conflicting accounts placed the seventh century — Ricci

unravel the history of the Jews in China

anywhere from the

their arrival

first

to

a.d.

sent a Jesuit to the Kaifeng synagogue.

He was

courteously received

and was able to observe that the synagogue's Hebrew Pentateuch was indeed similar to the same books in the Old- Testament and that the antiquity of this texts

community was

were "without points

Jewish community could

attested by the fact that their

Though few

as in the old fashion."

now

Hebrew, most continued

read

circumcision and refrained from eating pork; those

who

eral

if

they had adhered to the letter of the law.

Jews disgruntled with

and he was

them

fairly

their

own

to practice

lived in

94

Ricci found sev-

their ignorant rabbi,

to Christianity; only lack of time, he wrote, prevented test.

He

him

to refrain

him from

also claimed in the Historia that be-

cause of his fame as a scholar and religious invited

Peking

good chance of converting

confident that there was a

putting this theory to the

rabbi.

and

religion

in the

would have died of

neglected the dietary rules on the grounds that they

hunger

Hebrew

man

from pork and come

a

live

group from Kaifeng with them

as their

95

Ai once told Ricci that since the Jews did not eat pork the Chinese simply referred to them

though the followers of the two rence.

Ai added

that,

circulating in Kaifeng

linking

as huihui,

them

to the

Muslims

al-

religions held each other in abhor-

having read about Ricci in a Chinese book

which spoke of

Ricci's

monotheism, and know-

ing that Ricci was not a Muslim, he had immediately assumed he must

be a Jew. ficial

96

bureaucratic office just as the

intrigued

up

In a similar vein Chinese friends urged Ricci to take

enough

to ask

of-

Muslims had done, and Ricci was

Valignano

his opinion, since the presence

of

mosques and the open circulation of the Koran gave Islam an advantage that Christianity lacked.

97

Ricci himself realized (as

and Boccaccio had centuries before) that the

Ramon

common bonds

of mono-

theism and acceptance of the same early prophets gave a certain to Christianity, Islam,

and Judaism. 121

When

he published

Lull

affinity

his first de-

THE. MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI tailed

book on Christian doctrine

in Chinese,

which spoke of Christ

as

prophet and teacher but did not present details on the Crucifixion, he

"many

discovered that like

their doctrine."

98

bought by Saracens who think

copies were

He

Acquaviva

told

in

August 1608

it

that his

books were being bought "by followers of the Moorish religion" because "they thought

spoke of

it

God

in better fashion

other books in China." So did Confucian

literati in

the

than any of the

Nanchang

charge that the Jesuits "distribute certain pictures of a Tartar or cen which they say give

men

riches

is

that of their

he was

new

off the robes of a

who

Buddhist monk, he

Confucian which he sought.

identity as a

can

When

failed to

in

1602

allowed to prostrate himself before the empty dragon

at last

throne in a

to this earth,

a Sara-

and prosperity."

Although Ricci threw gain the

God, come

area

— empty because Emperor Wanli no longer —he was the court etiquette by

dawn audience

received ceremonial visitors three Chinese

trained in

Muslims who

also

since the Chinese courtiers simply

accompanied him to the ceremonies,

assumed that Ricci and the Muslims

were "fellow countrymen." In the Board of Rites hostel he lodged with "Saracani"

who

could talk with ease to him about the worlds of Venice

and Spain, Portugal, Hormuz, and India. Ricci's presents to the court,

.

The emperor,

pleased by

and intrigued enough by what he had

heard about the Jesuits to want to see them, though not to meet face to face,

commissioned court painters to make

a full-length portrait

of the

eunuch informants who

wit-

nessed the scene, the emperor looked at the finished portrait for a

mo-

Jesuits in Peking. According to Ricci's

ment and

said,

"They

are

huihui"

This was not just a question of

beards and robes but of China's serene indifference to foreigners.

huge and cosmic Ricci

knew

This

is

it

battle that lay at the heart of

was reduced

in

China

not to say that Ricci ever

The

European history

as

to a semideprecating phrase. lost the sense

of his fundamental

when his spirits were at a low ebb there were him on. During his most dejected period in

missionary vocation, and

always others to cheer India, for instance, tro Maffei a

he had received from the Jesuit historian Gian

Pie-

copy of the preface to Maffei's massive history of the Por122

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI tuguese expansion in Asia. Initially Ricci had not been particularly

re-

sponsive to MafTei's questions about Indian geography and politics, and

had rather

observed that Maffei might do better to get his infor-

tartly

mation from "an honorable

man."

102

Moor

But when he read

completely changed.

What

or an extremely intelligent Brah-

MafTei's

new

introduction

his

mood

Maffei did, in those few pages, was to pre-

sent the explorations of the world conducted, by the Spaniards and the

Portuguese over the previous century tance, to the role

of Abraham and his descendants in preserving God's

word, or to that of

Rome

development of the Papacy. Global

in the

exploration, international trade, and evangelization had

Knowledge of

gether in one mighty enterprise.

had value:

Maffei, ing,

sorrow

fear at the

his

It

could bring joy

at the strength

of the

at the sight

evils

it

now

flowed

this process,

to-

wrote

of Christianity spread-

encountered, or bittersweet

God might bring the world to an end because was accomplished. He himself, wrote Maffei, had no fears

thought that

purpose

save that of raising doubts and disbelief because of the

of the story he had to

amazing nature

103 tell.

human

des-

with God's long-range plans for mankind, and (after polite

dis-

made

Maffei tinies

and impor-

as equivalent, in force

claimers)

a

bold claim for the interlocking of specific

stated

with equal boldness his determination to explore

God's purpose:

Wise men

are right to say that

nal Being,

who

we should do

better to adore the Eter-

at all times rules all things, in quiet simplicity

and

re-

spectful silence, rather than try rashly or vainly to penetrate his secrets

and

his designs.

For while there

than the

celestial order, so

there

at

is

is

nothing more wondrous

constant and so regulated in

the same time nothing harder for

in itself

all its

aspects,

human weakness

to

mind of man is capable of lets him raise himself up and

fathom. Nevertheless, to the extent that the reason,

and the burden of

judge events dations of

as they are, it

all

that

it

his mortality

seems that divine providence

lays the foun-

plans to do far in advance, and that

ward the perfection of

its

goals

„ 104

movement.

123

by secret ways

it

leads to-

and unnoticed'

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO Ricci was clearly astonished by the

by

RICCI

methodology and language used

introductory essay: "I was completely overjoyed

Mafifei in his short

by the introduction to your history," he wrote back to Maffei, "and others

who

judge of

all

read

your material

because of the love at

will rejoice as well.

it

anything you do

—

I

I

must not

come

me

it,

no

less

know

to say that if 'one can

fail

good

a

than

unable to be unhappy a lion

to have a great concept of history just

reading this introduction, as others will after me."

The

cannot be

I

partly out of ignorance of

bear you, which makes

I

by his claws' so have

—

Though

from

3

1

general of the Jesuit order, Claudio Acquaviva, skillfully fostered

this sense

of excitement

participation in history sionaries in the field.

— compounded of — through the

The

service to

letters that

God

and

a sense

he sent to

of

his mis-

Far East missions, he told them, offered "pre-

cious opportunities" in the current "troubled state of the church," and

were

a

triumphant vindication of the Lord's great prophecy recorded

in

Isaiah 41:18:

I

will

And I

rivers

on the bare

heights,

fountains in the midst of the valleys:

will

And

open

make

the wilderness a pool of water,

the dry land springs of water.

The news of thousands of

10

Christian conversions in Japan had been in-

spiring enough, he wrote to Ricci and his co-workers in

"now, however,

it is

from China that the good tidings

May are

us; for

here God's blessing has also crowned our efforts and

bright

dawn of

bilities

of the China mission, he added, Pope Sixtus 1

crucial

upon

brought

we

that so

problem

areas

many

able

men had

of Europe,

to

hail the

empire." In response to the possi-

this vast

V

had authorized

At times he too weakened, wrote Acquaviva

special jubilee.

grew worried

faith

1586, but

felt

to be

a

in 1590,

withdrawn from equally

overwhelmed

having to "orga-

at

nize these distant ventures, to choose leaders for them, to direct their labors";

but

at

such moments

it

sufficed to recall the

brose that "the body of Jesus Christ

is

124

words of

the church, and

we

St.

Am-

are the sweet

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI odor that 1

from

issues

body" or

his

Corinthians (1:23) that the "Jews

wisdom, but we preach Christ folly to Gentiles."

No

else

the words of

demand

crucified, a

St.

Paul in

signs and Greeks seek

stumbling block to Jews and

108

one, for Ricci, exemplified this spirit of adventurousness and

world better than the Jesuit brother Benedetto de

faith in a hostile

Gois, and though the

two never met, Ricci questioned Gois's compan-

ions avidly for information about his remarkable journey and was later to write

about him in more

detail

than he did about anyone

else,

Chi-

nese or Western. In a four-year journey spanning the period 1602-1605,

Gois walked and rode from Akbar's

city

of Agra via Afghanistan and

Turkestan to the northwestern frontier of China, just inside the Great

A

Wall.

former

born

soldier,

he traveled disguised

as

in the Azores, a fluent speaker

of Persian,

an Armenian merchant, accompanied by an Ar-

menian Christian convert named

Isaac, in the train

of four hundred or

more Muslim merchants and pilgrims grouped together

for protection.

His journey was partly designed to open up a shorter route between Europe and China than that by the current long and dangerous seaways,

where Protestant

now

raiders

harried Catholic shipping.

portantly the goal was to discover, once and for

all,

But more im-

whether there was

a

"Cathay" distinct from China, an isolated community of Christians

somewhere

in the reaches

Kambaluc had once back

stories

Mary

of central Asia where the Great Khans of

ruled; for traveling

of people there

in churches,

who

merchants continued to bring

worshiped the cross and the Virgin

touched their heads with holy water, partook of

bread and wine in their services, and were led in prayer by celibate priests

robed in black.

109

In Kabul, wrote Ricci, Gois befriended a gar,

a

devout Muslim

who was

noblewoman from Kash-

returning from the pilgrimage to

Mecca. Since she had run out of

money

stage of her journey, Gois sold six

hundred scudi\ worth of fine indigo

for the expenses of the last

dye that he was carrying with him to trade in China and lent the

money

to her.

She amply repaid

his trust

by giving him, when

at last

they reached Kashgar, a quantity of finest jade worth four times that

125

THE -MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO amount.

11

Yet by one of those

whole journey,

RICCI

had marked

twists of fate that

his very prosperity

now

his

aroused the greed and hostility

of the other merchants. While Gois lingered almost a year and a half in

Xuzhou on

Gansu

the

border, ignorant of the Chinese language and

trying either to reach the fathers in Peking by letter or else to get per-

mission from the authorities to travel there with a merchant caravan,

he was systematically defrauded of all

save his

companion

Isaac.

all

he possessed and abandoned by

Eleven days after one of the Peking Jesuits

reached him, in March 1607, with

at last

the capital, Gois died.

Now

the faithful Isaac was

his close friend

on

Girolamo Costa

hausting journey had not been

his in

way back

March

made

now

to escort

him back

to

all

wrote to

to India, Ricci

1608, and so "the

in vain."

and geography had been cleared up for

It will

money

111

Some

whole

ex-

questions of faith

time:

be clear to the viceroy of India, and to

all

the Jesuits, that

no other Cathay, nor ever was one, but just this China. And city of Peking is Kambaluc, and the King of China is the Great

there this

is

Khan. As

for those Christians

they are no other than those

who people have said were in Cathay, who arrived here in the past, and who

retained for themselves the term "adorers of the cross" without themselves

knowing what

that cross really represents.

These people

are, in

everything, gentiles: but since their temples look like those of Christians

and have candles and

altars,

and since their

truly Christians,

So don't

and brought the

community

at least Ricci

there.

wrote back to his friends in Europe, though

know how much he

The news of Gois's

of course, came not long before Ricci's own, and tized certain baffling

and conflicting

was not

we

talked about these dramatic events, or their

ambiguities, with his Chinese acquaintances.

beliefs that Ricci

wear capes and

Moors thought that they must be news to the Jesuits that there was a

pray in plainsong, therefore the

large Christian

priests

ideas

it

126

must have drama-

about comparative religious

free to articulate directly.

the ambiguities, Ricci had titled the

death,

book

in

As

if to

underline

which he talked most

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI

book

Shipian). In Italian, Ricci referred to this

the Chinese

title

would have

said far

more

as

by Ricci from the ancient Taoist

to his Chinese readers than

known

classic

title,

how

world

differ,

and

how

The True Man of

the True

ancient times

nothing of hating death. without

in

a fuss.

Man

the ceremonies of the

knew nothing of loving

briskly,

where the

of old behaved.

He emerged

He came

was taken

the Zhuangzi, written

as

in the third century B.C. It appears in the sixth chapter,

Taoist philosopher explains to his readers

(Jiren

The Paradoxes, but

For the phrase "paradoxical man," the Jiren of the

that.

Man

of the tragedies of life Ten Discourses by a Paradoxical

clearly

life,

knew

without delight; he went back

he went

briskly,

and that was

all.

He

didn't forget where he began; he didn't try to find out where he would end. He received something and took pleasure in it; he forgot about it and handed it back again. This is what I call not using the

mind what

to repel the I call

Way, not using man

the True

Man.

men had no need of

These true

to help out Heaven. This

human

conventional

toms, wrote the Taoist, and the laws of this earth had

them, for "they have joined with the Creator single breath of heaven first

who

or

It

as a paradoxical

to

relevance to

wander

in the

title

of his

own

man

is,

book, a disciple

and

how we

can

"The paradoxical man appears paradoxi-

comparison to other men, but he

was

little

men

what the "paradoxical man"

define him. Confucius replies: cal in

as

ceremonial cus-

and earth." In the passage which follows, the

phrase of which Ricci chose as the

asks Confucius

is

113

is

a

companion

to

Heaven."

11

in this sense that Ricci the Christian could

accept his label as Ricci the huihui, and place the Xixia tribeswoman

with the same label in his

would

see

palace.

For he knew that his

through the apparent ambiguities of

him, when he came to just as

memory

die, as a

companion

he had claimed those true

men

127

God

his situation

and claim

in his heavenly

kingdom,

of old.

FIVE

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

For

the second of the pictures for

den" Ricci chooses one that

Cheng Dayue's "Ink Garthe story of

illustrates

two

Christ, after the Resurrection, encounters

the road to

Emmaus.

how

disciples

Ricci carries the text from the Gospel according

to Luke, chapter 24, in his head:

That very day two of them were going

named Emmaus,

to a village

about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all

these things that had happened.

While they were

talking and dis-

cussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes

"What

is

were kept from recognizing him. this conversation

you walk?" And they stood

which you still,

Then one of them, named only visitor to Jerusalem

happened there

And

on

who

in these days?"

are

looking

And

holding with each other

as

sad.

Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the

does not

And

know

the things that have

"What things?" Nazareth, who was a

he said to them,

they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of

prophet mighty in deed and word before

God

how

him up

our chief priests and

he said to them,

rulers delivered

128

and

all

the people, and

to be

condemned

to

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

c?

r^^ -

<

1

•/

;

J r

-i

"

./

-^i ,.t4ur/nvL< a~ u:y ->"
fof:

E«t«7.

129

«;•."

ok

^

-•/,,

^oo'wwtj/cc/

,.

^a

,»-^

eXtH'f

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI But we had hoped that he was the one

death, and crucified him.

to

redeem Israel. ..."

And he

them,

said to

"O

foolish

Was

that the prophets have spoken!

all

should

suffer these things

with Moses and

all

men, and slow of heart to believe it

not necessary that the Christ

and enter into

And beginning

his glory?"

them

the prophets, he interpreted to

in all the

scriptures the things concerning himself.

He

So they drew near to the village to which they were going.

ap-

peared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, "Stay

with

went

us, for it

in

is

toward evening and the day

to stay with them.

When

the bread and blessed and broke

it,

he was

is

now

and gave

to them.

it

spent." So he

far

at table with

them, he took

And

their eyes

were opened and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight.

They

"Did not our

said to each other,

hearts

burn within us

while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the

scrip-

tures?"

It is a

passage

full

of ambiguity and hidden meanings, and the fathers

of the church discussed every detail of attention:

Why

in the cycle

day,

it

over the centuries with rapt

"seven" miles? Because the disciples were

of Christ's Passion and were on

which would bring understanding of

not yet reached

not rather a

it.

Was

"village" the right

fort or a castle?

Why

their

way

to the seventh

his Resurrection,

word

for

Emmaus,

did not recognize him, or was clearly see his true nature?

Christ was their savior?

Why

Why

Had

Had he

hid his

Christ changed his form, so they

merely that their eyes could not yet

did the disciples say they "had hoped"

they lost their faith so totally and so soon?

when

misled the disciples deliberately? If

they reached the

so,

how

could such

And

into

to eat,

and

an act of deception be compatible with his divine nature?

how many

pieces did he break the bread as they sat

what was the

it

who

did Christ "appear to be going further"

village?

or was

name?

Had it

but had

did only one disciple give his

Perhaps because the other was the evangelist Luke himself, presence out of innate modesty.

trapped

still

down

significance of each?

Ricci cannot

cram

space allotted to

all

these thoughts, details, and exegesis into the

him by Cheng Dayue. As with 130

the story of Peter in

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

own

the waves, he creates his this title:

"Two

version of scripture, to which he gives

hearing the truth, reject

disciples, after

all

does not attempt to give a Chinese rendering of the word

The point of

this story

is

in the journey,

vanity."

He

"Emmaus."

not the destination:

At the time the Lord of Heaven, to save the world, endured his pain here on earth, two of his disciples were fleeing along the road together. As they talked over what had happened, they were sad. The Lord of Heaven changed his form and, without warning, joined them. He asked the reason for their sorrow. Then he explained the words of the

Holy

Scriptures,

which had foretold how the Lord of Heaven must

endure pain and suffering so

would return This shows shun

its

to his heavenly

to save the world, after

as

kingdom.

we should not

that

sufferings.

When

which he

cleave to the joys of this world, or

the Lord of

Heaven came down

to earth,

had he wanted happiness he could have had happiness, had he wanted suffering he could have fering

had suffering

—and

it

was what he chose. In the sufferings of

Can one deny

that this

two

is

the highest

disciples

world there

is

suf-

stored

up great

suffering.

wisdom? Awakened

to under-

great joy, in the joys of this world there

standing, those

was no mistake that this

is

stored

gave themselves over to a

life

of bitter

pain as ordinary people quest for jewels and cash. Their bitter pains

were over long ago, and the reward for their love of suffering

is

an

eternity in the land of heaven.

So Ricci makes the journey to

Emmaus

a story

about reason and expla-

nation on the one hand, and about stoic acceptance of suffering on the other.

The prolonged acceptance of

that suffering will lead, at

last,

to

bliss.

Had he had

his

copy of Nadal's Images with him, Ricci would proba-

bly have chosen illustration

shows Christ seated

number

at table in

the bread to the disciple

on

14 1 to give to

Emmaus

his left

with the two

Cheng Dayue: disciples,

handing

with his right hand, while servants

bustle in with extra plates of food and the host and hostess look reverently.

it

on

But since he does not have Nadal, he chooses another of the

Wierix engravings from the cycle on the Passion, the cycle from which

,

131

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI he had drawn the wrong picture of Peter. These two engravings are fine each other.

foils for

people hard

at

The

picture of the disciples in the boat shows poor

work on the

water, straining at their nets; the

—booted

picture shows gentlemen of leisure

and carrying stout

true,

staves,

but

artist

who works

long march,

clearly elegantly attired

conversation before a grand palace or

The Chinese

as if for a

it is

— deep

in

castle.

Cheng Dayue cannot

for

Emmaus

quite catch

which Wierix shows Christ

the subtlety of shading and gesture by

pointing in one direction while his disciples urge him in another, nor can he clearly replicate the background vignette in which, transposed in

time within the same painting, Wierix

mansion to which Christ for the

two

disciples

lets

at last agrees to go, Christ

who

sit

beside him.

who comes

across

see the intensity of the conversation in

room

in the

breaking the bread

3

But that does not matter. The dinner gether, and any Chinese

us see, in a

is

gone from the

story alto-

Cheng's book will be able to

which the three

figures are en-

gaged, and catch the way in which three men, though dressed for

movement, seem frozen

for an instant in their stillness. If the

viewer can also read the accompanying figures flanking the it is

that has

text,

he will

Chinese

realize that the

two

Lord of Heaven are fleeing no more from whatever

happened but

are learning to accept

it.

And

he will under-

stand that Christ in the center, one hand half raised in gentle admonition, his hardships

now

over,

is

preparing to return once again to his

heavenly kingdom.

t3

Ed

Ricci was a child of seven in Macerata, just beginning the study of Latin,

when

in

1559 the Jesuits

in

Rome

published their

book, an expurgated edition of the Epigrams of Martial.

ment of

a printing press

owned and operated by

132

first

The

major

establish-

the Jesuit order had

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS been

dear to the heart of Ignatius of Loyola in the years before

a project

his death in 1556,

and he had personally taken an active part

to find an appropriate font

ceiving one as a gift from then,

when

first

Venice

trying to purchase

what seemed the very

for

and he rejected the Venetian sale in

marked the

Latin classics,

first

price of

fair

he had died by the

deal;

Rome

itself,

30,000 letters

roman and

sizes,

of the Jesuits' formal entry into

humanism. The choice of

Martial's Epi-

major publication was expressive of their goals:

many of Martial's epigrams were

sexually explicit in amusing, even sav-

—may

age ways, yet this offensive material could not obscure

have contributed to

supreme Latin

italic.

along with the publication of the

last stages

the world of late Renaissance

grams for their

face,

one

face too small as well as

twenty ducats, in both large and small

This quest for the ideal type

re-

Medici of Florence and

de'

to be drawn,

time a satisfactory font was found for for only

pursuing the possibility of

found the Venetian type

forty ducats. Ignatius style,

in

—

Duke Cosimo

duke refused

the

through intermediaries

antique in

of type

in trying

— the

stylists

fact that Martial

of the

classical age.

was regarded

as

indeed

one of the

As the Jesuits competed

in a

world in which the purity of Ciceronian expression had become the

new norm, ousting

the rough and ready colloquial Latin of the late

Middle Ages, they found they could not afford not just because

The

he was obscene.

to study Martial

5

Ignatian answer was therefore to encourage Jesuit scholars to

produce editions of great works that would remove sive material,

but

still

all

traces

of offen-

keep the grandeur of such moral lessons

might contain and teach the

style adequately.

as

they

This task Ignatius en-

trusted to the scholar

and musician Andreus Frusius, and though Fru-

sius also died in 1556,

he had by then already completed his expurgated

edition of Martial, so that the Jesuit press in

publish

it.

Rome

Frusius had performed the same service for the poet Horace,

and an edition of that work was published Vienna. that

could go ahead and

The

at

the Jesuit press in

Ignatian vision of "removing from the classics everything

might offend the innocence of youth" did not die with

133

Frusius.

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

The Jesuit

press continued to

master typesetter,

who

RICCI

expand under the direction of

used Jesuit students

a

German

as his proofreaders,

and

began to meet Ignatius's goal of providing not only purged texts but cheap editions of

also

classical

and devotional

poorest students could afford, including his the Constitutions of the Society.

An

own

that even

the

Spiritual Exercises

and

texts

Arabic font was added in 1564,

under the direction of the converted Jew Baptista Romanus, and the

produced

press

as its first

Arabic works

a translation

of key Council of

Trent documents, an Arabic grammar, and an Arabic translation of the

New

Testament.

A

font of

Hebrew

type was acquired in 1577 and was

used to develop grammars and teaching materials in that language 7

also.

The thorough but tius

had outlined

inevitably rather broad strokes with

his plans for Jesuit colleges

the time Ricci attended the

Roman

initially

much refined by 1570s. Though the

had been

college in the

Macerata schools had prepared him to

which Igna-

a level at

which he could and did

think of proceeding directly to the study of law, his decision to

enter the Jesuit order brought

him back

into a stricter curriculum that

had evolved over the previous decade and been precisely formulated guidelines of 1566. level

Formal training

in

"humane

letters," the junior

of training within the Jesuit university, was carried out in the

ulty of languages. Ricci

was twenty-one

pupils there

might have been

the detailed

grammar of

as

young

at this point,

as ten.

in

fac-

but some of the

Here the youths learned

the Latin they had already

begun

to speak

instruction was in Latin, and the boys were expected to speak Latin to

each other during school hours; they began Greek, and took intensive courses in rhetoric, poetry, and history. These courses finished

took from two to four the pupil

denned logic,

years,

— the boys moved

as

depending on the school and the

—they

caliber

of

to the higher faculty of arts, "arts" being

those natural sciences that could be learned from reason

physics,

These courses

metaphysics,

in turn

moral

philosophy,

and

mathematics.

could be followed by training in law, medicine,

or theology. If theology was chosen, one of three courses could be

fol-

lowed: Scholastic theology, the application of reason to the data of

134

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS God's revelation

taught by

as

Thomas Aquinas;

historical theology, a

examination of the church's decrees and canon laws; and the

careful

9

detailed study of Sacred Scripture

itself.

Ignatius's terse instruction that the students "should

memory what

their masters

have assigned" was taken

commit

to

and was

literally

echoed by other Jesuit directors of instruction during the years of Ricci's schooling. Ignatius also introduced

an

air

of challenge into the

atmosphere of the school by suggesting that study be linked to the

in-

nately competitive instinct of the young: "For the greater progress of

the students,

who

it

would be wise

are likely to spur

was some such "holy

some of equal

to place together

one another on with holy

ability

1

Possibly

rivalry."

it

motivated Ricci and his friend from

rivalry" that

Urbino, Lelio Passionei, to develop their

own

private system of

ory places" while they were studying together in

Rome, an

"mem-

enterprise

when he was

that Ricci recollected with nostalgia twenty years later

living in China.

While

Ricci was a student in

able that could have enabled

Rome

him

a

tually read. five

His

Ad Herennium

avail-

memory

to extend his formidable

even beyond the limits suggested by the ings of Quintilian and Soarez,

number of books were

and the writ-

though we do not know which he

ability later in life to

memorize

rapidly

lists

hundred Chinese ideographs might have been due

ac-

of four or

in part to the

techniques developed by theorists like Host von Romberch, whose

book

first

appeared in Venice in 1533.

Romberch worked out

schemes for identifying storage spaces in memory occupational etc.

—shops,

categories

—and developed

plant,

At the same time, the

be fixed in the cated.

vivid

the

The

memory

levels to

places

that

work of Guglielmo in

yards,

schools,

logically interconnected sequences of

actual choosing of

memory images

had grown more subtle and

which these memory experts would go

memory images

terested

slaughter

according to

complex "memory alphabets" based on human,

and animal figures or on

objects.

libraries,

cities

elaborate

sophisti-

in devising

one would never forget was well shown

Grataroli, an alchemist

to

and physician

in

also in-

designing dietary regimens that would strengthen the 135

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

human memory.

Grataroli's

book on memory-place systems,

Acknowledging the prevalent theory

"move one oped

object

—

Roman

that

memory images should

on conventional

chamber

three examples

box of

pot, a

—and then had

lines,

he then positioned

salve, a

bowl of

monic

action.

Thus

Peter as picking

in rapid

an

in each

were

plaster

separate figures, each based

he knew well and each carefully named,

als

edition by 1555.

system of place, object, and figure. After designing a

location a

pub-

to laughter, compassion, or admiration," Grataroli devel-

a tripartite

memory

first

in a

Zurich in 1553, was available

lished in

RICCI

his first

on individu-

the scenes into mne-

jolt

sequence Grataroli presented his friend

up the chamber pot

full

of urine and pouring

over

it

James, Martin putting his finger in the ointment box and wiping over Henry's anus, and

smearing

it

Andrew

over Francis's

taking

face. If

some

plaster

it

from the bowl and

one could link these vignettes by pun,

analogy, or association of ideas to given concepts, one could be guaranteed never to forget them. It

was

Ricci's masterly ability to

mnemonic technique him

13

—vivid

combine

dramatic public successes there.

Macao

when he had

in late 1582, far

different types

imagery and lengthy sequence

into his earliest enthusiasm for China and

sured that

two

these

The

on

nature of his

to

some of

mnemonic

to start learning Chinese,

from being dismayed by the

language he was excited, almost triumphant

at

—

on

of

that led

his

most

skills en-

his arrival at

difficulty

what he

of the

called

the

"leap" he had made, as he wrote to his former rhetoric teacher Martino

de Fornari

I I

in

February of the following year:

have recently given myself to the study of the Chinese language and can promise you that

it's

something quite

Greek or German. In speaking

it,

there

is

so

different

from either

much ambiguity

that

the

many words that can signify more than a thousand things, many times the only difference between one word and another way you pitch them high or low in four different tones. Thus

when

[the Chinese] are speaking to each other they write out the

there are

and is

at

words they wish

to say so that they can be sure to understand

the written letters are different from each other.

136

As

—

for

all

for these written

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS letters

you would not be able to believe them had you not both seen

and used them,

words and

one quite

as

I

have done. They have

things, so that there are different

and complex.

If

many

as

letters as there are

more than 70,000 of them, every you would like to see examples I

can send you one of their books with an explanation appended.

went on

Ricci

to describe

what he considered

14

to be the monosyllabic

structure of Chinese, and he noted the universalistic attributes of an

ideographic script in which "lies the advantage that

which use

this

is

not

the countries

kind of writing can understand each other's correspon-

dence and books even though the languages are

which

all

at all the case

with our

different,

something

letters." Ricci carefully

studied the

formation of the individual ideographs so that, after only

Macao, he

in

shown.

He

felt

One

added (in language his former rhetoric teacher surely ap-

my

head

a

goodly number of

15

can sense a reason for the excitement lying behind Ricci's emo-

tional language: if

there are

Chinese had "as many

words or things" and

divide each ideograph into separate meaning, then

mnemonic

art to

it

if

component would be

fact that

letters [i.e.,

one could

ideographs] as

learn quite swiftly to sub-

parts,

easy for

each of which also had a

someone

well trained in

memory image. This proChinese made an encouraging contrast

make each ideograph

was speeded by the

cess

months

he could write out correctly any ideograph he was

preciated), "I have already placed in

them."

five

into a

with Greek grammar, which Ricci had been unhappily trying to teach for

some

years in India.

membered

in

all

Unlike Greek sentences, which had to be

their detailed complexity, a

Chinese sentence could be

presented in sharp detail as a series of images: as Ricci observed, is

of help in

all

this

is

number, no gender, no

that their tense,

words have no

no mood; they

no

articles,

just solve their

with certain adverbial forms which can be explained very It

took Ricci another twelve years to reach the point

at

"What

cases,

no

problems 1

easily."

which he had

much Chinese by his methods that he was ready to explain methods in Chinese. From his surviving letters we can chart some

learned so

those

re-

137

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

of the steps of his arduous progress. In mid-1584, having been given permission by the Chinese to settle

By October of and

interpreter

felt

town of Zhaoqing

some preaching and hearing

1583, Ricci was doing sions.

at the

in late

occasional confes-

was beginning to speak without an

that year he

he could read and write quite well (mediocremente);

November 1585 he had advanced to fluency in speech and could read almost everything if he got some help from a Chinese assistant. There he stuck for a while, weighed down with work and aggravations. In in

1592

of

we

find

a teacher,

him

unable to read

still

whom we

many books because "of

the lack

never seem able to keep for more than a year or

two, for various reasons," until, urged on by his superiors, he final

2nd successful

effort.

course on the "Four Books" classics

known

as

The

December 1593 he announced

In

— the introductory

experienced and learned tutor so that "in

make myself a schoolboy

two long

lessons a day for ten

a crash

The Mencius, The Doctrine of the Mean,

Analects,

—and

in their schools

was experimenting with translating them into Latin.

I

a

collection of Confucian

and the Great Learning, which the Chinese used

one!]

made

my

He had

old age [he was forty-

By October 1594,

again."

taken an

after taking

months, the breakthrough came: "I have

plucked up enough courage so that

I

will

now

be able, from

on, to

compose on my own."

How

he managed to draw the strands of these studies together

Nanchang

in 1595,

in

putting his new-found confidence in his knowledge

of Chinese alongside

his

own

rigorous

memory

training,

and cleverly

playing on the desire for book memorization on the part of his Chinese acquaintances, Ricci described in a detailed letter to his superior in

Macao, Edoardo de Sande, which bubbles with the joy of achievement:

One

day,

when

I

was invited to

level literary degree,

tion

I

by some holders of the

something happened that gave

among them and among

thing was that

a party

all

had constructed

a

me

first-

a great reputa-

The many of

the other literati in the city.

Memory

Place System for

good relations with these literati gain among them some credit, and give some evidence

the Chinese ideographs, and being in

and desiring to of what

1

knew of Chinese

letters,

understanding

138

how much

this

mat-

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS and glory of Our Lord and to that which we were them that they should write down a large number of Chinese letters in any manner they chose on a sheet of paper, without there being any order among them, because after reading them only once, I would be able to say them all by heart in the same way and order in which they had been written. They did so, writing many letters without any order, all of which I, after reading them once, was able to repeat by memory in the manner in which they were written: such that they were all astonished, it seeming to them a great matter. And I, in order to increase their wonder, began to recite them all by memory backward in the same manner, beginning with the very last until reaching the first. By which they all became utterly astounded and as if beside themselves. And at once they began to beg me to consent to teach them this divine rule by which such a memory was tered to the service

intending,

made.

told

I

And

immediately

the literati that

I

my fame

began to spread so swiftly

couldn't even keep a counting of

among

the degree

all

who came to ask me if I would be teach this science and took me as their master, and paid me as they would to a master, and also offered me money as

holders and other important people willing to courtesies

would

they I

their masters.

them that I do not take money for teaching my docand that now, not yet being fully settled, and not having a

replied to

trine,

friend with me, nor a

—

these social visits tually settled in

truth this

Chinese

and

Memory

letters, for

each letter

I

is

house prepared, and being so

just set

could not agree to

up

a

house

I

would

Place System seems as

which

a figure that

it

terribly

But when

it.

try to satisfy

if it

I

busy with

had even-

them. For in

had been invented

for

has particular effectiveness and use, in that

means

a thing.

Despite Ricci's disclaimers to de Sande that he was not teaching the

memory method, we know from a letter to General Acquaviva that he 19 was doing so by November 1595. And though he claimed to be vigorously denying Chinese rumors that he could

he came across sionei

(now

after

remember any book

that

only one reading, a letter to his friend Lelio Pas-

living in

Modena) shows

erately fanning the flames

that he was, in fact, quite delib-

of Chinese enthusiasm: "They claim that

have no need to read a book more than once for 139

it

to remain

I

from then

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO on

RICCI

my memory. And though I swore to the contrary they willing to believe me particularly because, when arguing

forever in

—

were not

with them over some of their [philosophical] books, on some occasions for fun [per rtcreazone]

compositions and then

their

once

bureaucratic

recite

it,

classical

word

of

word, and back-

for

works was of course

who

that this

is

one senior

in the city

cru-

the rejoicing

is

by the magistrates and by the parents of

all

obtain a passing grade, for as they are heathens they think

both their glory and their paradise." official

to a watery grave)

in his

21

whose son had had examinations, and

a physical as

who

nearly led

him

and mental collapse

he came to write

book on mnemonic method, he played on

asserting that "if a student were trying to recall

met

Ricci had already

(the military mandarin Scielou,

after failing the state

thoughts

Ricci shrewdly observed: "Great

office; as

made

is

down

his

this desire,

what he had read of the

then such-and-such a chapter, such-and-such a page, such-and-

Classics,

such a line would be

as vivid as if

before his eyes."

By impressing the Chinese with them

interest

hoped

my memory one

take from

ambitious Chinese youths entering the examination ladder for

cial to

those

at

The memorization of such

ward."

that

would

I

in his culture;

draw them

to

his

memory

22

skills,

through interesting them

to an interest in his

hoped

to

in his culture

he

Ricci

God. The culture

that he

brought to China and slowly learned to translate and reinterpret was essentially that

body of knowledge he learned during

suit college in Florence

—from

quently in the faculty of

between

late

late

1573 and 1577.

—and

1572 to October 1573

arts in the 23

a year at the Je-

Roman

college,

subse-

where he studied

In broadest terms, this consisted of

moral philosophy on the one hand and the mathematical sciences on the other; both these were, in the 1570s, expanding ferociously, and the

huge body of material had

to be marshaled with the

utmost

care.

In the

world of moral philosophy the decision by Ignatius and his successors to try to train

cultural

life

young Jesuits

to be at the intellectual forefront of the

of their time added immeasurably to the work that each

student had to undertake and to the

had to

try

and absorb.

A

amount of

literary

work

heightened appreciation of Latin 140

that he

style led to

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS memorize key

the need to

classics like Cicero's orations, Quintilian's

rhetoric, Martial's epigrams,

famous

and long selections of Horace, Ovid, and "set pieces" like Livy's version of

Hanni-

bal's

oration to his troops; while the growing interest in Greek

meant

that

one had to progress through Aesop to Pindar's odes, Hesiod and

Virgil, in addition to

Xenophon and on to Plato's dialogues, Aristophanes' The Frogs and long sections of Homer. From all these examples one had to cull not and the content but modes of delivery and types of argu-

just the style

mentation, so that one developed one's

own

declamations in accepted

2

fashion.

At the same time one had

to be deeply versed in the

complex

inter-

connections that existed between Christian and pagan antiquity and

from both

in the texts

Reformation saw neo-Stoicism,

in

a

traditions, since the period

of the Counter-

resurgence of the eclectic doctrine

which elements of

later

Greek and

known

early

Roman

thought were blended with Christian currents of thinking to create variant of Christian texts

was

essential,

humanism. Here

more

again,

memory of a wide

moral content than for their

for their

as

a

range of stylistic

power. Thus Seneca, with his calm, strong views on old age and death,

and the former slave Epictetus, with his prescriptions for protecting one's personal integrity in a harsh and unpredictable society, both be-

came

parts of Ricci's mental world.

When

Ricci wrote

from Peking

to his friend

spring of 1608, near the end of his

life,

I

have been holding in

in the

that "I find myself so totally

lacking in books that most of the things that things that

Girolamo Costa

I

am now

my memory,"

printing are

he was possibly

thinking most clearly of these Stoic or humanist works: the book he published in Chinese that year under the doxical

Man

nudes'

life

title

Ten Discourses by a Para-

contained an almost word-for-word transcription of Pla-

of Aesop, along with extensive paraphrases of Epictetus.

Since extended quotations from such exotic Western works were rapidly

own

picked up by contemporary Chinese scholars and circulated in their essay collections, the

mount.

A

similar use of

need to be both clear and accurate was para-

memory had 141

doubtless been present in earlier

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI work: in On Friendship, which he published in 1595, Ricci drew

on quotations from dozens of classical authors anthologized didn't carry Resende's

more probable

Andrea

Though we can't be sure that Ricci work with him as he traveled, it is not likely. It

de Resende's work of the same

is

in

freely

that he

title.

had learned numerous passages from Resende

while in school and carried them in his memory, a supposition made

more

likely

by the

friendship from seventy-six to

one hundred,

membering new ones and adding them ilar

expanded

fact that Ricci slowly

to his store.

Sayings {Ershiwu yan);

came from the

sages

in

he were slowly

re-

27

Chinese in 1605 under the

A somewhat

sim-

book with him;

28

later.

again,

it is

a use for

might

more probable

them

and

called

in the

in 1601, so the

these pas-

all

distilled

from

have carried

also

that he had

memorized

them up out of his mem-

Chinese context thirty years

In the collection of songs that Ricci was ordered to

Emperor Wanli as they

Manual,

Encheiridion, or so-called

selections of Epictetus in his classes

when he found

of Twenty-five

title

though rearranged and emended,

Epictetus's larger philosophical works. Ricci

ory

on

process might have taken place with the selections from Epictetus

which Ricci published

this

as if

his observations

compose by

eunuchs could have something to sing

played on the harpsichord that Ricci had presented to the court,

Ricci certainly

drew on youthful memories of poems by Horace and

by Seneca and Petrarch that he then cleverly wove together.

essays It is

somewhat harder

to see

how

conventional

memory

29

techniques

were applied to that other major subdivision of learning which Ricci absorbed, namely, the mathematical sciences. Here Ricci's teacher at the

Roman

college had been Christopher Clavius,

working and

analysis

in 1574, just as Ricci

ulty of arts. Clavius

influential re-

of Euclid's Elements of Geometry appeared in Latin

moved on was

to a higher level of studies in the fac-

man who beknowledge at a time when

a brilliant teacher as well as a

lieved passionately in the value of scientific

many

whose

senior Jesuit teachers did not and were actively dissuading their

students from mathematical studies. careful exploration of natural spiritual world.

30

Clavius emphasized

phenomena

how

the

aided one's reflections on the

Himself an outstanding mathematician and astron142

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

who was to become a friend of Galileo, he used to tell the young Jesuits in the Roman college that "it was essential that students underomer,

stand the sciences to be both useful and necessary for the correct un-

derstanding of the

rest

of philosophy," and he reminded them of the

bleak example of those professors

who made

absurd mistakes in inter-

preting Aristotle and Plato because they lacked a basic understanding

of mathematics. Clavius had a clear sense of what his students should learn in the college: plicity

"The number and motion of

of observations, the

effects

the celestial spheres, the multi-

of the

their various conjunctions, oppositions,

stars

—which vary according

and

relative distances

to

one from

— the division of connected matter without end, the ebb and

the other

flow of the

sea,

the winds, the comets, the rainbows, exhalations and

other meteorological matters, as well as those proportions between

motion, quality, action, distance, reaction, ticians

have written so much."

32

The

about which mathema-

etc.,

teachers

would have

to be

above

average, wrote Clavius, to get the discipline of mathematics across effectively;

while the students would have to work with rare intensity to

get through the material he thought was essential for them. First-year

students

(los logicos)

could do the

months, practical arithmetic spheres in

two and

a half

in

a

first

four books of Euclid in four

month and

months, geography

in

a

half,

the planetary

two months, and

— they could end up with the

time remained in the school year sixth

books of Euclid. Second-year students

(los philosophos)

fifth

clockmaking and mained.

A

ecclesiastical

computation

three,

for

if

and

could study

the astrolabe (for calculating planetary and stellar motion) for

months, planetary theory for four, perspective for

—

two

and theories of

whatever time

re-

few outstanding students would be allowed a third-year

reading course on their own, in which to investigate theories of the spheres

more advanced

and to study the making of perpetual calendars,

planetary tables, use of quadrants, and the like.

33

who had Clavius as his mathematics teacher for four years at Roman college, was probably in this group who were given ad-

Ricci,

the

vance help. His training in theology

may even have been slowed by

143

the

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO demands of

RICCI

mathematical work, since he finished his theological

his

courses only in 1580, while living in India.

34

Like most other literate

Westerners, he would have had first-hand experience of the effects of Clavius's fascination with the "ecclesiastical listed for second-year students, since Clavius's

—named

dar

effect in

Europe

Zhaoqing. All his

vius.

October 1582 and

in

had entered China with Ruggieri and was settling down

Ricci maintained an affectionate relationship with Cla-

life

Chinese readers

as the greatest

and Euclid's true successor. While

mation "Oujili"

—not

mathematician since EuChinese writing on

name with

the rough approxi-

neglecting to say that Euclid had been born

thousand years ago," which would lead any Chinese

a

terested in the matter to think that Euclid

had been

a Christian

matician rather than (as was the fact) a pagan Greek

—he

Ricci introduced

Ricci, in his

mathematics, simply romanized Euclid's

B.C.

—went into

in the Far East the following year,

They exchanged books and correspondence, and

"around

calen-

35

his teacher to clid

famous reformed

honor of the current pope, Gregory XIII

in

just after Ricci in

computation" that was

who

in-

mathe-

lived in 500

gave Clavius the Chinese name Ding. This was an amus-

ing pun, akin to those used in memory-palace building, by which the

name

Clavius was transformed to the Latin

word

clavus or "nail,"

and the word "nail" then translated into Chinese quite correctly ding.

Ding was one of the simplest Chinese ideographs to European

identical to the

how much

easier

used to say of

a

it

his

to write than

stupid man,

"He

write, almost

of course, were aware

most other ideographs and

can't even recognize the ideograph

must have seemed wryly apposite

ding." This saying

began

was

capital T; the Chinese,

as

to Ricci as he

attempt to introduce Western mathematics to the Chinese

literati.

The

central role of

mathematics

in

the thinking of the Catholic

church had been spelled out by Thomas Aquinas tury.

He

had seen

because of

from

a

its

it

as

an admirable early topic of study for the young

methodology of proceeding

thing to

its

in the thirteenth cen-

properties, so that

144

it

in a straightforward

was "the

easiest

manner

and most

cer-

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS tain

human

of

At the same time, mathematical knowledge

sciences."

with the basic premises of mnemonic theory, since the

fitted in well

mind, holding onto what was well arranged, found

in the

order of mathematics something particularly easy to

remember

rangement of Euclid's geometrical propositions being 37

ple.

Imagination and

this science ral

intellect

combined

to

showed both man's power and

order of being;

it

was

a

harmonious

would

graphs, since they

attain to

mathematical

for

At the same time

it

ful

more

it is

certain than

was emotionally untrammeled:

he stands in regard to his appetitive

or angry."

38

kind of precision: "In-

offer a special

"Provided a geometer makes a true demonstration,

how

God and

mathematical tables and

termediate between natural and divine science,

tance

to.

see all things in a single, unified vision.

Mathematics therefore seemed to

either of them."

possible;

his limitations in the natu-

knowledge, but proof of his weakness that he even needed

no need

ar-

good exam-

a

make geometry

triumph of man to

the angels, as Aquinas argued, had

— the

part,

it is

of no impor-

whether he be

joy-

39

In their network of schools that spread across Europe in the six-

teenth century, the Jesuits emphasized the sciences, not only to compete with Protestant schools which were doing the same but also to please the elite

above

all

others.

and the nobility

to value such studies

By placing emphasis on mathematical

proved that they stood inherited the

who had come

the frontiers of

at

skills

the Jesuits

modern knowledge and had

dominant thrust of late Renaissance

Italian

humanism.

If

they rejected Copernicus's heliocentric theory and continued to teach

an astronomy based on an talline spheres, that

unmoving

earth surrounded by seven crys-

was because they valued the antiquity and religious

correctness of this system and found the evidence for rejecting

The

quate.

comet

in

school at

discovery of a

1577, both of

new

star in

which events occurred while Ricci was

Rome, caused widespread debate among Western

but ultimately his views remained unchanged.

Once

Ricci had

become

inade-

1572 and the sighting of a major

and astronomers and pushed Clavius to reexamine some of tions,

it

scholars

assump-

41

familiar with Chinese language

145

his

in

and scholar-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO ship,

he could hardly dismiss their

RICCI

knowledge

scientific

in the

he had their religious practices. Observational astronomy

in

way

China, for

was excellent, and both the 1572 supernova and the 1577

instance,

comet had been recorded But he could

motion.

background to

try to

and brightness, and course of

convince the Chinese that the theoretical

methodology was

their

by the Chinese, with regard

in careful detail

to exact date of appearance, apparent size

still

unsound;

as

he put

it

preface to his Chinese version of Euclid's Elements of Geometry,

the time

first

I

arrived in

China

it

was

though those studying geometry had

roots or foundation

it

is

in his

"From

opinion that

al-

confidence in their textbooks, principles.

But without

hard for something to be firmly con-

and hence even the most refined scholars could not explain

structed,

the reasons for their conclusions."

cure this lack. Clavius,

full

my humble

was no discussion of the fundamental

yet there

good

that

Not

43

Ricci claimed special abilities to

only did he firmly present himself as the pupil of

and Clavius

as

the intellectual heir of Euclid, but he also pre-

sented himself rather confidently as representative of a specific Italian intellectual tradition:

My all

remote Western country, though small

in size,

other nations in the analytical rigor with which

natural

phenomena. For

gate such

phenomena

this reason

is

its

unique among

schools examine

we have many books that investiOur scholars take the basic

in the fullest detail.

premise of their discussions to be the search for proof according to reason,

They

and they don't accept other people's unsubstantiated opinions.

say that investigation using reason can lead to scientific

knowl-

someone else's opinions lead only to my own new opinscientific knowledge is absence of doubt; opinion is always

edge, while ions.

A

accompanied by doubt.

Ricci

went on

to

summarize

Clavius had taught him.

The

for his

Chinese readers very

much what

great river of mathematics had four

main

branches: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy-plus-chronology. Ricci elaborated this general idea in a

ponents of mathematics: 146

hymn

to the manifold

subcom-

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

One

hundred streams.

These four main branches subdivide into

a

measures the magnitude of the universe;

with the thickness of the

as

from the earth of

successive superposed heavenly spheres, the distance

moon, and

the sun, eter

stars,

and

their

comparative magnitudes, the diam-

of the earth and distances on

mountains and

fields,

buildings of

hills, lofty

the mutual distance of two

valleys,

of

surface; also

all

the heights of

kinds, the depth of pits

and

and boundaries of

places, the area

volume of storehouses, or of large Another subdivision computes the sun's rays, so as to ex-

city walls,

containers.

its

and

palaces, the

plain the sequence of the seasons, the varying length of day

and night,

and the hours of sunrise and sunset, and thus deduce" latitude and longitude; the exact

equinoxes and

moment

that years, months,

solstices, the years to

which one adds an extra

to

and days commence; the

add an extra month, or the month

day.

Another subdivision constructs instruments such serving the heavens and earth, and the

and the

five planets; for

as spheres for ob-

movements of

the sun,

moon,

regulating the eight classes of musical instru-

ments, and marking the passage of time by clock so as to help the daily life

of the people, and to regulate the

sacrifices to the

Lord. Again another subdivision regulates the water, earth, palaces,

wood, and

stone; builds cities, erects towers, terraces

from the roof to the foundation; opens

and builds bridges.

And

Supreme

which work

arts

all

these not merely to

canals,

in

and

forms reservoirs

make them ornamental

and beautiful, but to make them so strong that they

will

not

fall

into

ruins even after thousands of years.

This was only a beginning, continued Ricci. Mathematics also sub-

sumed

the whole world of mechanical devices for lifting weights or

moving goods; erts

it

covered irrigation and drainage mechanisms for des-

and marshes, locks

edge

of curvature

of planes,

chiaroscuro. Last in his

the earth tricts,

for waterways, the science of optics, the

list

—mountains,

"all

laid

down

came geography, the

seas,

points of the compass," and

While he was

of perspective

and

science of representing

kingdoms, continents,

islands,

and

dis-

miniature," each detail "answering to the

in

mistake and confusion."

techniques

the

knowl-

all

fitting together in scale

"so as to avoid

5

in China, Ricci did

some work

147

in virtually all

of these

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI subbranches of learning: horology, optics, observational astronomy,

most of these

surveying, music, geography, geometry. For

memory of what he had

areas his

learned in school could be supplemented by

information drawn from the few books he brought with him. Calculating eclipses, estimating latitudes, constructing integrated and adjustable sundials that

map

large-scale

would be accurate

map of

difficult

1569, Ortelius's

when he had with him copies of Mermap of 1570, the immensely detailed he had

tables for estimating latitude that

sandro Piccolomini's Sfera del

Mundo and

in Clavius's Sfera

always carried with

make

it,

down

to use the

to the last joint in the

Especially after 1596,

when

wood and

Ricci received a gift copy of Clavius's

1593), with

scores of pages of meticulous tables

powerful

new

tool for astronomical calculation;

combined

precision and complete practicality

means of computation

that had led

its

How much

Ricci

of Europe

available

to

at this

new

hands as-

flattering

John Dee threw

we cannot

tell;

though

time the books of Euclid that were

generations through Clavius's skillful

and annotations were

as

much

a candidate for magical use as

called "scientific." Prefacing the English ver-

a challenge in

London

in 1570, the

magus

the face of his "Brainsicke, Rashe,

and Disdainfull countreymen" and

how

a

once again Clavius's

European scholars to dub the

sion of Clavius's Euclid that appeared in

derstand

he had

charts,

saw other types of power flowing into him because

what now might be

Spitefull,

in

honor.

certainly in parts

translation

Rome

to put into Ricci's

of his mastery of mathematics and astronomy

now made

and

and to write affectionately

trolabe "the king of instruments"

dialogues in

to

bolt in the frame.

the astrolabe (which had been published in

its

that

equipment but how

new book on

for

him on

came with the most meticulous working drawings and notes

showed the student not only how

a

and Ales-

Clavius's books, especially, were not merely theoretical;

his travels.

they

any location, even making the

of the world that brought him such fame in China,

were not so immensely cator's

at

tried to

make them un-

the newly proven laws of mathematics supported astrol-

ogy, that "Arte mathematical!, which reasonably demonstrateth the

148

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS operations and efTectes, of the naturall beames, of lighte, and secrete in-

of the Sterres and Planets";

fluence:

own

Euclid's precision reinforced his

which used man

phie," things,

and even

49

Dee

tried to prove, further, that

valued science of "Anthropogra-

the sacred mathematical measure of

as

led to that great

and

science

final

all

which would be

"Archemastrie," the "performance of complet Experiences" and the only means to "bryng to actuall experience sensible, sions by

all

the Artes Mathematicall."

language, but

its

all

worthy conclu-

might not have used

Ricci

this

nature and content would not have surprised him.

Geography may have been

last

on

Ricci's

list

of the subfields of

mathematics, but his achievements here were very great. the major feat of constructing an accurate world

names transcribed into Chinese

—

a

map

that

He

map with

performed

all

the place

went through

scores of

unauthorized printings, and ended up in a giant version of six separate panels each over six feet wide in the inner chambers of the Peking palace of in

its

Emperor Wanli. This

is

not to say that Ricci did not have help

composition: the work of patient scholars has shown that Ricci

translated

many of

his brief descriptive essays

northern Europe direct from Plancius's

him

in China,

lated

Ma

map of

on the Americas and which was sent

1592,

to

while the passages on central Asia were not even trans-

but merely transcribed from the twelfth-century Chinese scholar

Duanlin's encyclopedia, the Wenxian tongkao. In the case of both

Plancius and

Ma

ciful material

Duanlin, Ricci took over wholesale

totally fan-

that belied the apparent scientific rigor of his work.

In any case, the important aim for Ricci in

Chinese in his

much

scientific

pointing out the

in

this

was to involve the

achievements so they would prove more recep-

tive to the Christian faith. It

he carved messages

all

51

was

in this spirit, as

he told Clavius, that

Chinese into the bases of his adjustable sundials,

frailty

of

human endeavor

some understanding of God's

grace,

if it

was not backed by

and warning those

who

were

watching time pass on the sundial's face that they could neither recapture the past nor foresee the future but

when

they had the chance.

must do good

in the present,

52

In the field of personal relations Ricci reinforced such messages

149

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI through

of friendship. The small book on that subject

his analysis

which he published

1595 for

in

Ming nobleman

a

Nanchang (and

in

then republished in expanded form in 1601 with several flattering prefaces

by

more else

Chinese friends) brought him, according to his

his

and admiration among the Chinese

prestige

he wrote,

view that

a

book by leading Ming

53

scholars.

report,

than anything

elite

comments made about

reinforced by

is

own

the

Ricci presented friendship as some-

thing beyond financial gain and other material considerations, a bond that united

two

recognized

when

discrete bodies in

times were bad

one

heart. Friends

were to be truly

—when things were going well

ships were so easy to sustain that they lacked deep significance.

Seneca, Ricci quoted the thought that he had friends, since

he had anticipated their

bered them as idea that

one who does not seek

that

same time,

if

ing a dyer's shop,

there

among

who would

ments would have

sat well

praise

would have

is

times

is

less

been severely

not

the worthless

would be

inevitably be splattered.

enough with

Ricci's

to

man who man enter-

All these senti-

Chinese readers, and

them

"The damage caused by my

now

is

criticized

that this phrase

epi-

that a

like a 55

a

joy but, at the

either about senfriends' excessive

even greater than the damage caused by the censure of

emies." All that startles us

who had

all

came the conceit

would have been nothing surprising

tence 24 in the Friendship,

from Cicero he took the

from Martial he quoted the sardonic

sorrow; from Plutarch

chose his friends from

regrets for his dead

to help his friend at

one's friends were few one

less

From

while they lived and remem-

living after they had died;

still

true friend but a merchant;

gram

loss

no

friend-

54

my

en-

comes from Erasmus,

by Ignatius of Loyola, and

who

in the

late sixteenth

century was not normally considered proper fare for Je-

suit readers.

That Ricci was happy

was seeking the

fullest

to use

Erasmus suggests that he

range of significant quotation, not just the nar-

rowly orthodox. Ricci used his Chinese friends to circulate the Friendship and other

works, confident that the moral message would shine through. Since he did not push the

more

intransigent side of the Christian teaching,

150

it

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS was easy

Chinese scholars to accept him

for senior

take a simple example, once Ricci had

Guo Zhengyu,

Confucian scholar to the equally

Ming

this

I

friends with the

Guo

argue with in Ricci's presentation. Since

little to

we

my

expectations; and with

felt as if I

respected friend

came your own handwritten

it

was one of those

who had

You and two

seems to be a worthy one, and difference

from what our

The works of our them, have

after tail;

all

sages,

note.

traveled to islands far

my

I

away and

showed on

joy

all

truly

my

as

I

own

—

Heaven to China this intention examined its message there seemed

sages have taught.

and of the Confucian scholars

who came

been recorded completely and in the greatest de-

can you agree with

are places

detail:

or three of your colleagues are eager to spread your

teachings concerning the Lord of

no

some

Guo, which exceeded

been able to meet with an extraordinary person, face.

can trace the nature

intellectual's response to the Jesuits in

received a letter from

my

famous

to transmit his writings

letter to Ricci has fortunately survived,

Zou's of

he used

To

near equal.

eminent Zou Yuanbiao. Zou read the works out of

and found

courtesy,

become

as a

where things

me are

that there

is

no major

not identical, then

difference? If there

it is

because aspects of

the practice are not the same. If you examine a copy of the Book of Changes,

you

will see that the

hexagram qian

is

concerned with "the

government of heaven." The people of our humble land have always understood heaven; can you agree with

Ricci

might not have agreed

hexagram qian

to bolster his

liest classical texts,

had

a

totally,

me

as to that?

57

but he could certainly use the

arguments that the Chinese,

concept of the divine power that was not

from the Christian one. This hexagram, composed of lines,

and

An is

was defined by the Chinese

as leading to

early

as

unbroken

"sublime success, furthering through perseverance."

the sublimity of the creative, to which

which permeates

that the "holy

six

far

having the power of "the creative,"

commentary on the same hexagram noted

ning, and

in their ear-

all

all

that "Great indeed

beings

owe

their begin-

heaven," and the commentator added

man" who understood

151

this process "is clear as to the

end

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO and the beginning" and ture and destiny and

realized

how

RICCI

"each thing receives

its

true na-

comes into permanent accord with the Great Har-

mony. Personal relations and training in science

came together

odology of conversion that Ricci developed by the

in the

late 1590s;

meth-

and one

can certainly say his hope that some important Chinese scholars might

be brought into the Christian faith through serious discussion of scientific

Qu

matters proved to be justified.

Rukuei, although he

One

came

first

of Ricci's

first

friends in China,

to Ricci because he believed

him

to

have alchemical powers, stayed on to study Clavius's Sfera and to do preliminary translation of the

book of

first

verted in 1605. This translation, even

if

Euclid, and he was con-

tentative and uneven, attracted 9

the attention of several talented mathematicians in southern China.

we cannot be Guangqi

sure

it

was Euclid that

est levels

of the

Xu

civil service

worked every morning tive edition

Li

Xu

drew the Shanghai scholar

known

exams,

for a year,

of Euclid line by

joint translation of the entire

1607.

If

became the cement

converted to Christianity, passed the high-

received a post in the elite Hanlin

60

first

into Ricci's orbit in 1600, Euclid certainly

of their friendship after

a

Academy

in Peking.

He

going through Clavius's

line, until first six

and

as the jinshi, in 1604,

and Ricci interpreta-

they had finished a polished

books, which they published in

This translation in turn deeply impressed the senior bureaucrat

Zhizao,

who had

been drawn to Ricci out of admiration for his

car-

tography; after lengthy conversations on the meaning of this geometry

and joint collaboration on

several

mathematical works,

Li

was

finally

converted in 1610, just before Ricci died.

The

receptivity of these Chinese scholars to the

Ricci presented

ings

is

who sought

Rukuei was from

Western science

worth remembering. These were not to acquire prestige by adopting

that

society's sweep-

Western thought.

Qu

Qu Jingchun,

had

a distinguished family: his father,

been one of the highest ranked scholars in the national jinshi examinations of 1544,

had served

as senior editor

of one of the great

Ming

en-

cyclopedia projects, and had ended a distinguished bureaucratic career as president

of the Board of Rites.

Li

152

Zhizao was from

a military fam-

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS ily

Hangzhou

in the

and had passed the

area

1598; he was already launched 63

when he met had spent

on

period in the 1580s

a

mark of a floundering

career in

from

a

Works

commercial family and

as a peripatetic

Ming China

examinations in

the Board of Public

a career in

Xu Guangqi came

Ricci.

jinshi

—but

—sometimes

tutor

a

he had man-

in 1597

aged to pass the intermediate level of examinations with distinction and, as

we have

named

to the

exams

seen, after passing his jinshi

1604 he was

in

Hanlin Academy, the most coveted of

all

intellectual

posts in the entire country.

But

thorough indoctrination

a

in traditional

doctrine did not disqualify any of these ern science:

it is

terested these

and geometry

men from understanding West-

worth emphasizing that

men

the most

Xu— there

for

— chemistry

was

a

norms of Confucian

in each

for

of the

fields that in-

Qu, cartography

for Li,

long and sophisticated history of

in-

digenous Chinese experimentation and achievement, even though the Jesuits rarely

new

mentioned

65

new

of course, but also

data,

What

this.

Ricci could offer

perspectives in

existing knowledge, and a sense of purpose that

them was

which

partly

to judge their

came from the

belief

that with his help they were recapturing a lost Chinese past. This feel-

ing was well articulated by

Xu Guangqi

sion of Euclid that he wrote

down and

in his introduction to the ver-

polished from Ricci's dictation.

China's ancient rulers and scholars had once had total mastery in computation, music, and mechanical invention, wrote Xu.

Only

time of Emperor Qinshi Huangdi (during the

century B.C.)

had the

skills

late third

in

been vitiated by that emperor's destruction of scholarly

books, as a result of which China's scholars became "like blind

shooting

at

random

had only

a

blurred sense of form, scanning an elephant by a

light, losing sight

was even

clearer

for Ricci's

that

world

at the target

of the

tail if

map

throughs during the

enough

and never

hitting, or like those

they focused on the head."

66

Li

men who

firefly's

Zhizao

about China's past attainments in a preface he wrote that

China's geographical

detailed

the

to

was printed along with

it;

he pointed out

knowledge had made important break-

Yuan

dynasty, and that even Ricci's

show

all

map was

not

the countries that had paid tribute to

153

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO China

in the past. Ricci

RICCI

himself noted that Li had devoted "a whole

year" to a careful analysis of the mathematical principles behind his

own

calculations of the size of a terrestrial degree of latitude. satisfied that

mend

that Ricci produce a new, enlarged version of the

own

Ricci shared with

all

men

these

among them who

noted correctly that

all

a love

don't

With

making of the Chinese ink their

which

—"few

of books"

He

had

are there

—but

he

religious groupings tended to spread their mes-

through preaching or public

customary interest

his

to

of books and printing.

know something

sage through books rather than courses.

map

imprimatur.

an exaggerated view of the extent of Chinese literacy here

after

they represented "immutable law" did Li recom-

being

he would give his

Only

in

dis-

such details he studied the

were used by

all

scholars and

mode of paper-making and bookbinding. He noted

that Chinese

books tore

sticks that

and didn't

easily

last

long because their paper was too thin;

and he handed out good quality Western paper,

a

few sheets

at a time,

so that scholars could see the difference, just as he emphasized the

binding and gilding on the small library of books he had with him.

He was

also interested in the scholar-calligraphers

ish in all

Chinese

cities,

important memorials for

who seemed

69

to flour-

where they either got money by writing out less skilled

mandarins or sold their

own

work;

he was amazed that the elegant transcription of one memorial could cost eight ducats, while even a few lines of calligraphy could

tenth of a ducat;

70

he was

less

impressed by the professional scholars,

often skilled in mathematical subjects, for other people

Always

and

alert for aspects

sions, Ricci seized

The

very

literally

first

Wang

Jesuits'

give up their rights to their

own

names.

version of a Christian devotional in

1584 (from an

work

a

massive

in Chinese,

scale.

which

earlier Latin version proba-

winning approval from the Zhaoqing

pre-

Pan, was then run off in an edition of 1,200 copies in the

own

students in

were ready to write books

of Chinese society that would help the mis-

bly drafted in India), after fect,

who

on printing and operated on quite

he prepared with Ruggieri

sell for a

residence.

Rome

One wonders

assigned to help the

154

if

Ricci had been

German master

one of those

typesetter with

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS the

making of books

Roman

in rhe

college, for he

with the technical details of printing.

He

was

clearly at

carefully noted

how

home

the Chi-

nese artisans could carve an entire reversed page of calligraphy onto

page of metal

set a folio

wood

of apple or pear

their blocks

type,

tage of the Chinese system

and keep the blocks for

European typesetters could

as fast as

and he pointed out that the big advan-

was that one could run

later reprinting,

be made swiftly and cheaply.

73

off a small edition

and that minor changes could

Though he

that the

felt

number and

complexity of Chinese ideographs were something of an "impediment to science" rial

in this

and that the Chinese printed much harmful or useless mate-

—he could hardly

way

say

less,

given the huge volume of

—he neverthe-

Buddhist and Taoist materials that was printed each year less felt that this

outpouring of scholarly energy prevented many Chi-

nese youths and adults "from falling into those vices to which the

men

natures of

are inclined."

At one point

Ricci also noted that the Chinese

they read and repeated benefit this

from

7

this trait

it

of

to others,

remembered what

and that the missionaries could

but unfortunately he didn't follow up

theirs,

remark with any analysis of Chinese memory training. In present-

ing the case for his press

own mnemonic

the Chinese with

the

fact

system Ricci obviously tried to imthat

the system

successfully by royalty in the distant past: he

who

Bando,"

had been used

wrote of "the king of

learned the languages of the twenty-two countries he

ruled (in reference to Mithradates of Pontus); of "the king of Balaxi,"

who knew

the

names of

all

the soldiers in his army of hundreds of

thousands of men (in reference to Cyrus of Persia); and of "the king of Liweiya,"

who

sent an envoy to

Rome,

the envoy remembering the

names of the thousands of officials he met there envoy Cineas).

None

(referring to Pyrrhus's

of these names would have had any

— they served

nificance to the Chinese readers

merely

as

specific sig-

imposing

in-

cantations.

What

is

striking about this

applicability to the concerns

list

of exemplars

of the Chinese

is

their almost total in-

literate elite, a fact that

graphically highlights the shortcomings of such a literalness of ap-

155

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO proach

European text

in translating a

ples are

wide of the target

in the

was not

to foreign courts

—and

want

to

if

and few

respect

sought

officials

who

literatus,

a military career

service even at the senior level

—indeed,

it

was almost

foreigners; foreign languages

communicate with him would,

desiring to

China. All three exam-

one did go one would have no reason

remember the names of the

of no concern to a Confucian

Ming

Chinese context. Going on embassies

mark of

a

never done by Chinese

to

RICCI

to

were

expected that foreigners

like Ricci, learn Chinese;

—indeed,

of any kind

was widely regarded

as

military

an inferior occu-

pation, as Ricci knew.

One wonders Chinese

if,

in leisurely conversation

friends, Ricci

with some of his scholarly

roamed beyond these three examples, which he

probably drew from the brief section of Pliny's Natural History that dealt with 77

listed.

such

memory, where

The

all

three

Western examples that he used

are

Latin humanist and Stoic writers he had been raised on,

and Seneca,

as Cicero, Quintilian,

the Chinese might have

warmed

all

more

provided fine examples that

readily, for they

had attributes

that the Chinese themselves valued. For example, Seneca,

remembering

two thousand names verse,

in

would have struck

who

sequence or two hundred random lines of a

Chinese chord,

any number of poems

his ability to recall

Charmadas,

to

as

would Theodectes with and

after a single reading,

could remember the entire contents of the books in

the libraries he visited.

Such

figures

from the Western past could have

claimed a kind of equality with Chinese scholars of the past famous for parallel feats: doubtless

have told him of Ni

any of Ricci's educated Chinese friends could

Heng

stone

tomb

Shao,

who remembered

of the Eastern Han,

inscriptions after he returned

and could always of the Tang,

the

recall all

who

after

who remembered

from

a

poems written

one reading could

the

long journey; or Xing

whole Han dynastic history

the

all

at a party;

recite

after five days

or

Lu Jiangdao

books both forward

and backward; and the formidable Zhang Andao who, having grown

up

in seclusion,

after reading It

is

had always thought that

them once through,

until he

interesting at least to speculate

156

everyone

was

how

remembered books

politely corrected.

79

the two traditions, the

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS Confucian and the

classical

Roman, could have been drawn

into dis-

course through Ricci's Christian mediation, with the varying acts of

memory providing these examples

common

the

ground. Conversation concerning

would have been an

ideal

human as opposed to divine power, and in human affairs. The parallels that one

way

to raise questions of

to analyze the place of reason

can find,

all

of which would

have been in the conscious minds either of Ricci or of his Chinese friends, are

indeed remarkable. If Julius Caesar could, in Pliny's words,

"dictate or listen simultaneously, dictating to his secretaries four letters at

once on

retain, five

time?

important

could

tocles list all the citizens

own

—

or, if

Xuan

otherwise unoccupied, seven

in the Sui dynasty listen to,

him

items of information being delivered to

If Lucius Scipio

Nanjing

affairs

once," could not Liu

letters at

80

his

name

head? As well

all

and Themis-

the area population registers in his

which he had developed

as

same

of Athens, had not Su Song, serving in the

been able to retain

area,

Rome

the citizens of

at the

and

a

kind of chronological

"placement" system of his own, based on the traditional dynastic His81

tories.

cial

The matched examples could be found

also in varied

commer-

or recreational spheres. Hortensius recalled every price of every item

sold at auction, while

Chen Jian

books and the produce of

home in the

in the country,

recalled each detail of his

Scaevola, riding back to his

his looms;

move of the

could replay in his head every

board game he had

while

lost,

accounting

Wang Can

pieces

could do the same

with a game of Chinese checkers (weiqi) where he had been only spectator.

As with arguments about memory, or with

analyses of geometry, so

— one could use

with the humanism of the Stoics

edge

a discussion

Xu Guangqi might

a

83

die,

touching on religion to

once told Ricci that

and

it

is

memory chamber

in

ask yourself,

in

you

Greek and Ricci

'What

his greatest fear

which Epictetus was

"When

is its

when

higher stage.

hard not to imagine Ricci's

sessed Epictetus also.

had written

a

it

are

157

The convert

was that

mind

his

son

racing to the

stored, for this fear

had ob-

fond of something," Epictetus

translated into Chinese,

nature?' If

necessary to

you

are

fond of

"remember

a jug, say,

'I

to

am

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO fond of a

jug,'

and when

broken you

it is

they die you will not be

not be upset. If you

will

kiss

am kissing a human being'; then upset." Or again, as Epictetus wrote in

your wife or child, say to yourself,

when

RICCI

'I

8

another passage that Ricci translated, "Never say about anything,

have

lost

it'

but only

been given back. such

Is

have given

'I

has

It

85

In

all

argument paraphrased by Epictetus, "If you

your will that your children and your wife and your friends

it

should

your child dead?

your wife dead? She has been given back."

cases, ran the Stoic

make

back.' Is

it

'I

live forever,

you

are

silly;

you

for

are

making

it

your

will that

things not under your control should be under your control, and that

what

not your own, should be your own."

is

After such messages and teaching had been absorbed by

them on

Ricci could lead

Christian faith

Xu

or

Li,

the deeper arguments buried within

to

arguments that he himself had written out and

itself;

printed in his True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (Tianzhu shiyi), a

summary of Christian tween

a

led the

Chinese and

doctrine presented in the form of a dialogue be-

Yet even

a Christian scholar.

such a book Ricci

in

Chinese scholar into his crucial argument via the

tion, as in a central passage in chapter

classical tradi-

Here Ricci began by

3.

describ-

ing "two famous philosophers from the West, one called Democritus,

who was

always laughing, and the other Heraclitus,

ceasing. Their utterly different cause, for

both of them saw

goods of

this earth.

how

the

sprang from the same

in fact

men of their

day ran after the

Democritus, by his laughter, mocked their

Heraclitus, with his tears, this

conduct

who wept without

showed

his

7

compassion for them."

Greek bastion Ricci then advanced, hoping

to

draw

his

false

folly;

From

Chinese

readers with him:

God

only has us born into this world in order to

practice virtue. So this ever,

that

nor does our

we

will reach

heaven, and sent time

it is

is all

life is for

final it.

goal

Our

lie

true

test us

we

us but a journey,

here below.

homeland

in that direction that

is

It is

and to have us

are

not here

only after our death

not on this earth, but in

we should

turn our eyes. Pre-

that the animals have for happiness, and that

they are built to look at the ground.

Man

158

is

for-

is

why

created for heaven, and his

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS head and eyes are raised high so he can always see whither he

To put

one's happiness in earthly things

is

bound.

to descend to the level of

is

the beasts.

Even

God and

struggled to present his reasons concerning

as Ricci

the soul to the Chinese, and to sustain four overlapping roles as mis-

and guide, he remained always pupil and

friend,

teacher,

sionary,

schoolboy to himself, struggling to explain the unexplainable, escaping

from Epictetus only to

fall

back toward Plato. In one of his strongest

Meaning of the Lord of Heaven he reached out known and unknown with these words:

passages in the True

Chinese

The

literati

on these

Christian religion instructs us perfectly

rules,

but

to

all

men

do not understand what is in front of their eyes. Everything they cannot see seems opaque to them. If a pregnant woman is thrown into prison, and gives birth in a dungeon, her son will grow up knowing neither sun nor

and

tains

moon, ignorant

rivers, a

human

race, a universe.

sun, and a small one as his are the

He

is

He

and the

loftiness

some

make

his

home

to

wonder of the world, of the

loveli-

of the sky, he will come to understand that he

From

that time

on

will

is

he not cease wanting

live in joy

amid

his parents

and friends?

89

only did this weave echoes of Clavius most artfully into the

gument, along with

Plato's Republic

(Book

beautifully chosen, for the joys of company

of

mother should speak

there? Will he not think, day and night, of freeing

himself and going to

Not

if his

pale echoes of the sun, that his prison indeed

narrow, dirty, stinking. to

this.

of the fine objects owned by the

stars,

wealthy, of the wide expanse and ness

sees in the prison

hardship in his prison, he stays there peace-

the splendor of the

has only seen

large candle serves as his

can think of nothing better than

he does not think of leaving. But

him of

A

moon. The few people he

race to him.

not aware there

is

fully,

human

moun-

that there are such things as

Ming

upper-class

life,

as Ricci

knew

ar-

final

image was

and society were

a focal part

7),

all

but the

too well. Indeed, one can

chart the stages of his physical and spiritual journey by the tables at

which he

sat, for as

he once

said,

everything in China, including

159

reli-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

gion, was discussed at table, over meals or with a cup of tea in one's

hand.

90

to the houses of the rural poor, shift altar, careful blessings

meal, as Ricci put

of

surely banquets,

more

in

a

make-

stumbling Chinese, and the goodwill

for the

it

showed than

a

91

we

In central China in the early 1590s

him

find

newly converted Christian merchant, enjoying

now

that the convert had given

up

his

in

lei-

Buddhist

di-

while they pursued their discussions of the Lord's

etary practices,

design.

around

families gathered

were offered

"pleased us

good."

their way, very

home

it,

where

cautious journeys out

of the dishes, though there were plenty of them and,

for the variety

in the

made

In South China, in the 1580s, Ricci

92

In Nanjing at the end of the century, protracted dinners at the

houses of great

officials

began to be commonplace, Confucian scholars

come and

inviting the fashionable Buddhist clergy of the area to

pute with Ricci. courses of

He

human

how

record of

left a careful

dis-

he spoke between the

nature and the goodness of God, and of

how

he

struggled to retain every detail of argument and counterargument for

eventual publication in his anti-Buddhist writings.

93

And

then came

the world of Peking after 1601, an endless succession of dinner parties,

often three or

more

a day.

over, but exhaustion

and constant

For Ricci the search for acceptance was

mounted under

intellectual exegesis.

9

the press of social

One

is

little

doubt that the

In Peking, the pressures

the candidates from jinshi

exams,

all

on these

on Ricci were worst every

many bringing

round of

sion, exhausted,

with

many

when

introductions to Ricci or letters and greet-

visits

and

lay

a headache.

better soon, Ricci replied, "Far

too

third year,

95 toll.

over China poured into the city for the triennial

jinshi year, 1610, that Ricci's life ended; a

occasions, and

rounds took their

ceaseless social

ings from friends that he could not ignore.

May from

commitment

Chinese contemporary noted

that the Jesuit "ate and drank exuberantly"

there

now

Not

When it.

it

was

in a

he came back one early day

down on

from

surprisingly

his

bed

told he

This

things to do, and will prove fatal."

illness 96

in

in the Jesuit mis-

would probably be is

caused by having

The concern

felt for

him

by both his Jesuit fellows and his Chinese friends led to his being exam160

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

who

ined by seven different doctors

prescribed,

between them, three

different courses of treatment.

On May

8, in

the evening, he

made

de Ursis. The following afternoon he

through the night and well into ceaselessly

May

his general confession to Father slid

10.

into a delirium that lasted

During

this

time he babbled

of his desire to convert the Chinese and their emperor. The

evening of the tenth he received extreme unction. There was no question of his writing any more; he had already

burned

manuscripts in order, and sealed up a

his personal letters,

note to Gen-

put

his other

eral

Acquaviva. Suddenly, however, he turned to his companions and

in a

weak but audible voice

final

have the very greatest love for Fa-

said: "I

who is living at the court of the king of France; although I do not know him personally, I had decided to write to him this year and to offer him my congratulations for the glory he has rendered to God, and to let him know personally how things stand in this mission. Make my excuses to him, for now such a task is quite impossible for ther Coton,

me." In the context of Ricci's delirium

enough

logic, for after

Jesuit Pierre

King Henry IV had

Coton had become

dreamed of being confessor

Coton's seems to have been the the evening, he sat

up

abjured Protestantism the

his confessor, a role

great skill in difficult circumstances. Ricci

his conversation has a clear

It is

he carried out with

probable that in his

to China's long-lived

last

name

161

hours

emperor Wanli.

Ricci uttered.

straight in bed, closed his eyes,

last

On May and

11, in 9/

died.

SIX

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST

The

memory palace stands on its elevation, suffused in an even light. The reception hall is still silent, yet inside there is more for the

mind

two

to dwell on. In the southeast corner are

warriors, locked in combat; in the northeast corner waits the Xixia

woman, who

is

a huihui.

memory image Ricci chooses the Chinese character //, meaning profit. To compose an image that the Chinese will remember, vertically down the middle, thus yieldhe divides the ideograph for For his third

//'

new ideographs, one of which means "grain" and one "blade" "knife." From these two components Ricci composes his memory

ing two or

picture, "a farmer holding a sickle, ready to cut the crops in the field."

As

usual, there

is

rather

more

to the

apparent. In this case, the resonance

graph,

//,

is

ciation in his

own

no more than

his

a

ly,

which he has adopted

personal system of romanization.

phonetic approximation of the

name, and given the absence of the rolling 162

at

is

once

given by the fact that this ideo-

own

Chinese

as the

pronun-

the same one that Ricci has chosen for his

name, though he uses the form

is

is

memory image than

1

At one

level this ly

first syllable, "ri,

r in Chinese, ly

is

a

" of

good

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST

163

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO enough equivalent. But

there are scores of words

and many of them would be

nese,

suitable. It

it

profit if

we

gain the

8:36) and in the contexts profit us if

we

slay

our brother and conceal

his brothers, before they, agreeing,

they had silver:

later

left

him and

sold

Gen. 37:26-28).

A

ly in

as if Ricci senses the

mission work

him

his

blood?"

as

Judah asked

drew Joseph from the

pit

where

to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of

decade

later,

Ricci leaves

one

tiny hint to

generations of his awareness of these cross-cultural implications.

In using Western letters to transcribe the Chinese version of his that he appends to the

Dayue, Ricci twice spells his affiliation,

name

colophons on the paintings he gives to Cheng

identifies

new composite

who

bears his

west corner of the reception is

a

himself as

"A man from Europe" and

and on these occasions he romanizes

a harvester

name then

"Ri": twice he identifies himself by his Jesuit mission

Ricci takes this

of

Chi-

("What whole world and lose our own souls": Mark of local survival and barter ("What will it

word's ambiguities in the context of his will

pronounced

is

own

RICCI

his

name

"Ly."

figure representing profit, in the

own name, and hall, to

the

left

places

him

in the north-

of the Xixia

huihui and diagonally across from the two grappling

will stay there, ready to gather in his crops, for as

form

woman who warriors. He

long

as Ricci so

instructs him.

In Ricci's time, search for financial profit overlapped and cut across ferences of religious creed.

The

trade-offs

dif-

could be bleak.

For instance, the converted Jews of Portugal, having been fined so mercilessly by the Inquisition that they faced total ruin

shipping their holdings out to Flanders and to a deal with

King

exemption from

all

Italy, at last in

and began 1577 agreed

Sebastian by which he

would give them

fines for heresy if they

provided him with 250,000

ducats for his African campaign.

a ten-year

They provided the money, King 164

Se-

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST bastian was killed, and his successors revoked the deal, seeing in Sebastian's

death divine retribution for such a tainted bargain.

When

the prince of

Parma advanced with

3

Spanish

his Catholic

troops to attack Protestant-held Antwerp, the Protestant leader, Wil-

liam of Orange, warned the citizens that they must breach the great

ocean dike of Blauwgarendijk and flood the plains around Antwerp, thus ensuring that the city could be supplied by sea

The Antwerp

to block the River Scheldt.

if

Parma managed

butchers' guild prevented

William's advice being followed, on the grounds that the flood waters

would ruin the business they made the reclaimed land between

in grazing 12,000

Antwerp and the

head of

on

cattle

Parma did

dike. Since

block the Scheldt, and no supplies could be obtained, in August 1585 the city

fell

to the Spanish army, the Protestant pastors

and Antwerp returned to the Catholic

While

Ricci lived in China,

were expelled,

fold.

though mail was always slow and uncer-

tain, couriers usually

got through successfully to Shaozhou or Peking

from Macao, and the

life

velopments

of the missions could be coordinated with de1609 the young Chinese

the outside world. But in

in

Christian courier assigned to bring the mail from

come

the time had

to the guards

to save the

money

that

on the Macao-China border

The

prefect.

ant,

The

at

who

magistrate interrogated

prefect interrogated

beat

him

Xiangshan. Deprived of

and took him to the

him and

again and sent

savagely and ordered

fine attention to detail, the ters

him

that

had customarily been given

their cash, the guards arrested the courier as a spy local magistrate.

Macao decided

sent

him

him imprisoned

him

to the

to the intendfor

life.

With

intendant also ordered the twenty-five

let-

the courier carried translated into Chinese line by line (with the

forced assistance of those Portuguese for the trade fair),

Canton

who happened

Canton

and then placed them on permanent deposit

archives. Since the letters contained material that the

—such

found suspicious

as details

in the

Chinese

on the running of Jesuit schools

Macao and on defense problems connected

to a feared

the Chinese authorities ordered the Jesuits in letters

to be in

were addressed to leave the country. 165

Dutch

Shaozhou

to

in

attack

whom

the

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

The Catholic church's lation

had never been

attitude toward

money and

settled; its responses

ual poverty to soaring cathedral spires.

RICCI

property accumu-

ranged from vows of perpetIgnatius of Loyola gave his

views on the need for Jesuit poverty in the reflections on "Christ the

King"

that he

appended

the end of the

at

Those making the

Exercises.

words of Christ: "It

my

is

were to hear

exercises

will to

week of the

first

conquer

me

Therefore, whoever wishes to join with

all

the lands of the infidel.

in this enterprise etc. as

must work with me by

me

aware

how

human

and watch with

making the

choices in their meditations

by night."

reflect

But

men

as if

in the

view

on the fourth day of the second

—but

— the powerful meditation on the "Two Standards,"

had to

6

exercises to take a broader

week; he placed this meditation on the same day after

must be

mine. So, too, he

inapplicable these instructions were for ordinary

world, Ignatius asked those

of

minds these

in their

content with the same food, drink, clothing, day,

Spiritual

on the choice between Lucifer and

Christ,

coming

in

just

which men

between

riches,

honor, and pride on the one hand and poverty, a willingness to be held in

contempt, and humility on the other. In Ignatius's words:

This

is

the history of the Three Classes of

Men. Each of them has

acquired ten thousand ducats, but not entirely as they should have, for the love of

God

God. They

wish to save their souls and find peace

in

our Lord by ridding themselves of the burden arising from the

attachment to the end.

all

.

The

.

sum

acquired,

which impedes the attainment of this

.

First Class.

they have to the

They would

sum

like to rid

themselves of the attachment

acquired in order to find peace in

God

our Lord

and assure their salvation, but the hour of death comes, and they have not made use of any means.

The Second Class. They want to they wish to do so in such a quired, so that

God

themselves of the attachment, but

that they retain

what they have

ac-

come to what they desire, and they do not sum of money in order to go to God, though

is

decide to give us the

rid

way

to

way for them. The Third Class. These want to rid themselves of the attachment, but they wish to do so in such a way that they desire neither to retain this

would be the

better

166

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST

sum

nor to relinquish the will as

God

They seek only

acquired.

our Lord inspires them, and

as

seems better for the service

and praise of the Divine Majesty. Meanwhile, they will duct themselves

make

will

service

as if

every attachment to

want

efforts neither to

of God

God

unless the

a result, the

a literal

resonance for someone

he had been raised in a world that relished money and

like Ricci, since

hometown of Macerata was no

if his

ing to Montaigne,

Rome

else,

As

it.

These meditations would have had

Even

so.

our Lord will be the cause of their

accepting anything or relinquishing

uses.

strive to con-

had been broken. They

our Lord alone moves them to do

desire to be better able to serve

its

it

nor anything

that,

and not

to will

who

visited

in the spring

it

great place (accord-

of 1581 en route from

was

still

pretty enough, perched atop a conical hill in fertile country, with a

new

to

Ancona), and had few

really beautiful buildings,

it

and imposing entrance gate bearing the gilded inscription "Porta Buoncompagno," which marked

Rome

it

as

the terminus of the road from

through the papal Marches, and 8

the regions.

The big

as the legates'

central square, with

its bell

tower and cathedral

church, the palace for the papal legate, the merchant

stone street that led gradually

down

hill,

to him, almost foot by foot,

ground plan

for the

memory

all

in

foot,

pilgrims'

must have been

and might well have provided the

places he fixed in his mind.

alongside the roads in which the constant

on

where the

around the contours

wine was good, evaporated half away by heat to make

elers,

the narrow

following the lines of the walls, or that swooped at intervals

downhill, breaking into jagged flights of steps,

known

hall,

to the secondary square

Jesuits' school stood, the other streets that curled

of the

headquarters for

robes,

it

And

the local

stronger, sold

movement of human

trav-

carrying banners and crucifixes,

9 showed one was approaching the shrine of Loreto.

Ricci also

1572-73,

as

knew a

Florence well, for he had spent almost a year there in

twenty-year-old, after taking his

first

vows.

10

It

Florence that Ricci used as a yardstick for measuring Chinese

when he

visited

them

trepot in northern

for the first time:

Guangdong

Nanxiong, the busy

was

cities

river en-

province, where he converted the mer-

167

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO chant "Giuseppe," was "the

RICCI

of Florence"; the administrative center

size

of Ganzhou, which he visited with the mandarin Scielou, was "larger" than Florence; and Nanchang, described by Ricci

as

"jammed with

al-

chemists, curiosity seekers, scholars, and those interested in studying

memory-place systems," was "twice the reduced

ter case familiarity

it

to "the

size"

same

— even though

in this lat11

size" in a later letter.

It

was

about friends in Florence, too, that Ricci reminisced to his former rhetoric teacher

when he

Rome, even was

Historia,

first

described his attempts to learn Chinese.

also very

much

much in his letters or his thoughts. One of the few books he

mention

Ricci did not

if

in his

it

had brought to the Jesuit residence next to the church of

when he

Quirinale

Urbis Romae, with tions of latest

its

of the imperial

its tales

and most expensive

there, so

like.

As he

13

When

city's past glories

he was

in

books on the

illustrated

city to

he could give the Chinese some sense of what

some such books,

much

me what

and

illustra-

for the

be sent to

Rome

told his former schoolmate Fuligatti in a letter of 1596,

and gain us too

Andrew's

China he asked

could get the general of the order or some of the teachers to send

St.

enrolled as a novice there in 1571 was the Mirabilia

former splendors.

him

much

for

you

credit let's

"it

is

would be worth many

among

arrange

the cost will be and

something that

these people; and in

it

if

at

was if

scudi to us here,

the expenses are

such a way that you can write to

send [the cash] to you from here, or

I'll

Thirteen years later he wrote

of equivalent value."

quested that a Roman Antiquities be sent from Europe

with copper engravings, so that if

nobody has

sent

Your Reverence sults here,

and

I

gence, and send Ricci had left

Pope Sixtus last

V

that this

show

can

I

one because

cause they couldn't find one for is

sale.

my At

this

at the

the

in the late 1580s

completed the dome on

many

times,

to these people.

I

don't

never arrived, or be-

point I'd like to remind

this

matter with some

re-

dili-

court in Peking."

immense

spate of rebuilding under

transformed the face of the city and

St. Peter's as

168

re-

one

something that would have excellent

me here Rome before to

it

letters

beg you to apply yourself to it

he

the college

to General Acquaviva's assistant, Alvarez, rather petulantly: "I've

know

12

at

conceived by Michelangelo

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST thirty years before.

Pope Gregory 1585.

at

Nor had he

new Roman

seen the

college built by

an estimated cost of 400,000 ducats between 1581 and

But he had already been able

form an idea of the splendid new

to

church of the Jesuits, the Gesu, begun uncle to the prince of Parma, which

in

when

1575 by Cardinal Farnese, Ricci was a student was

al-

ready being used for Mass, for preaching, and for hearing confessions,

although

it

nessed the

And

was only half-completed.

pomp

with which

Rome

celebrated festive occasions. Per-

haps the finest was Corpus Christi day,

church walked in procession that stretched

down

when massed

dignitaries of the

the long avenue shaded with canvas

from the papal palace to the gates of St.

of the tented arcade were hung with the rial

Ricci had naturally wit-

Peter's.

finest tapestries

bearings of all the cardinals, the posts supporting

it

The

sides

and the armo-

held garlands of

green leaves and flowers, while from the windows along the route

mounted

bright cloths were displayed by the citizens. Swiss Guards and cavalry in red-velvet uniforms

marched beside the singing choirs and

the crowds of worshipers, each of

borne in

his litter

whom

came the pope himself as trumpets blew

cannons roared from the

castle

Ricci had been a student in

of

groups up to

a

gelo Pientini

when he came

What

clarions

and

Angelo.

St.

Rome

during the 1575

tens of thousands of pilgrims flocked to

when he

held two white candles, while

Rome

thousand strong, providing to record

it,

from

all

jubilee,

over

a spectacle that

as

it

when

Italy, in

dazed An-

dazed Gregory Martin

transcribed Pientini's account for English readers:

shal

I

speake of other Companies from other Cities, (some

onely of gentlemen and nobles) whose several varieties in notable points of devotion and charitie, their furniture for golden and silver Crosses and Crucifixes, for banners and streamers of

and velvet with

al

most

costly silke

kind of holy pictures thereupon, their provision of

vestments, Altar clothes, sacred vessel, Instruments and quiers for the solemnitie of Masse

their journey

and

in the holy Citie;

and espe-

holy devises, for goodly and godly shewes in every

Com-

some representing death and damnation, some heavenly

joyes,

cially their

panie,

al

other some the Church Militant, other the Church Triumphant, the

169

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI Orders of Angels, the varietie of Martyrs and Martyrdoms with the

in-

struments thereof; the diversitie of Saincts, the puritie of Virgins, the stories

of the Old Testament, the

ber of the

like able to

move

Ricci found lesser but

dors in

when he

Goa, with

its

still

Goa

reached

The

in 1578.

magnificent high

and with

Alvares,

num-

a

18

impressive proofs of the church's splen-

painting of the conversion of

Emmanuel

of Penitents; these and

state

a Christian hart.

three-naved church of

altar,

made

Paul,

St.

was enriched with in the 1560s

tabernacle built by

a

St.

Paul

a

huge

by Father

Brother John

Gonqalves and gilded by Father Marcos Rodriguez. There he attended

evensong

by

services, led

five priests

accompanied by

a choir

of close to

one hundred orphans and native Indian catechumens being prepared for baptism,

who

sang to the music of a host of instruments, including

tamborines, trumpets,

flutes, violas,

and

There he revered

a clavichord.

the cross given to the church by the former general of the Jesuit order, Francis Borgia, a cross

was

the

wood of the

thirty priests

and

were needed to serve them

in the Jesuit residence Ricci

19 all.

Goa was

Roger Berwouts,

whom

a

Fleming,

who

were added the new

viva and Francis Pasio, Ricci's letters also

who

it

Italian arrivals, fathers

Rodolfo Acqua-

put to work in the hospital.

though work was

bakery, laundry rooms, and stables.

21

is

still

Indeed, the

garden of many and lovely flowers," wrote

its

preached

that he loved the structure of the Jesuit

integrated "machine," even

phrase, because in

who

taught theology; Brother

and chapels and dormitories; the whole struck him

Ricci arrived. "It

group

ran the dispensary and the refectory;

who were

show

who

a

served as librar-

dence, which was being expanded under his eyes, with

month

so

cosmopolitan

a

the Portuguese fathers Martin da Silva, the superior,

each Sunday, and George Carvalhal,

to

itself,

found he was joining

that included the English novice Stephen Cudner, ian;

true cross

and celebrated Mass among crowds so large that more than

said,

place,

made from

a paradise

material fabric, in

170

a

its

as

resi-

outbuildings

being

a totally

under way on the

compound was

like "a

long-term resident in the

of delights,

if I

its size, style,

might use the

and appearance

it

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST is

Company,

the best of all those in the

who have come here One father felt that in

as all agree

from the other main provinces of the Order."

and beauty

size

it

could be compared only to the residence in Milan,

and the Jesuits could indeed believe themselves back in Europe listened to the singing pets,

amazed

to

who had

find

—black

poorest

a

23

—wore shorts and

abundance

traveled to

trousers of freshly

He

was used not only

it

at

the same time as Ricci, was the

being everywhere, cheap to buy and cheap to

for the wealthier.

profusion that

Goa

fruit trees.

world of startling cleanliness where even

slaves

feed in

of the choir, accompanied by organ and trum-

and the sweet sounds that rose above the gardens and

Francis Pasio,

they

as

washed cotton, and

found glazed chinaware for eating

was

silk

in such

and food storage but

even for chamber pots to be kept under the bed for nightly use.

But

it

was

far

Goa

harder to develop such magnificence in

than in

Rome. Just to find talented artists and craftsmen was difficult enough. The Jesuits did not permit Hindus to paint Christian themes, nor would any devout Muslim paint such images. work. There

restricted in their

that

Marcos Rodriguez,

Goa from

is

a native

25

Even Jesuit

artists

were

documented but unexplained

the

of Bruges in Flanders,

1563 to 1601 and wished to devote his

life

who

to art,

fact

lived in

was con-

fined to the production of small-scale works; his superiors confiscated

many of

and equipment, forbade him to sculpt the crucifixes

his tools

he loved to make, and deflected a request from the fathers in Japan that

he be allowed to

As the

travel there.

of the order in 1591,

"My

This shortage of talent

may

eral

dispirited artist

wrote to the gen-

inspiration goes for nothing."

some credence

lend

to the curious ac-

counts of the virtual kidnapping in 1583 of the English painter James Storie

(or Story)

after

English travelers in the

who

he had been imprisoned along with three at

jail

Goa.

initially acted as interpreter for

It

was Father Marcos Rodriguez

the group, since the four prisoners

knew no Portuguese but two of them had referred to affectionately

"a Fleming

fair

Dutch; the father was

by one of the imprisoned men, Ralph Fitch,

named Marco

.

.

.

who

shrewd Dutch trader and navigator

befriended us."

who had

171

as

John Linschoten,

a

Goa, took

a

lived long in

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO less

RICCI

sanguine view, claiming that Marcos had been secretly informed

that theprisoners

the Order."

u

had great sums of money, and sought to get that

for

Linschoten continued with an interesting analysis of

Storie's fate:

And

although the fathers knew that he was not one of those

the treasure, yet, because he was a painter, of

which would cost them great charges were very glad of him, and hoped

money, into

To

in

to bring

time to get

who had

there are few in

and that they had great need of one to paint

India,

their

whom

their church,

from Portugal, they all

the

rest,

with

all

their fellowship.

conclude, they

made

this painter a Jesuit,

and he continued

where they gave him plenty of work to perform, and entertained him with all the favor and friendship they

some time

in their college,

could devise,

win the

rest to

become

in prison in great fear,

who came

any

to

all

three remained

their prey.

But the other

because they did not understand

to them, neither did any

one understand what they

•J 27

said.

Fitch and another friend finally fled secretly from Goa, forfeiting the sureties that they

Storie stayed

on

and some bondsmen had put up

in his

for the viceroy.

But

comparatively gilded cage until, according again

to Linschoten, he finally got his freedom:

When

the English painter,

who had become

countrymen were gone, and found with so great favour as at

first,

a Jesuit,

heard that his

that the Jesuits did not use

him

he repented himself; and not having

made any solemn vow, and being counselled to leave their house, he told them that he made no doubt of gaining a living in the city, and that they had no right to keep him against his inclination, and as they could not accuse him of any crime, he was determined not to remain with them. They used all the means they could devise to keep him in the college, but he would not stay; and hiring a house in the city, he opened shop

as a painter,

where he got plenty of employment, and

in

the end married the daughter of a mestee [Indian-Portuguese halfcaste], so that

By

this

he

laid his

Englishman

I

account to remain there

was instructed 172

in all the

as

long

as

he

lived.

way, trades, and voyages

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST of the country between Aleppo, and Ormus, and of of

all

Portuguese possession ever since

it

in the overland passage, as also

customs observed

on the

places

Muslim

a

sultan of Bijapur by

was not surprising that

it

had become such

community by

was seized from in 1510, so

it

a thriving center for reli-

become

also

a

the time Ricci arrived there in late 1582, even

though the Portuguese had resided there was

the towns and

Afonso de Albuquerque

But the Macao peninsula had

gion, war, and trade.

thriving

the rules and

route.

Goa had been the

all

in a curious state, since

it

than thirty years. Macao

less

remained technically an annex of Xiang-

shan county and subject to the jurisdiction of the Chinese county magistrate.

Macao

residents

were

liable to property searches

and were cut off from China by

a

ficial

passes.

The population of Macao

whom

1582, of

perhaps four or

seizures,

well-guarded wall through which the

Chinese were allowed to pass only twice 29

and

five

a

week and then only with

totaled

of-

around ten thousand by

hundred were Portuguese men, the

others being their Indian or Chinese consorts, the mixed-race children

of these unions, black

slaves,

members of

the various religious orders,

and three or four hundred resident Chinese families terpreters

as

well

and

shopkeepers

as

who

served as in-

There were three

artisans.

churches, a large hospital, and a charitable foundation. °°

church was especially handsome due to the

wooden roof had been

—the roof being

the gift of a captain-general of the Macao-Japan trade,

had

pound, built

anticipation of his

in

—who

Ruggieri

whose

a little

house

in the

had been sent from

insistence Ricci

Jesuit

fact that its original plain

replaced by a tiled one in 1571

lhena. Ricci even

The

Antonio de Vi-

grounds of the Jesuit com-

coming by

Goa

to

had been transferred

his

Macao

also

—

Michele

friend in

1579 and

at a cost

at

of thirty

ducats donated by local residents; here Ricci was able to plunge into his

Chinese studies in peace and quiet, assisted by nese Christians

Any

who

helped

him

as teachers

a

group of baptized Chi-

and

interpreters.

sense of isolation from the wider world that Ricci

31

might have

experienced, however, was an illusion, for every detail of the trading

173

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO success or failure of the

Macao merchants

RICCI

affected the Jesuits'

hope

for

expansion. Macao's fortunes, in turn, depended primarily on the Por-

tuguese carracks, or "black ships," that sailed once each year from Goa, via

Macao,

to Japan.

members of

The

right to

command

this flotilla,

granted to

the nobility, important financial figures, and military lead-

by the Portuguese crown, virtually guaranteed enormous profits

ers

phenomena of

(barring shipwreck) because of two tury

economic

life in

the Far East.

China and Japan,

to silver in

One was

for in

late-sixteenth-cen-

the different ratios of gold

China

silver

was the dominant

metal of exchange, was scarce, and was in constant demand, whereas in

Japan

was

silver

popular

less

Therefore by buying

then shipping that

much

silk in

silk to

currency and was also mined in bulk.

as

China with

Japan

silver

obtained in Japan, and

for resale, skillful traders

30 or 40 percent return on their investments;

as a

could make if

as

they could

include shipments of Chinese gold and exchange that for silver in

Japan, their profits could the

Ming

Though some Japanese

made

in

traders

Vietnam and

Macao who were

32

The second was

community.

With an

coastal

towns by Japanese

began to search for new markets

Bengal or Persia, most were

as far afield as

And

it

was the Portuguese traders

perfectly situated to act as

of competition from China's

traders in

60 percent.

and Southeast Asia, and experimented with buying

content to deal with the Portuguese. in

as

on Chinese shipping and

in the Philippines silk

high

emperors' prohibition of direct trade with Japan as a result of

the incessant raids pirates.

rise as

own

middlemen, without

fear

aggressive and skillful merchant

33

eye to maintaining their profits at the

Macao worked out

a system

maximum

level,

the

by which the purchase of

silk

from the Chinese was supervised by three elected "procurators"; these three

men (one was

the biennial trade citizens,

profits

fairs

held in Canton were shared

with the intent of giving to each

man

among

all

made

at

eligible

such a share that "the

therefrom are enough to support his family for a year in keeping

with his station." a

often a Jesuit) ensured that silk purchases

maximum

34

The

procurators fixed the total annual silk quota at

of 1,600 piculs for the entire Macao community (each 174

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST picul being approximately 133

pounds

was subsequently sent to Japan on the

in

Western weight). This

vessels

commanded by

silk

the king's

captain-major and sold as one unit at a fixed price to a consortium of

Japanese merchant buyers

down

— thus preventing the Japanese from forcing

the price by holding off

strict instructions

not to

any

sell

on purchases. silk

All traders were under

outside this fixed quota, and never

surreptitiously to transship Japanese investors' silver back to

many Japanese not

investment

in

Church and

state collaborated in enforcing these bans:

tion

as

silk,

was the penalty

Macao

requested.

surprisingly

excommunica-

for shipping Japanese silver illegally, as well as

confiscation of the precious metal, while heavy fines were levied

who

those

high

sold silk in Japan outside the

400 ounces of silver

as

captain.

for

—

monopoly agreement

on

fines as

in the

documented

case of

was so

great, profits

were high for the Japa-

one greedy ship

35

Since the

demand

for silk

nese as well, and during the civil-war years of the late sixteenth century different Japanese nobles bargained hard for the benefit

black ships

come

to harbors they controlled; the great Japanese general

Hideyoshi was particularly active in the

buy up

close to

trade,

ordering his agents to

one hundred thousand pounds of raw

during 1581, and

of having the

as

much

silk in

Nagasaki

again at Satsuma the following year. In the

1560s the Jesuits tried to push trade in the direction of Japanese nobles

who might went

seek conversion to the Christian faith: after 1571 the ships

regularly to the swiftly

growing port of Nagasaki, where the

ing families were Christian. For

some

after a

One

owned by

newly converted Japanese nobleman deeded

it

the Jesuits,

to them.

36

of the most successful early traders with Japan in the 1550s was

the surgeon Luis de Almeida, a generous

where he founded fering

end of the century

years at the

the whole city of Nagasaki was even technically

rul-

a shelter for

from leprosy and

Jesuit order, donating

endower of charities

orphans and

syphilis. In

some 4,000

in Japan,

a hospital for those suf-

1556 Almeida formally joined the

ducats,

which the Jesuits promptly

invested in the silk trade. Profits were high, but also erratic; in the disastrous wreck of the "black ship" in 1573 during a

175

typhoon

off the Jap-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI

drowned and

anese coast 500 people were

of goods were

37

lost.

It

was the

teacher Alessandro Valignano,

of

a

nearly 800,000 ducats'

visitor to the Indies, Ricci's

who worked

it

annual lading of 1,600 able to

buy the

silk

bales;

The

all.

fifty

sell it

the

Macao

bales of Chinese silk in each

he estimated that the Jesuits would be

from Chinese dealers

cost of 4,500 ducats and

ducats in

some of

needed. Valignano obtained permission from the

council for the Jesuits to be granted

details

(barring such catas-

trophes) the Jesuits' Japan mission could be guaranteed

income

former

out during 1578 the

new commercial agreement under which

worth

to

for

90 ducats per bale

at a total

for 140 ducats a bale, or 7,000

Japan

would of course be

gross profit of 2,500 ducats

duced by freight charges and other taxes of 13 percent on the

re-

total

shipment, but could be expected to yield a net annual profit of about 1,600 ducats.

By

Macao council

a clever codicil to this

to agree that in cases

agreement, Valignano got the

where

all

the silk was not sold in

Japan, the Jesuits would not share in any loss that might be incurred by other traders; rather, the Jesuits'

having been sold

among

the

first

fifty

bales

would always be counted

parts of any deal, so that their

would be constant. From other documents we know

as

income

that the Macao-

based Jesuits could also leave unsold silk with the Japanese fathers for sale at a later date, as well as

thereby saving the cost of shipping

holding bulk

after the ships

on consignment

silk

had departed,

2,000 ducats in certain years.

The

a

in

it

back to Macao,

Japan for other traders

procedure that could net them a further

38

morality of Jesuit involvement in this trade was certainly open

to question.

At the Council of Trent, which had ended not long before

Valignano came out to the

East, senior

churchmen had urged

penalties

of suspension or even excommunication for those indulging in such trading.

39

Yet deprived of the great landholdings that brought

rich rev-

enues in Latin America, or of a major mercantile base backed by shipbuilding and regular dues as provided in Goa, the Jesuits in China and

Japan

felt

they had no choice but to invest in such trade

if

they were to

continue their charitable and mission works. They continued to put

money

into Portuguese carracks

on the Nagasaki 176

run, as they did into

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST the great Spanish galleons that traveled each year between Acapulco

and Manila. Often the arguments they used verged on the specious: that

it

could not be called trading

if

one did not

being shipped, or that one was not engaged in a business deal not

set foot in a

°

Chinese market.

to the Far East in the 1570s,

the silk

literally touch if

one did

At the very beginning of his mission

Valignano thought

it

necessary to check

with the Jesuit general Mercurian, pointing out that the trade was

in-

deed technically handled entirely by middlemen and was justified by the mission's poverty. Before answering, Mercurian checked in turn

with Pope Gregory XIII. Only when the pope gave his consent did the general formally agree to Valignano's procedure,

the time this permission reached since the original decision

Macao

though of course by

three years or

had been made. Despite

more had passed

this papal permis-

Macao and Japan continued to have qualms of conabout the whole business, and some of them petitioned that

sion, Jesuits in

science

Jesuit involvement in the trade be banned; only in the later 1580s did

General Acquaviva reaffirm Mercurian's position and instruct the Jesuits to

continue their financial investments.

When

Ricci arrived at

Macao

Valignano, always seeking

converts from noble families

in

him

whom

derlined the fragility of the

silk,

whole

financial

backing for

town four Japanese Christian

he was escorting back to Europe

Latin, Portuguese,

appreciation for European music.

of

in the

of royal audiences. The four young

Macao learning

trade, for

he found that his superior

new ways of obtaining

the Eastern missions, had with

for a series

in late 1582,

l

men were

hard

at

work

and Spanish and developing an

Yet the events of

that year only un-

financial structure based

on sea-borne

of the two carracks that went to Japan that July with cargoes

one was wrecked

off the coast of

Formosa and sank, although

passengers and crew were rescued; while of the

on which the four Japanese nobles

finally

little fleet

embarked

in

of three ships

December, one

ship was soon wrecked off Singapore and the ambassadors'

own

vessel

was swamped and had to be lightened by throwing overboard hundreds of thousands of ducats' worth of cargo, despite which she

aground near Malacca.

42

177

still

ran

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

The

of ships and cargo on the homeward run to

loss

had important long-range ships

they

RICCI

on Jesuit

effects

Goa and Europe

finances, especially if the

went down before reaching Portuguese-controlled Malacca, where

would have

to pay massive transit dues,

some of which would

later

reach the Jesuit missions in the form of payments remitted back to

them by the crown. heading for Japan,

3

in

But

shipwreck

a

of the 1582 carrack

like that

which 200,000 ducats' worth of goods were

the Jesuit share of which was a to the fledgling

China mission,

Jesuits lost their

own money;

full 8,000,

brought an immediate

as Ricci noted. It

the

money from

when

the whole city" of Macao, and

was not

lost, crisis

just that the

the silk ships "supported

the city lost so

much few would

be disposed to help the Jesuits with any further alms; the Jesuits fered twice, as

it

were. This was

all

the

more

serious because,

suf-

though

Ruggieri and other Jesuits had been able to accompany the Portuguese traders

on

their biennial visits to the

been loaned space

in

Canton

trade fairs

and had even

the hostels used by tribute emissaries passing

through Canton, they had been unable to get permission from Chinese

officials to set

turn to

Macao

It

was

up

a

permanent

residence,

was

after the trading season

in this politically hectic

and always had to

and economically

difficult

to reside in China, thus bringing to reality the great

who had

nese

managed

them constantly

Nevertheless,

favor.

to

make

permission

dream of Francis

remained economically precarious through the

following years, torn by the feuds that left

first

period that

died off China's coast in 1552 (the year of Ricci's

birth). Their mission

guese, and

in

set off

Spaniards against Portu-

the mercy of shifting winds of Chi-

at

this

inhospitable

small yet steady gains.

were only two or three Jesuit

context

the Jesuits

Throughout the 1580s

priests in China,

there

accompanied by no more

than one or two Chinese novices and six or seven domestic servants,

of

whom

sion.

were

restricted for

most of the decade

The number of Chinese who converted

year averaged around fifteen, of

number of

re-

over.

the Macao-based Jesuits managed, in 1582, to get their

Xavier,

local

whom many

those baptized seemed

more 178

to the

all

Zhaoqing mis-

to Christianity in a given

were elderly and

sick; the

impressive, but the fathers ac-

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST knowledged death.

43

that

By the

most of these were infant children on the edge of though the Zhaoqing mission was closed by the

1590s,

Chinese, there were greater successes in the three

of Shaozhou, Nanchang, and Nanjing;

merous novices, began these converts being

ground. the

46

men

mission centers

with nu-

six to ten priests,

count their converts

in the dozens,

some of

of successful scholarly or commercial back-

After 1601 and the opening of a fourth mission, in Peking,

number of Jesuit

hundred and

priests rose to seventeen,

when

many of

year or more,

fifty a

A

influential families. in 1605,

to

now

new

three

house were converted

a cadet

these being from rich and

license

—

imperial

men's princely

these

"king," the Jesuits aptly gave the

as

names of Caspar, Melchior, and

around

this time, boasted that Jesuit successes in

ised to

be

as great as

Ming

branch of the

Translating

together.

—with some poetic

three the baptismal

a

pinnacle of a kind seems to have been reached

members of

titles

and conversions rose to

Balthasar.

48

Ricci,

China not only prom-

those in Japan had been, but indeed might rival

anything "that had been done from the beginning of the Apostles' preaching

down

Surviving

to

our

letters

own

time."

9

by Ricci and Ruggieri show

how

obsessed they

were, from the start of the mission, with the strategy of seeking success

by providing correct

gifts for the Chinese, for they

saw that

this

be the key to their whole enterprise. In a preliminary shopping to the general of the Jesuit order in 1580, Ruggieri trated

books showing

stories

might

list

had requested

sent illus-

from the Old Testament and depicting

the mysteries of Christ's Passion, an illustrated guide to Christian lands (so the Chinese could begin to understand that

Europe was

tion rather than a collection of unruly merchants), rated Bible.

able to give

A

and

year later Ruggieri was asking if the

them "alms" of one thousand

ducats,

brought out to Macao by Portuguese merchants.

a richly deco-

pope might be

which could be

He was

optimistic days planning for a possible conversion of

a civiliza-

in these early,

Emperor Wanli

himself, since he requested religious reliquaries, a "magnificent Bible in

four languages, decorated and rich" (in obvious reference to the eight-

volume Plantin polyglot Bible

just

179

given to the Indian emperor

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

Akbar), tapestries containing scenes from the Old Testament and the

New and

which could be used "to decorate the Chinese emperor's rooms,"

all

the furnishings for a luxurious chapel in which the Chinese em-

peror could

had also

specifically

two clocks

Mass. Ruggieri added that his "Chinese friends"

assist at

— one

recommended one

large

and be heard from

that he give the Chinese

for the palace that

a great distance,

monarch

would chime the hours

one small or domestic

in size, like

"that which Cardinal Orsino gave to the pope in the year that

Rome"

I

left

51

(i.e.,

in 1577).

For the next several

years, before they

had

really learned

enough Chi-

nese to explain complex scientific ideas in that language, the Jesuits

used the clock

one of

as

This decision was made

poverishment of China

their key elements in all

more

the

practical

winning Chinese

by the comparative im-

clockmaking technology,

in

favors.

for the glories of

mechanism of the old Song dynasty clocks

the complex escapement

driven by water and sand, and the ingenious decorative and mechanical devices that

clockmaking

went with them, had never been recovered artisans

Northern Song

in 1127. In the

ever, a revolution cially

had been forcibly relocated

after China's

after the fall

of the

Europe of the 1570s and 1580s, how-

was taking place

in the science

of clockmaking, espe-

with the development of small, powerful, coiled-steel springs

as

the drive mechanism, which enabled miniaturization of clocks to pro-

ceed at a startling rate in European manufacturies. This in turn led to

expansion of sales to the middle

classes, instead

of just to rich people or

public institutions that had hitherto been the main customers. this

With

expansion came specialization of labor in the technological world

of clock production and further refinement in design, decoration, and manufacture.

52

Ruggieri had

velopments, and in 1583,

new

a

general sense of these technological de-

when

repeating his request for clocks to the

general of the order, Claudio Accjuaviva, he asked for "a clock of

metal, a

palm high, which has the counterweights

inside, since those

that have [the weights] outside are not so pleasing to these here."

53

gentlemen

Ruggieri had already given away the best of his clocks to the

ranking military

official in

Canton

in order to

180

win

his

support for the

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST might have been predicted, merely

mission, but this present, as

creased the pressure from other officials for identical gifts.

when

to Ruggieri

seemed providential

It

must have

Macao

Ricci arrived in

in-

in

Au-

gust 1582 bearing another such clock, which had been presented to the

China mission by the Goa father provincial, Vincentino Rodrigo;

two southeast provinces of Guangdong and

the governor-general of the

Guangxi had been asking

for a clock

with some insistence, despite the

he had already been given more than one thousand ducats'

fact that

worth of the

finest velvets, camelots,

pair of eyeglasses. (These last

who was by a

laid

up

were

and

crystal mirrors, as well as a

a special gift

from Father Ruggieri,

bed with a particularly painful abscess, brought on

in

local doctor's inability to find a vein properly

him, and darin.)

felt

when

nervous that his enforced absence might

trying to bleed

the man-

irritate

5

Ruggieri,

Macao on

now

the

and Francis Pasio (who had come to

recovered,

same ship

as Ricci)

traveled to

Zhaoqing

in late 1582,

carrying their clock for the governor-general; he received both

them on December the

for

new Gregorian

30,

1582

calendar,

—gave

the following year

seemed disposed to

let

—according

and

to the old-style calendar, not

which only took

them lodging

them

it

in

effect in the Far East later

a

Buddhist temple, and

But

stay permanently.

as

the Jesuits in

China learned, and were to keep relearning, the Chinese bureaucratic system did not offer for

such

gifts.

much

in the

way of long-term guarantees

The governor-general was

recalled

from

in return

office in

spring of 1583, and the Jesuits had no choice but to leave their

the resi-

dence and return to Macao. Despairing of any permanence in China,

Valignano ordered Pasio to leave

when

the

new

and they reached the first

struggle,

had already

sailed

governor-general allowed the Jesuits to settle in Zhao-

qing once more. This time

This

for Japan; Pasio

city

it

was Ricci

on September

who accompanied 10, 1583.

residence in China inaugurated a

which Ricci was

to

wage

Ruggieri,

new kind of

until he died in

Peking

financial

in the spring

of 1610. Indeed, so absorbed was Ricci in problems of landownership, lodging, and real-estate prices that his writings give detailed informa-

181

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO on

tion

of the

this aspect

where. In their

late

Ming economy not

RICCI easily obtainable else-

base at Zhaoqing, west of Canton, the local prefect

first

"assigned" them a plot of land on the edge of a temple complex. site

was outside the

on the banks of

city walls,

a river, in

an area of

market gardens and small cottages, pretty though very small.

around

at

Here

side of

with windows spaced in the Western manner, and

a central hallway,

veranda

56

two rooms on each

the Jesuits decided to build a house of brick,

The

the back with a view of the

a central courtyard in

Chinese

river,

style.

rather than building

By the end of

the

first

phase of construction the Jesuits had spent well over 250 ducats.

Some of this money

they had brought in with them,

selling a glass prism,

Gaspar Viegas, and

a

Macao. But since the

some

57

some they got by

from the wealthy Macao resident

as a gift

hundred ducats came site

a

had no room

from Chinese

in loans

for a decent church, Ricci

in

and

—including

Ruggieri began buying up small adjacent parcels of land

some "petty houses"

—so they could have

a

church and "a

slice

of gar-

den." At least twenty ducats went on these investments, which

have led to

a

good

Zhaoqing

leave

in

deal of local resentment.

When

1589 by newly appointed

their mission, the viceroy offered

them

may

they were forced to

officials

unsympathetic to

sixty ducats for the structures,

and though they protested with some vigor, knowing that the viceroy intended to use the house for himself and that the the market price, they had

no choice but

to accept.

sum was

far

below

58

In Shaozhou, north of Canton, which was their next base, Ricci was willing to put

up eight

on the edge of the

owner

to ten ducats for a site about 130 feet by 80 feet

city

by the

river,

but hearing of his interest the

raised the price to eighty ducats. In this case, because

of the

owner's greed, Ricci seems to have been given permission to build by local officials

without ever coming up with the purchase

presumably also led to considerable

Once site,

hostility

price,

which

from the original owner.

again, desire for expansion led the Jesuits to eye a neighboring

a parcel

ducats.

59

of

fields

with two ponds which were going for

fifty

These investments were made with remittances from Macao,

but by the time Ricci moved yet again, to Nanchang in Jiangxi prov182

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST ince, the

funds were so unreliable that they

with

ducats which the church had

fifty

made

available to them; in the

event, few Chinese were willing to rent to them,

fused to give

bought

them formal permission

a small

house

decided to rent,

initially

and

local officials re-

So Ricci ultimately

to purchase.

for sixty ducats, inside the city walls this time,

contenting himself with oral permission from the mandarins, using the fifty

money

ducats' rental

rate adjustable sundials.

60

plus the extra he

made by

selling his elabo-

This house never proved suitable, since

was

it

small and subject to constant flooding, yet when, after Ricci had

left,

pay 1,200 ducats for a splendid house

his successor Jesuits decided to

were prevented by public

that could be converted into a novitiate, they

outcry and ended up getting a poor price on the small house and hav-

ing to buy a

new

one, not

much

larger, for

500 ducats; this

new

pur-

chase turned out to be in disputed ownership and led to complex legal •

negotiations.

61

By the time king,

and

on the national

skilled negotiator.

numerous

knowing

staff,

hunt

Ricci started to stage, as

it

Needing

for

housing

were, he had

in

Nanjing and

Pe-

become an experienced

large houses for his fellow Jesuits, their

and various novices, converts, and

that purchase of large houses

visitors,

but also

by foreigners was bound to

cause anger and resentment, he adopted the device of looking for

houses which the Chinese claimed were haunted. By this means he got a

house

in

Nanjing with room "for eight

hundred ducats and

a

few years

later

one

to ten missionaries" for four in

Peking with "about forty In both Nanjing

rooms, large and small," for seven hundred ducats.

and Peking, Ricci rented

for at least a year before buying, to allay local

suspicions and to get a better sense of

In both

cities, too,

he

remitted direct from

what

tried to arrange for large

Macao by

letter

of

credit,

was swindled, leading him to conclude "that clearly

we

had to

offer.

sums of money

to be

local brokers

though

in

both cases he

in credit matters

can trust nothing from the Chinese."

63

And

in

we

both

see

cities

Ricci fought successfully to evade the basic responsibilities of service

and taxes that came from owning such holdings: suading the magistrate to

let

them

ofT night patrol

183

in

Nanjing by

per-

and watchmen's du-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO ties in their area,

from urban taxes five

and

—

in

Peking by winning

RICCI

permanent exemption

a

were estimated

a considerable savings, since these

at

ducats a year.

The

contrast of this final

economic expertise with

their

stumbling

attempts could not have been greater. In the spring of 1584,

earlier

only a few months' residence in China, Ricci and Ruggieri, strug-

after

gling to build a house and church, to feed themselves and the servants

who

lived with them,

and

their interpreters' families,

and to meet

brought into China. There

is

all

the expenses of their interpreters

had run out of

if

they got

him

a clock

hurried to do his bidding.

'

they'd

almost a sense of inevitability in reading

that at this point the Zhaocjing prefect

them

money

the

all

Wang

Pan told them he'd help

from Macao, and of course the Jesuits

Much

of their work

in

China was

to de-

pend on these shifting whims or sudden lurches of mandarin

With Wang Pan behind him, to slip humiliatingly back

Ruggieri,

who might

taste.

otherwise have had

through the gate into Macao, broke and

dis-

credited, arrived instead in the city by water, riding the prefect's splen-

more than

did barge propelled by

thirty

oarsmen.

And when

he found

that the residents of Macao, short of ready cash themselves and full of

anxiety at the delayed return of that year's trading vessels from Japan,

were unwilling to give the Jesuits any further alms with which to buy

new

clocks, Ruggieri simply sent the best of the

work with

Ricci in Zhaoqing.

trained in metallurgy

"a Canary Islander

added no other

Where

and clockmaking

how

or

this

to

man had been

Ricci called

him

India, black-skinned,"

but

unknown;

is

who had come from

details except that

Macao clockmakers

he was

a

master craftsman.

Wang

Pan assigned two Chinese metalworkers to work alongside the black craftsman, and the polyglot team proceeded, apparently successfully,

with some participation by Ricci himself, to construct Ironically

enough,

after all the labor,

no one

could regulate the clock properly. Perhaps

wound

incorrectly. For

whatever reason,

without rancor, and Ricci hung

During

this

time,

it

in his

Wang

in it

working

clock.

Pan's residence

was out of balance or

Wang own

a

gave

it

back to Ricci,

residence.

while Ruggieri continued his fund-raising in 184

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST Macao, Ricci was leading

hand-to-mouth existence, even selling one

a

of his prisms of Venetian glass to get selling

more than managed

it

to raise a loan

full

Ruggieri, on the other hand,

was worth.

in the early spring

for current expenses

twenty ducats, which he knew

in fact for

it

money

of 100 ducats

of 1584

when

initially,

had

a

well was far

who had

only

change of fortune

the 1583 ships finally returned, having

merely been held up in Japan longer than they expected after a disastrous

fire

had destroyed

much

of Nagasaki.

Ricci at Zhaoqing, bringing with

which had been given bly

as

another

coming from the Jesuit

him more than 400

four

table"

on

clocks,

all

by Gaspar Viegas, the

share of the trading vessels' voyage,

which

profitable.

a year later

And

as if that

was not

General Acquaviva sent

spring-driven (horiuoli di molla); one "for the

was conventional enough, chiming the hours and the quarters

a series

of different notes, but the three others

improvements

in

European horology

—were

be worn on a cord around the neck. in

some of

ducats,

proba-

enough turn of the wheel,

more

able to rejoin

rest

gift

was reported to have been unusually a fine

He was now

To

all

—

reflecting the rapid

so small that they could

this trove

King

Philip's agent

Manila added yet another, also spring-driven and of the "very

workmanship."

finest

9

In the light of these swings between near bankruptcy and sudden

af-

fluence with the arrival of rare objects or large quantities of silver bullion,

one can understand why so many Chinese thought that Ricci

must be some kind of alchemist. Not that he

had any

surprisingly, he repeatedly denied

special alchemical skills,

the stories altogether. In late

but he was never able to quash

Ming China

there were

two major

areas of

alchemical experimentation, both connected with Taoist religious beliefs:

one was dedicated

to the

making of

elixirs

of immortality, the

other was based on the transmutation of base metals into

both

areas,

cinnabar in weight,

its

— commonly termed quicksilver China— was prime ingredient because

mercury

a

consistency, and

with other metals. to believe that

its

in the

of

silver.

In

West and

its

color,

its

remarkable ability to be amalgamated

Ricci guessed that the Chinese found

he was an alchemist specializing 185

it

plausible

in the transformation

of

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

metals because Portuguese traders did indeed buy up large amounts of

mercury

in

Canton, which they shipped to India and Japan in boats

that later returned laden with silver. Since the Jesuits did not admit to

any outside sources of income,

was

it

Chinese to think

logical for the

they were literally creating this silver, or else had contacts with Portu-

guese alchemists

who were doing

Ricci's attitudes reinforced the

But there

so.

is

doubt that

little

Chinese conviction that he was an

al-

chemist: not only was he active in laboratory experiments and the

making of scientific

apparatus, but he was reticent

on

financial matters.

He might even have hinted that he did possess special powers, since we know that he once told a fellow Jesuit that he "thought it the lesser evil to confess to

financially

being an alchemist than to confess that he depended

on Macao."

Intriguingly enough, the Chinese

who

put two and two together

associating mercury and silver production were

on the

right track.

Potosi in Peru

world late

map

as a

— the

latter

major world

mentioned by Ricci

silver

source

in a notation

—had begun

sixteenth century after the richer ores

that had

major

effects

first

Potosi mines in

American

silver

a

new boom

on the global economy, by the application

was based on

developed

at

mines

1572, and from then

—hence

his

be cheaply

that could

of the mercury-amalgamation process for treating lower-yield This technique,

on

to decline in the

smelted had been exploited. This decline was halted, and

begun

The

Mexico and

Spaniards' massive silver-mining operations at Zacatecas in at

in

the financial

a precise correlation

in

silver ore.

Germany, was applied

to the

on the production of Latin

power of the Spanish empire

with available mercury supplies.

73

Until the mercury mines at Huancavelica in Peru were exploited early in the

seventeenth century, the Spaniards depended mainly on massive

shipments of mercury across the Atlantic from their

Almaden, supplemented by the deposits of

Idria.

own

deposits in

English privateers

worked

as

hard to intercept Spain's outward-bound mercury transport ships

as

knew

the importance of this trade well enough, and they

they did the returning galleons loaded with

White noted

in 1592, after his ship the

186

silver.

As Captain Thomas

Amity had captured two Span-

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST ish

cargo vessels carrying 1,400 chests of mercury between them, "by

this capture

of quicksilver, the King of Spain

lost for every quintal a

quintal of silver, that should have been delivered to

him by

74

masters in Peru, amounting in value to £600,000.

the mine-

Ricci had a close

Jesuit friend in Peru, his fellow Maceratan Battista Ferro,

and we know

not only that they kept in touch but that Ricci hoped to have Ferro transferred to the

China mission,

a plan

he dropped only in 1599 when

tensions between Spaniards and Portuguese had

came

interchanges between the missions

grown

so great that

to a virtual halt.

Ricci also studied such details as the transportation of ambergris

from Southeast Asia to Canton by the Portuguese, and the passionate

Ming

desire of the

believed 7

elixirs.

to

imperial court to obtain this product, since

become

a

It is logical to

was

it

drug when added to mercury

life-giving

in

suppose he had some knowledge of the shuttle

union of Spain and Portugal

trade that flourished briefly after the 1580

until national differences resurfaced: this trade

saw much Chinese mer-

cury shipped to Japan, and the promise of direct shipments from China to

Manila was taken seriously enough to lead to correspondence be-

tween the Manila governor and the archbishop of Mexico. In an unusual passage of economic analysis Ricci wrote very lucidly about these trade directly with

trade possibilities, saying that Spain's desire to

China had been deliberately sabotaged by the Macao Portuguese, feared that the Spanish

would dump too much Latin American

the Canton market, driving

down

financial deals there. Since the

prices

and wrecking

who

silver in

their profitable

Portuguese had been generous with their

alms to the Jesuits, the Jesuits must support them in their desire to

re-

main independent.

Throughout

his life in

China Ricci never threw

off this association

with alchemy. In the early days of the mission in Zhaoqing, the missionaries

underwent

a serious crisis

to have proof that the Jesuits

when

To

convert claimed

had alchemical powers; on the basis of his

contacts with Ricci, he procured cash and

exposed.

a dishonest

women

before he was finally

complicate matters, there were abandoned silver mines in

the hills outside Zhaoqing; in these mines lived gangs of homeless

187

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

who

people

often preyed

on the

A

rumor

and thus further spread

local villagers

the view that silver production and illegality

RICCI

somehow went

from Zhaoqing

that the Jesuits were expelled

79

1589 because

in

they had refused to yield up their alchemical secrets for

together.

making

silver

out of mercury not only gained local currency but was

later

published

Chinese book and had wide circulation in Ricci's

own

lifetime.

in a

Ricci's

mous

fame

as

an alchemist preceded him to Nanchang,

for practitioners

could disprove the friends,

of alchemical

stories.

Girolamo Costa,

in

more

deflected, because "the

October 1595,

this

them

that

assure

these matters, the less they believe me."

Peking Ricci

in 1598, a senior

eunuch

and sound him out on

in the

81

On

leave the city.

1609.

That same

he showed in year,

one of

his closest

"fame" could never be I

know nothing about first

brief visit to

court sent his staff to

his alchemical skills;

At the very end of

this reputation, as

to

Ricci's

Ricci could not turn mercury into silver, the 82

his

his close friend

when he

welcome

learned that

eunuch ordered him

Ricci was

life,

a rather

itself fa-

and there was no way he

arts,

As he wryly wrote

I

80

still

to

dogged by

exasperated letter to Pasio of

Qu

who had once

Rukuei,

sought Ricci out to study alchemy with him and had then become

a

Christian, had so fallen back into his alchemical studies that he had to

be urged to undertake ercises

a general

confession and follow the Spiritual Ex-

of Ignatius to be steered back onto the right path.

scholar Shen Defu,

Peking and got to

83

The Chinese

who had lived near Ricci during the last years in know him well, wrote in his reminiscences of Em-

peror Wanli's reign: "Because Ricci did not practice usury, and yet

seemed

to have everything that

short, people suspected that he

and the

fire," in

he needed

in

abundance and never ran

must have mastered the

other words, that he could create his

arts

of the forge

own money

sup-

ply by magical means. Shen added that he personally did not believe Ricci was an alchemist.

The same kind of ambiguity

ran over into Jesuit relations with the

Chinese generally, especially in the areas of

service,

tween independence and sycophancy was often

from the

first,

a

where the

line be-

thin one.

Almost

both Matteo Ricci and Michele Ruggieri found them188

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROEIT AND HARVEST running errands

selves

for the Chinese.

Thus

in the

summer of

1585

Ruggieri went to Macao on commission from the governor of Guang-

dong province

buy plumes that were demanded by the court

to

king. These feathers, especially the

demand among

who had

the Chinese,

either because they

wanted

more luxurious

to use

in Pe-

ones, were in great

asked Ruggieri for them before,

them

as gifts to

the court or because

they had been amazed and delighted by the pictures and designs

from

different colored feathers

hand"

to be painted by

—

—"rendered so well

that they appeared

that a certain Franciscan friar

from Manila to the Canton area

in the late 1570s.

made

had brought

In one of his

more

moments Ruggieri thought of trying to obtain a live ostrich Emperor Wanli: "A living ostrich would be a wonderful present for

lyrical

King of China," he wrote

to General Acquaviva, "because

values their feathers, and any living animal or bird that

here

Though

highly prized."

is

logistical niceties

of shipping

he so

for

the

much

not native

is

the Jesuits never got entangled in the

live ostriches to

Peking, they nevertheless

took their feathers seriously: feather goods were featured in a catalog of presents for a projected Spanish embassy to

Wanli

in the 1580s, and,

presumably in reference to the Aztec custom of using feathered

tumes

for ritual

and even

map he

first

world

created for Chinese eyes in 1584.

him by

Ricci himself received a request from Peking, relayed to

Zhaoqing woolen

Ameri-

for war, Ricci identified various Latin

can countries in terms of their feather production in the

cos-

officials in

cloth,

1589, for several bolts of fine

and he made the

down

trip

to

Macao

European

in a

scarlet

boat provided

by the mandarins. In Macao he used his contacts with local Portuguese

merchants to buy everything the Chinese wanted, and "at a very good

An

price," to boot.

even tighter meshing of

when

sion policy occurred in 1585, prefect ince, fair.

came from

with

a load

Unable

Jesuits,

and

when he

his

home

of fine

bilateral trade

the brother of the former

district far to the north, in

silk that

he hoped to

to dispose of the

goods

in return for his

undertaking to

as

sell at

Zhaoqing

Zhejiang prov-

the Canton trade

he had hoped, he turned to the let

them accompany him

returned to Zhejiang so they could open a

189

and mis-

new

mission there,

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

the Jesuits arranged for Portuguese traders to buy up this particular

batch of

silk

on the

spot,

and

In each of these cases there

for a decent price.

was

a clear

the financial manipulation: in the chases, Ruggieri

mission purpose along with

after

first,

89

making

his feather pur-

was able to bring the missionary Edoardo de Sande

back with him into China; in the second,

buying

after

his scarlet cloth,

Ricci had a chance to confer lengthily with Valignano; in the third,

Ruggieri's silk trading gained

new

sion possibilities in a

him

the opportunity to explore the mis-

province.

In similar fashion, though the Jesuits were not a mendicant order, they

showed from

their earliest days in

whatever alms were a little

available.

food and fresh

fish

China

a willingness to accept

Ruggieri accepted free lodging and even

from

officials in

Canton

at the

mission; Ricci accepted incense for the burners in their oil for

dawn of

first

the

chapel, and

the altar lamps there, from devout Chinese donors; he and Rug-

gieri together accepted loans

from the Chinese

complete the building of their

first

house

in

to help

Zhaoqing.

in

times there were cash gifts from the Chinese,

Macao

left

90

them

At other

genteelly along with

when they came to visit Ricci out of courtesy or curiosity, sometimes as much as ten ducats, sometimes five, at others just a hand91 Some officials left sizable presents after seeing reful of copper coins.

calling cards

ligious pictures like the small triptych of Christ, a protective glass case, tracts:

when

a version

of the

carried in

they were given Christian religious

commander

the local army

being given

or

which Ricci

in

Zhaoqing

left

commentary on

earliest

three ducats after Christianity that

Ricci and Ruggieri had put into their still-tentative Chinese, and the

ambassadors from Cochin China, passing through Zhaoqing en route to Peking, left silver

same

little

and incense

in

exchange

for several copies of the

book. Other Chinese scholars gave chairs and

tables,

rative items for the various rented residences that the Jesuits

ferent times.

had

at dif-

92

How much gifts

or deco-

to accept

was always

a delicate

problem, though most

could be justified one way or another. Ricci nearly always accepted

means of

travel, since this

was so very expensive, and senior 190

officials

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST

who

were

from the

in a position to offer

state.

Thus even when

normally got their conveyances

escorted by troops and chairs with 93

free

short of ready cash he could travel in

on luxury junks pulled upstream by

style,

gage.

it

on boats

toiling coolies,

watchmen, on horseback

to a picnic, or in sedan

groups of up to eight bearers and pack animals for his bag-

Even when he went out

pay his sedan-chair carriers and

to dinner, wealthy Chinese hosts

accompanying

tip his

servants.

would

At other

times generous Chinese friends simply gave large sums of silver to ease

known, or paid

the pains of the journey, especially once Ricci was well his expenses for a given journey in

advance without telling him, so that

a delighted Ricci, preparing to argue the bill for

storage space for

boat

trip,

on

the accoutrements of a chapel

all

would be

two cabins and the

told there

was no charge since

given the boatman double what the

trip

a long-distance

a friend

could possibly

had already 94

cost.

Such random Chinese generosity eased individual moments of Ricci's life,

but could not support the work of the mission in any serious way,

and would

tail

off to

nothing whenever the

against the missionaries. In 1585 Valignano

political climate

worked out an agreement

with the viceroy of India, confirmed by King Philip that each of the

some

transit

sum would be

dues collected from merchant ships

at

October.

In addition to

fairs

income from the Japanese

these royal allowances, the

a year

derived from the

each March and

silk trade

and from

especially in the 1590s

— one

gift

500 ducats for support of a native Chinese clergy, another of two chalices for use

on the

or deeds to homes.

There

is

altars in

no doubt

that

beyond the good of

ones.

with

silver

China, others of hundreds more in cash

many donors were their

truly

devout and wished

work

in China,

own

souls and the saving of Chinese

having no ulterior mo-

But others may have been prompted by gratitude

for help

of

96

the Jesuits well in their mission tive

and

China Jesuits received numerous massive

from the Macao Portuguese,

gifts

"in perpetuity,"

Malacca and transferred to

the Jesuits by Portuguese traveling to the trade 95

II

China missionaries should receive 100 ducats

jugs of wine for the Mass. This

swung

a difficult financial-legal

191

to the Jesuits

problem, the return of runaway

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO slaves. Ricci

himself was involved in these transactions and wrote quite

openly about them; he had in

RICCI

reason to hide such matters in a world

little

which each Portuguese family

in

Macao had an average of five or

six

black male slaves (without counting those slaves' wives and children)

and the Jesuits themselves

in

China had

who were

"Indian" servants and doorkeepers 97

laborers.

Many

from

slaves fled

several black "Kaffir"

and

surely not free wage-

their masters in

Macao and came

into

China, wrote Ricci, indenturing themselves there to local Chinese military

commanders. The Chinese welcomed these men,"

spirited

some of

bearing arms; fear in

even

especially those

The Jesuit

tactic

been baptized

was to

terror to the

all

enemy."

who

as Christians,

still,

9

and to persuade them that

it

who had

would be

bet-

the long run to return to their masters and resume their lives in

among

Macao

rather than to live out their lives

the heathen Chinese, especially since the Chinese in any case

also "treated

them

just like slaves."

to return, the Jesuits

of Macao for

full

When

would negotiate with

slaves expressed willingness

their

among

lost

the gentiles," as Ricci put

of many thousands of ducats for their owners often of great value." If the

owners and the bishop

pardons; they then helped the slaves to get back across

the border. "This not only helped the souls of it,

many who might have "but also made

who

Chinese were aware of these

of Macao

a profit

thus recovered slaves

99

deals, the

knowledge can only

have increased the suspicion they had generally of Jesuit like

the Chinese

try to identify those fugitive slaves

the Christian environment of

been

"whom

the slaves were Japanese,

"brought

and

the Portuguese had trained in

war," while others were black Kaffirs and Javanese

if less feared,

ter in

whom

slaves as "brave

among

the

Ming Chinese was

activities.

Dis-

widespread, as Ricci ob-

served in one of his letters to General Acquaviva, and extended to any

Chinese

who made

Since

Macao

is

the decision to live there:

at the

outermost border of China,

192

those from

who can bring harm to suspicion. And anyone who has

there are held to be foreigners and people

China, and they are regarded with

all

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST dealings with the place

So

much

is

so that in charges they

wishing to speak

man who makes

mean

seen as a

person, suspected everywhere.

might be bringing against each

of their adversary, the Chinese will

ill

a habit

And

of going to Macao."

other,

"He's

say,

a

this I've seen for

100

myself.

This passage suggests that the

Ming Chinese had begun

Macao had become an independent

foreign enclave, and they thus

extended the same hostility to Chinese Macaoans Chinese settling overseas and values

—

to distance himself

them

seen the description of foreigners

and foreign

eyes like cats, and

in the

travel:

mouths

any

as they did to

hence abandoning their traditional

might have been even

that being the Confucian view. Ricci

more determined

to realize that

from the Portuguese

Ming

scholar

"The Portuguese

Zhang

if

he had

Xie's guide to tall,"

have

white

ash.

are seven feet

like orioles: their faces are like

Their beards are tightly curled, like black gauze, while the hair in their heads

is

almost red."

Zhang added

power of the Catholic seemed policy,

to be

priests

who accompanied

some thoughts on

the

the Portuguese: they

numerous and powerful, had major influence on national

and chanted from

to execution.

to his analysis

their sacred

books

as criminals

were being led

101

Such patterns of

fear

ception in 1583

when

Chinese

—who

dislike

had dogged the mission since

Ricci, settling in

officials

—

and

its in-

Zhaoqing, had to promise the

own

were being violently pressured by their else

from Macao into

the area. Ricci tried to disarm criticism by telling the

Zhaoqing author-

townspeople

ities

far

that he

would not bring anyone

that he sought to settle in their peaceful city just because

it

was "so

from the din of trade and other worldly things of Macao," but

Confucian degree-holders found

this

local

unconvincing. They warned that

Ruggieri and Ricci were to Zhaoqing what the earliest Portuguese had

been to Macao

numbers

until

—an it

innocent-looking handful

proved impossible to

eject

pressures at last forced the Jesuits' eviction

who would grow

them.

102

When

from Zhaoqing

popular

in 1589,

one

of the reasons given was that the Jesuits' newly built house was on 193

in

a

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO and that down

river,

would speed /-i

China

To and

this river, traveling in swift illegal boats,

Macao

at intervals to

to

the Portuguese there

tell

all

of

secrets.

s

see the final pattern of Ricci's solution to the

profit in China,

drama

one must backtrack

—

part dream, part reality

be given to the Chinese so

Rug-

to his use of presents.

Juan

Battista

an

in

— of what should or should not maximum

as to achieve

of the church. At the most grandiose ippines,

problem of trade

had been but one unusually imaginative example

gieri's ostrich

endless

they

103

*

->

•

RICCI

level Philip

Roman, seeking

to

work

success for the

IPs factor in the Phil-

open

a

port in China for

Spanish commerce in the early 1580s, had suggested that Spain should

embassy to Emperor Wanli's court, offering the emperor

send

a royal

gifts

worth from 60,000 to 70,000 ducats: these should include

or

more

horses from

New

dozen

Spain; velvet, brocades, and cloth of gold;

Flemish carpets, Venetian prisms and mirrors; large clocks, ings,

a

oil paint-

and glassware; red and white wine; swords and other gilded

The Jesuits had backed

arms.

the idea of such an embassy, and after

the idea for the original one had foundered for lack of Spanish support,

Valignano kept

alive

hopes for

a formal papal

embassy from

Rome

to

Peking, suggesting that gifts costing from 4,000 to 6,000 ducats should

be sent from the pope to the emperor, conveyed by four Jesuit 105

thers.

In the final event, the gifts that were to

residence for the Jesuits for little less

more than

make

a century

fa-

possible Peking

were procured

for a

than the 900 ducats that the rector of the Macao Jesuit estab-

lishment was able to scrape together after the loss of the 1599 carrack, plus whatever objects Ricci had with ertheless,

it

him

at

the time in China.

took eight packhorses and more than thirty porters,

Ricci proudly noted, to carry these gifts into Peking in 1601: there

of Christ in

Nev-

on

a

as

January day

were three religious paintings, one of them the triptych

its

glass case,

one of the Virgin Mary and Child with John

the Baptist in attendance, and one of the Virgin and Child together.

(This

last split

into the three boards

it

was painted on when

it

was

dropped by clumsy porters, and would thus have been worthless to European connoisseurs,

as Ricci rather sardonically

194

noted; but the break-

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST age

made

look

it

all

the older to the Chinese and thus enhanced

its

There was one large clock, with hanging weights, and one

value.)

smaller desk clock, spring-driven; a gilded breviary, and a

handsome

of Abraham Ortelius's cartographic masterwork,

Theatrum

edition

Orbis Terrarum.

bolts of cloth,

modity

There were prisms and hourglasses, colored

European

in traditional

silver coins, a rhinoceros

Chinese medicines), and

and

belts

horn (a valued com-

a small

harpsichord de-

signed to be played not by means of a keyboard but by plucking the

(There would also have been

strings with a plectrum.

a small

organ with bellows, made to order for Ricci in Macao, but

Nanjing

after

he had already

left for

more grandiose

European powers should show

the north.) gifts

shows how much

little

store

they had cost by com-

plans. Believing that this was- how

their wealth

and

skills to

drawn but mighty emperor, Ricci was shocked

some other

arrived in

1

The Jesuits' loving itemization of these they set by them even as they knew how parison with earlier,

it

hand

to see

China's with-

how

casually

foreign tributary embassies treated this ritual gift-giving: in

Peking's hostel for foreign visitors, where he was initially lodged, he

found both

how

little

store the Chinese set by their visitors,

whom

they put in tiny cubicles without furniture "like sheep stalls," and

showed

the foreigners in return

metal swords with tacked-on

no more than thin iron

their

wooden

how

contempt by presenting cheap

handles, "breastplates" that were

plates held together

horses that looked ready to keel over

—

all

with oakum, or scraggly

things "sure to

make you

1

laugh," said Ricci.

But the Jesuits a rice

gift-giving and the lodging in the foreign hostel

brought the

government allowance from the Board of Rites consisting of

and meat,

salt,

vegetables, wine, and firewood,

enough

for five peo-

ple to live on, and a full-time servant to wait

on them. Once out of the

hostel, after ceaseless petitioning, the Jesuits

got oral permission from

the court, relayed through eunuchs, to rent a house in Peking; the state

allowance of food for in silver each

month.

five

A

was continued, and with

few weeks

it

came eight ducats

later a senior official

sympathy'

:

to

Ricci guaranteed the cash equivalent of the food allowance in case of

195

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

nondelivery (which had happened too often for the Jesuits' comfort),

another

six ducats a

month.

10

}

These were not lordly sums, but they

were comforting, and they kept pace with

worth

casually delivered present of silver

of cloth and

furs,

Reciprocating

as

Venetian

glass.

light filtered

still

as the

with bolts 1602.

in

convention required, Ricci gave Shen's son a prism of

As Ricci noted elsewhere, because of the purity of the

through them, some Chinese believed these prisms to be to 500 ducats

and

being

for eight baiocchi (a baiocco

than one-hundredth of a ducat in Italy).

income now

such

forty ducats, along

stones beyond price," whereas in fact any one of

Europe

gifts,

from the grand secretary Shen Yiguan

worth anywhere from 200

in

more

available, the Jesuits

caused by the loss of the

a

called

them "precious

them could be

replaced

copper coin worth

With such

varied sources of

could ride out the temporary

silk ships to

less

crises

storms or to privateers; above

all,

the open Chinese financial support offered to Ricci and his colleagues

—plus the great distance time, of the south— in

Peking

that separated

laid to rest, for a

Peking from the

that vexing

cities

problem of trying to

prove the Jesuits were not bound hand and foot to the Portuguese in

Macao.

Most of accident,

Ricci's successes

were the result of careful calculation, not

though he could

salute the occasional splendid windfalls

brought to the Jesuits by others

in their personal search for profit. It

particularly pleased him, for instance, that Chinese non-Christians

trying to

make

ing of the

Lord of Heaven and other

a bit

of extra cash by printing copies of his True Meanreligious

books and selling them

the provinces, thus circulating the Christian message

the Jesuits alone could ever have done.

look

at the tasks

111

more widely than

But generally he took

fields

New

a

hard

Testament exhortations concerning

bringing in the sheaves and gathering a golden

harvest were in his mind, but he was cautious not to claim

pect

in

confronting the mission and planned for a wide range

of contingencies. The many workers in the

were

—too much. "The time

at

which we now

he told Girolamo Costa in 1599,

"is

— or

ex-

find ourselves in China,"

not yet that of the harvest, nor

even that of sowing, but rather of opening up the wild woods and 196

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST with

fighting

wild

the

And nine years though now in China, with within."

the

number of Jesuit

a

poisonous

snakes

that

four separate Jesuit bases established and

and brothers

work

at

grand "machine"

—

risen to twenty,

word with

a

nance for Ricci, which he had used in praising the residence

most

thirty years before

—nevertheless he

still felt

the stage of sowing rather than that of harvest."

How

it

would

sacred duties and lead to the perception

his will

—was

Somewhat a

at

Goa

fruit here

is

is

al-

at

illuminat-

from

distract the priests

among laymen

were similar to the monks of other religious orders,

played

great reso-

Ignatius of Loyola had expressly forbidden choral music

in Jesuit services, fearing that

which

"the

he

113

he used music to prepare for that possible harvest

Though

ing.

lurk

he wrote to the same friend that

later

fathers

could claim they truly had

and

beasts

112

this

their

that the Jesuits

was one area

in

—both sung and

had not prevailed, and th~ use of music

widespread and popular in the order in Ricci's day.

surprisingly, in

musician and had

little

view of

ear for

his

many

other

skills,

Ricci was not

music despite the extensive knowledge

Rome and Macerata. He did not music. He noticed its effectiveness in

of music he had doubtless obtained in

have

much sympathy

for

Chinese

public martial display and in religious services, but he found trace its harmonies,

vocal lines to less,

which he had been accustomed

in Europe.

would have been

a

mere

had not Ricci used some

virtually useless,

115

Neverthe-

China with him, and had

carried across

been able to present to the court in 1601, was

chord. This present

hard to

and he missed the keyboard instruments and four

one of the presents he had

finally

it

a small harpsi-

curiosity, perhaps indeed

leisure

time in Nanjing dur-

ing 1600 to have the Jesuit father Lazzaro Cattaneo

—who was

a

good

musician but couldn't leave Nanjing because of his pastoral responsibilities

—teach the newly

eral sonatas

and

Pantoja with

arrived

also to

him

to

peror was intrigued teach four of his

young

priest

tune the instrument.

Peking and when,

Diego Pantoja 11

Ricci subsequently took

as Ricci

enough by the harpsichord

eunuch musicians

able to instruct them.

197

to play

it,

to play sev-

had hoped, the em-

to order the Jesuits to

Pantoja was ready and

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

Again, Ricci's tact and anticipation were manifest. Since two of the four eunuchs were

young and

Western music

able to learn the

rapidly,

while one elderly eunuch of seventy found the going very rough, Ricci

had each of them taught only one If

—he took

slower

court.

While

a

month

eunuch, even

piece, so that the older

—would not

to learn his piece

waiting, Ricci and the younger eunuchs

lose face at

composed eight

songs in Chinese that could be sung with harpsichord accompani. 117

ment.

with moral and religious themes.

Ricci's lyrics dealt, predictably,

He

human heart toward God, of the folly of how the grace of God fills the world more

wrote of the striving of the our desire for long

life,

of

harmonies of musical instruments

surely than the

fill

the hall in which

how youth glides by before we have time to think of leading a moral \ik, of how God makes us most glorious yet we debase ourselves, and of how death spares no one, being neither in awe of the they are played, of

king's palace nor compassionate to the poor man's hovel.

was not particularly elegant but was designed to

sung This

lines is

while making

fit

The language

the pattern of short,

moral points in the clearest way possible.

its

the second song of the cycle:

A

shepherd boy

Hating the

He thought More

And

that

sad one day,

on which he stood; distant hill he saw

hillside

a

beautiful by

So he

But

fell

far,

going there would wipe away

set off to that distant hill,

as

he drew near to

it

good than

had from

It

looked

O

shepherd boy, shepherd boy,

How

less

it

afar.

can you expect to transform yourself

By changing your dwelling If

his sorrows.

place?

you move away can you leave yourself behind?

Sorrow and joy sprout

in the heart.

198

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST happy everywhere,

If the heart

is

peaceful, you'll be

If the heart

is

in turmoil, every place brings sorrow.

A

grain of dust in your eye

Brings discomfort speedily;

How

can you then ignore this sharp awl

That pierces your heart? If

you yearn

You

will never obtain

Why And

for things outside yourself

not put your find peace

what you

own

are seeking.

heart in order

on your own

hillside?

Old and new writers alike give this advice: no advantage to roaming outside, Keep the heart inside, for There's

That brings the

Ricci's little cyle

China among the

11

profit.

of eight songs became immediately popular in

intellectual elite, according to his

own

account, and

who him how

copies were rapidly printed and circulated. Chinese bureaucrats

heard the songs, or read the words of the text, remarked to glad they were that such sentiments were

now

within the court, where there was some

room

ment. to

all

119

being made available for

moral improve-

Because of the stern laws restricting access to the inner court

save the imperial family, the eunuchs, and the concubines, Ricci

of course would never hear the words he had written sung by the court

number of plays on must have given him quiet sat-

musicians to Pantoja's music, but he had devised a

words within the songs themselves that isfaction

when he imagined

taught by them City.

— chanting

For instance, in the

the eunuchs

— or perhaps the concubines

his

words within the walls of the Forbidden

final

couplet of the second song in the cycle,

quoted above, he contrasted the shortcomings of the

life

"outside"

with the "inside" world. The words he used for "outside" and "inside" (the Chinese wai and net) represented one of the great polarities in ditional Chinese political

tra-

and moral thought, and could be applied not

only to the differences in mental

states,

199

or in location, but also to the

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

differences

between barbarian foreigners and residents of the Middle

Kingdom,

or to the difference between the world outside the walls of

the inner palace and the sheltered and secretive world within. Since the

word

for profit,

had taken

//"

for his

or

ly,

own name,

words "Keep the heart in fact

which ended the song, was

also the

word

Ricci

each time someone in the court sang the

inside, for that brings the profit,"

be singing "Living inside the court, there's Ricci."

he would also It

was not yet

quite true, of course, but he hoped to get there eventually; and in the

meantime those unheard the quiet evening

voices

would be carrying

air.

200

his

dreams up into

SEVEN

THE THIRD PICTURE THE MEN OF SODOM

For

the third picture that will be placed in

book, Ricci chooses one of a

^__ De

of Lot's

life,

Pas illustrated Lot's

made by life

series

Cheng Dayue's

of prints telling the story

Crispin de Pas the Elder in Antwerp.

through four pictures. In the

first,

the Lord,

having heard of the sin of Sodom, announces he will destroy the

men of Sodom men (in fact they

In the second, he blinds the Lot's

house to abuse the

sheltered there. In the third, Lot, his wife,

as they strive to

break into

who

have been

are angels)

and

his

two daughters

the city under the angels' protection, just before the city

and Lot's wife, of

who

has turned back to look,

In the fourth, the

salt.

self to dizziness

two daughters get

and then sleep with him, so

city.

is

flee

destroyed

transformed into a

pillar

their father to drink

him-

is

as to

perpetuate their fam-

1

ily line.

Ricci wants the Chinese to be aware of the sin of city's fate in

the words of Genesis 19:24-25:

Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and and he overthrew those of the

cities,

cities,

and

ail

fire

Sodom and

"Then the Lord

rained

on

from the Lord out of heaven;

the valley, and

all

the inhabitants

and what grew on the ground." Unfortunately, 201

of the

as

with

St.

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

tt£e£'MXt

jHSpiMi^^jait

202

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM on the water, there

Peter

pictures available quite

the slight problem that

is

fits

what

none of the four

Ricci wants to say. In the event he

chooses the second picture from the de Pas cycle, because

moment

turmoil of the the the the

best: the angel stretching

it

shows the

out his hand to blind

men of Sodom; Lot, hands clasped, pleading with them to desist; men themselves tumbling to the ground or still reaching to seize stranger, under the distant towers of their proud city. To make his

point Ricci gives the story a clarity the Bible version does not contain,

and though he had not spelled out the names of the Sea of Galilee or of

Emmaus

in his first

transcription he can will

two

pictures, in this

one he includes the

manage of the word "Sodom"

so that the Chinese

have a focus for future discussion with the Jesuit

careful, at the

of course, that the syllable

end of Sodom

nese name.

He

is

"ma" he

titles his

on themselves the heavenly

"ma" of

"Depraved sensuality and

essay

fathers.

uses to render the

quite different from the

closest

his

m

He

sound

own

Chi-

vileness bring

fire":

In ancient times the people of So-do-ma gave themselves

up

to de-

praved sensuality, and the Lord of Heaven turned away from them.

Among them

lived

one pure man named Lo, so the Lord of Heaven

sent his angels to get [Lo] to leave the city and

Then down from heaven

rained a great

and animals and insects were

all

fire

go

to the mountains.

men

of consuming flame,

burned up and nothing was

even

left,

the trees and rocks were turned to ash and sank into the ground.

From

the mire was formed a lake that brought forth stinking waters and

today serves as testimony to

how

greatly the

unnatural sensuality and perverse

Lo was able blessed him.

still

emperor of heaven hates

lusts.

to keep himself pure amidst the perversity, so heaven

Most people can behave

well in the presence of goodness;

but to stay pure and upright in the midst of unnatural customs, that truly calls for a

courage that

is

rarely

encountered.

The wise man

is

happy when amongst good customs, and uses them to strengthen himself; he

is

also

happy among

sharpening-stone for his in

own

evil practices,

character.

any circumstances/

203

He

and uses them

can trust his

is

as a

own guidance

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

When

one places

RICCI

of Ricci's next to the picture, one gets an

this text

even, stronger effect than de Pas had intended. For

whose

faces

we

it

is

these people

can study, these lofty domes and towers etched so

sharply against the stormy sky that are going to be destroyed in the across this piazza that will spread the noisome, eternal lake.

It is

Lo and the

since the picture has only

fire.

And

without the daughters and

angel,

much cumbersome exegesis can be saved. Why the wife bepillar of salt, or why the daughters slept with their father in

the wife,

came

a

these texts of long ago to another

When city

— the explanation of such problems can be

time and place.

Pope Paul IV died

of

left

Rome

August 1559

in

at the

age of eighty-three, the

dissolved in rioting and celebration.

A

crowd stormed

into the elegant headquarters of the Inquisition and ransacked

stroying records, releasing

de-

the prisoners they found there, and finally

all

to the building.

it,

The imposing

setting

fire

erected

on the Capitol was knocked

statue of the

to the

pope recently

ground. Somebody

derisi-

— of the kind Paul IV had ordered the Jews of

vely placed a yellow hat

Rome

to

— on

wear

the statue's head as

it

lay in the street.

dragged the main bulk of the statue away and threw Tiber.

The pope was buried

at night,

sible" in a vault in St. Peter's,

brothers.

The

his

into the River

almost furtively, "as deep

as pos-

and the tomb was kept under guard;

outside, the streets filled with vendors

on the dead pontiff and

it

Others

hawking lampoons and

three notorious

satires

nephews, the Carafa

3

irony of this reaction was that Paul

IV had

passionately

wanted

reform of the church and had lived a spartan, dedicated, deeply devotional ity

in

life.

all

But

in

pursuing his reformist policies he had roused

quarters.

It

was

his

intransigent

hatred

hostil-

of Spain,

his

determination to curb Philip IPs pretensions and recapture the King-

204

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM

dom

of Naples from the Spaniards, that had brought the duke of Alva's

Rome

troops to the gates of

and the troops of the duke of Guise,

France's ill-fated counterintervention, into the streets of Macerata.

Paul had followed a ruthless policy of suppressing

ments

name of

in the

of the Vatican and sentencing them to

tresses in the confines

galleys,

banning

the year in

Rome,

in

Rome

and

had launched

in

mistresses, forcing the

all

it

was "as

life in

the

if

we were

in the

campaign against the

a merciless

who had

Ancona, arresting Christians

Jews themselves

their mis-

dancing so that throughout

contemporary wrote,

as a

He

midst of Lent."

Jews

hunting and even

all

Pope

public entertain-

all

men found with

morality, arresting

in

Jewish

to live in enclosed ghettos,

and

forbidding them to trade in any foodstuffs with Christians or to act as physicians for them; by forcing the Jews to in the papal

domain, he acquired vast

—about

half a million ducats

sell

most of

estates for the

their property

church

one-fifth their true value.

He

at

around

attended the

key policy meetings of the Inquisition punctiliously every Thursday,

and gave the inquisitors

totally

new powers, such

as the right to

pursue

those guilty of sexual misconduct as well as those guilty of heresy or errant doctrine: those tutes

were

sexually abused

arrested; those convicted

public burning.

Roman

who

5

In this

citizens that

dinal Carlo Carafa

last

women

or procured prosti-

of sodomy were executed, some by

context,

it

was

especially ironic to the

one of the pope's three powerful nephews, Car-

—besides

living in a style of almost

splendor and having a passion for hunting and gambling rious philanderer

been

whose amours with

common knowledge

the cardinal's

young male

to

—was

a noto-

both sexes seem. to have

but the pope. The mocking poems to

all

lover,

lovers of

unimagined

with their echoes of Ovid's love poems

and Textor's description of Ganymede, written by the great French poet Joachim du Bellay

who was

then living in Rome, were merely the

most elegant of the many insulting writings that circulated

at the time.

Carlo Carafa was executed by his uncle's successor, Pius IV, in 1560

dying in particularly horrible pain because the ropes with which the executioner was trying to garrot

him broke twice

consciousness.

205

just as

he was losing

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

Ricci was only a child in Macerata while these events were unfolding

and can have known

little

of them, save from travelers and perhaps

from sermons. But the moral of the

with the

book of the prophet

it

spoke to

to the overlap

between

a universal one:

and public contempt of conventional norms.

moralistic censoriousness perfectly

was

power and weakness,

the interconnections of

It fitted

tale

Isaiah,

biblical vision, as

where the

fate

one might

find

it

in the

of Sodom was an allegory for

the fate of the earth, constantly reiterated by an angry

God. To

Isaiah,

women with bells tinkling on drunken men in their vomit, the eu-

the beggars in their misery, the gorgeous their feet, the concubines, the

nuchs,

all

swiftly as

ment

spoke for a world of Babylon that could destroy others

would be

it

itself destroyed.

omy; here

Here sodomy was the punish-

and brimstone were the punishments

for idolatry, as fire

for sod-

good king Hezekiah, "Of thy sons

Isaiah cried out to the

which thou

that shall issue

from

and they

be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon."

It

shall

was not

derived

just

thee,

shalt beget, shall they take away;

from rumors and from the

vice in the cities of his time. Macerata

and was

poverty, and

had rung with scandals during of the murders that sprang

stories

social

problems caused by those born out

1570s, also, Macerata

was agitated by debates

where to locate the

prostitutes' dwellings,

whether to concentrate

all

one place and,

in

if so,

where; each choice by the city fathers

aroused predictable opposition from local residents.

The

human time.

prophets that Ricci

During the

of wedlock.

them

8

7

with

filled

from sexual passion, or of the

as to

biblical

some knowledge of the potent presence of luxury,

his childhood,

as

streets

of Rome, by the same token, had

nobility

The more

and degradation religious

as

one could

as

9

broad a spectrum of

find in any city of the

one was, indeed, the more one might

see, for

beggars tended to cluster around each church according to whether special services

were scheduled

erable persons," wrote sides, that

blind, the

I

there.

Gregory Martin,

never saw the like."

mute

There were "so manie and so mis-

who "hedge

Among

in the

the crippled, the mad, the

or deaf, Martin was told, were

many who had

the shelter of the city's charity hospitals, preferring to

206

way on both

lie

out

refused in the

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM streets

and take

hoped

for they

from the

their chances

to get

more from

city's

church-bound passersby;

casual charity than the seven daily 1

coppers ordained for their support by Pope Pius IV.

not know, any more than Ricci did, that carefully organized

by their

own

many of

secret leaders into

He

probably did

these beggars were

some nineteen

groups or "specialties," and were carefully coached in such roles

sub-

as ap-

pearing diseased, maimed, veterans of Turkish wars, or possessed by the devil, so as to get

been

fully

maximum

Yet both would have

public sympathy.

aware of another side of the

city's

constant social misery,

unwanted children of the desperately poor or of

since the

were kept

in the city's consciousness

processions in

—and

conscience

prostitutes

—by

the great

which they paraded, sometimes over four hundred

strong, to selected churches

on

saints' days, to

manifest the charity they

had received. Ignatius of Loyola had particularly concerned himself with the

of these children, and had helped

fate

dations to nurture them.

set

up

charitable foun-

1

In the late sixteenth century there were between six hundred and

nine hundred registered prostitutes in

one

to twelve ducats,

of making

and many more

a living for smaller

associated in ing, serving

some ways with

sums

prostitution

of dearth. Those

act in concert

this

and withdraw their money

depended on one's angle of

were

out of a pop-

hundred thousand. Papal attempts

narrow corners of the

one viewed the pattern of

who

—providing lodging, procur-

and major banks were driven to insolvency

How

reduced to this means

—numbered perhaps ten times more, and

to limit prostitution to certain

rally

who were

in times

ulation that totaled only around one

edly,

Rome, charging anywhere from

all

if

city failed repeat-

together.

social exploitation

vision.

women

the

chose to

13

and misery natu-

Gregory Martin was impressed

by the sternness with which prostitution was controlled in

Rome

dur-

ing the 1570s, even though he recognized that a papal attempt of 1567 to

ban them from the

city altogether

had

failed.

He

described the

way

the prostitutes were restricted to certain quarters of the city, and so

"plagued by lawes and Ordinances" that one could see

"how

small

comforts they have toward their beastly living." Forced to wear short

207

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

over their faces and a special style of dress, denied the right to

veils

make

wills, to

have Christian burial, or to ride

kept in perpetual humiliation.

Rome

in 1581,

in coaches, they

But Montaigne,

as

were

he sojourned

in

was more impressed by the prostitutes' omnipresence;

how taking coach rides or strolling to view the prostitutes was a major Roman pastime, the prostitutes displaying themselves at their windows or on their balconies ''with such deceptive art that I am often amazed how much they attracted our gaze. And often, having on impulse dismounted from my horse and had the door opened for me, I was filled with admiration to see how much prettier they had appeared to be than they really were." Other Romans would eye the women he described

through

specially designed holes cut in the roofs

kind of "stargazing"that

a

Roman

preacher described, in an amusing

wordplay which Montaigne appreciated, out of our coaches."

However

of their carriages, a

as

"the making of astrolabes

1

Ricci opened or closed his eyes to the situation in

Rome,

beggary and prostitution, with the addition of slavery, would have been

even more obvious to him during his residence in Lisbon, between 1577 and 1578. seas

An

international trading city, headquarters of the over-

Portuguese empire, Lisbon was

filled at

once with

local

workers bound for the Indies or Brazil, the widows of sea,

and impoverished farmers or 1

Slaves

countryside.

their children

were everywhere

Florentine merchant Filippo Sassetti,

in

merchants,

sailors

who had

fled

dead

at

the arid

Lisbon, according to the

who was

also living in the city

during 1578. Black slaves were the most numerous, but there were also a scattering of

Chinese and Japanese

among them. One

could watch

potential buyers putting these slaves through their paces in the streets

before deciding to purchase, their

mouths

to check their teeth; they cost

sixty ducats a head.

new

making them run and jump and opening

17

anywhere from

thirty to

In Goa, one found the same social derelicts, and a

element, the mixed population of half-caste Chinese and Indians,

born often from the melancholy trade

—with

Portuguese

in

kidnapped children that the

the willing assistance of Chinese petty criminals

had built up in Macao.

18

208

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM

The Jesuits had

working

slaves

for

them

in

Goa

—

it

which white men did any kind of physical labor

in

commonplace one.

19

Macao, where

was not

—and

a society

outnumbered freemen

slaves

was

slavery

five

to

Ricci discussed quite openly in his Historia his activist role in

re-

in

turning runaway slaves in China to the Portuguese authorities in

Macao, and he himself had black slaves "cafro assaz negro" his mission,

watchmen.

work

to

20

—with him

in China, at least

a

during the early years of

the Jesuit residence as household staff and

in

Other blacks served him

—they

he learned Chinese well

as interpreters in the years before

may have been

the offspring of mar-

between Chinese residents of Macao and black

riages

and

"gente negra dell'India"

whose

slaves,

children were raised as Christians and spoke both Chinese and Portuguese,

making them

ideal for the job. Ricci

acknowledged on one

casion that these blacks frightened the Chinese, and references to

do not occur

later in his mission;

Chinese servants

There was knew.

He

as his

oc-

them

he probably switched gradually to

language improved.

also a steady sale

of Chinese

had no moral judgment to

as slaves overseas, as Ricci

offer

on

only the

this practice,

observation that this might be one of God's ways to get the Chinese

converted to Christianity, since sometimes these slaves were bought by Spaniards and Portuguese and were later converted by their masters or

Many

local priests.

of those sold overseas had not been slaves in China

but were kidnapped in southeastern China and sold to foreign buyers a surprisingly consistent rate

boys;

of fifteen to twenty ducats each for

some were from educated

assistants to

families,

and ended up

at

girls or

as secretaries or

Portuguese historians and military men. The

tinued, despite a decree stipulating an incredible fine of

traffic

con-

one thousand

ducats for any Portuguese found guilty of buying or selling Chinese slaves

which was put on the books by the Goa viceroy

Ricci placed

much of

themselves, and linked fects in the

its

23

on the Chinese

extension throughout Chinese society to de-

Chinese character, such

timorousness. his

the blame for Chinese slavery

in 1595.

as their

combination of

lust

and

In taking this stance, he was giving a sort of analogy to

view of Chinese society

in general. In

209

no sense was he an

uncritical

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO admirer of China,

as

foundly torn about

he never reached

he

how

is

sometimes taken to

to assess the country

a synthesis.

He

RICCI

he was

be;

and

government, and

its

merely presented two

views which, between them, doubtless he

cilable

in fact pro-

sets

of irrecon-

approximated

felt

reality.

On right,

and

the positive side there was

much

that he could admire in

own

its

and even compare favorably to Europe. China's geographical

diversity, the

enormous range of crops grown

size

there (almost the

only things he found lacking were olives and almonds), the small, beautifully tended market gardens, the love of flowers, the porcelain

from Jiangxi

—"the

finest

and

loveliest

thing in the world"

—

their

ingenious use of coal for cooking and heating, the connoisseurship

concerning antique bronzes, ink paintings, and calligraphy, the sophistication

Of

and cheapness of Chinese printing,

all

roused his admiration.

2

the Confucian moral system he took a favorable, even an idealized

own

view, since he wished to prove to the rulers of his

Chinese would be natural converts. Their funeral

rites

church that the

and ancestral

emonies were not superstitious, he concluded, and the Confucian

cer-

cere-

monies conducted by the magistrates were divorced from religious significance, fice;

being

a

even though they did burn incense and offer animal follower of Confucianism itself was like having

sacri-

member-

ship in an academy rather than being a believer in a specific theological creed. Certainly the

Chinese had

a pantheistic

view of the universe, and

the rich were given to polygamy, but apart from that

would eschew Buddhism and/or Taoism

come

— they

if

they

"could certainly be-

Christians, since the essence of their doctrine contains

contrary to the essence of the Catholic faith, nor faith

—and

nothing

would the Catholic

hinder them in any way, but would indeed aid in that attainment

of the quiet and peace of the republic which their books claim

as their

goal.

To

aid in the attainment

of

this morality, the

grated bureaucracy, supervised by a staff of censors to the five magistrates

despite the emperor's

who had imposed

Chinese had an

whom

Ricci likened

order in ancient Sparta.

power China had "many elements of a 210

inte-

Thus

republic,"

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM emperor responded always

for the

same ministers had the

final say

income of one hundred and from taxes and dues.

showed

little

came

million ounces of silver that

fifty

Even

"none of the

in

Chinese

in their religious practices the

common among Romans,

deed, one could say that fell

over the disposition of the huge annual

own gods

of the kind of "indecent behavior" toward their

had been so

that

27

and those

to his ministers' initiatives,

Greeks, and Egyptians. In-

known

gentiles

Europe

to us in

into fewer errors in regard to matters of religion."'

But serpents lurked

in these ideal gardens.

up an

dle of his Historia Ricci set

At one point

to

which he was invited when he

mid-

make

elaborate rhetorical structure to

the point, as he described the Buddhist temple

zhou

in the

complex outside Shao-

visited the city:

first

We found there a level valley, sheltered at the end and on both sides" by mountains of

medium

height, covered with fruit trees and other

decorative trees that stay green

sown with

rice

all

the year round.

and other vegetables,

irrigated

The

land was

all

by a stream that never

ran dry, but coursed through the middle of the valley to the green

mountains beyond, thing there.

Yet

copious flow of pure water that bathed every-

a

29

Chinese Eden, was the

this lovely site, this veritable

shrine to a

monk who,

eight hundred years before, had

home

made

a

of asceticism, in Ricci's eyes, by letting maggots feed on his

Those Chinese monks who now

flesh.

sense of distorted piety, and

"They

scape:

3

which

is

torn

even this

many of

forbidden by their monastic

So had the people of China and

a state

lost

own

way, and not only do

they are also robbers, and killers of those

road."

from

children,

had

mockery

a fitting contrast to the lyrical land-

live in a truly dissolute

them have wives and rule,

made

lived there

of the

who

pass along the

their rulers slid

downward

of nobler and partially forgotten purity into a cycle of

dis-

honesty and greed in which terrible beatings were commonplace and

watchmen were needed

to

watch the watchmen

in a land that

crawled

with thieves. The exquisite external courtesy of the Chinese hid a tion in

which no one could

trust

anyone 211

situa-

—not one's fellow provin-

else

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO cials,

not one's friends, not one's

The economic

life

ways two prices

for every object in the is

much

everywhere" and could buy artisans

not even one's

own

children.

of the country, too, was fractured, for there were

people and one, which

from

relatives,

RICCI

less,

— markets "one

for the officials

who

al-

for the local are

numerous

whatever they wanted

at these fake prices

and merchants, so that many honest workers were forced

31

to

flee.

In a letter to his former schoolmate at the Fuligatti, only shortly after

he entered China,

had described the terror of their ruler lived: the magistrates

show than

in

Roman

in

November

Rome, he

more pomp and

wrote, while the emperor was

locked up in a miserable magnificence amid his palaces, his

eunuchs, his songbirds, and his flowering Sardanapalus.

32

Ricci later elaborated

1585, Ricci

which the ordinary people

held their public audiences with

did the pope in

college, Giulio

on

women,

trees, like

the Assyrian despot

this idea,

observing that the

emperor had grown so frightened that he held no more audiences his courtiers

his

and did not dare go out unless privately

in

for

one of a proces-

sion of identical carriages; the ruler seemed "as if in the land of his

enemy who wishes

greatest

and

his life

became

This reflection of

One was

to kill

him"

rather than in his

"like a reflection of hell." hell, for Ricci,

the grandeur that he dwelt

own domain,

33

was composed of many elements.

on

at length.

The

great courtyards

Forbidden City palace, where Ricci went in 1602 to prostrate

in the

himself in gratitude before the empty throne, could have held 30,000 people, he wrote, and the emperor's elephants, the three thousand royal

guards, and the

power.

34

Both

huge walls

in his Historia

all

and

increased the sense of majesty and

he marveled

his letters

at the size

of

the trees brought from southern China by water to reconstruct the imperial palaces,

of the huge cedar beams that were priced anywhere from

one thousand to three thousand ducats by the time they reached the capital.

He

had stood

at the

door of the Jesuit residence and watched

the foundation stones for the palace buildings

come rumbling by on

— each stone

gigantic carts hauled by one hundred mules

one thousand ducats, he was

told,

also costing

although they came from quarries

212

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM quite nearby, while the palaces themselves were costing an estimated three million gold pieces, perhaps thirty million ducats or

temporary

The

levels

of exchange.

construction of Emperor Wanli's

tomb

stone, lumber, bricks,

scale,

and with

corresponding

a

begun before he was twenty.

tion

on

—

all

tomb

capital,

the cost of

rise in

construction, which had

young musician

Ricci and his

when he

on the emperor Wanli's

them

sent

relayed by court

eunuchs

the details of Philip

which had occurred

con-

imperial

a

list

in

II

friend

interest in

of questions about

—which included

royal funerals, the Jesuits prepared a careful response in

they dwelt on

the

36

cleverly played

the splendor of his tomb;

European customs

at

and transportation. The emperor attended with

passionate interest to every phase of this

Diego Pantoja both

Ming

at the

northwest of the

burial grounds, ringed by mountains, to the

was on an even vaster

more

35

a ques-

which

of Spain's death and burial,

September 1598. They told Wanli (again, via

eunuch messengers) how King

had

Philip's inner coffin of lead

been placed inside another of wood, and then both placed within a sepulcher of stone in a specially constructed church. a religious print

of the genre

known

as

37

They

gave him

also

"The Name of Jesus," which

showed the Holy Roman emperor, the pope, and various kings and queens kneeling between the angels and the inferno

judgment;

this so

painter copy

them

it

to offer

on

a large scale in color.

Wanli

a large picture

The

success of this venture led

of the piazza and church of

prints of the church of San Lorenzo in

though

himself by peror rulers

day of

captured Wanli's imagination that he had his court

Mark's in Venice, and a book containing a whole

Escorial,

at their

King

series

was kept

eunuch and never reached the emperor.

Wanli apparently roared with laughter when sometimes lived on the upper

floors

of detailed

Philip's palace at the

this latter, they learned to their chagrin,

a senior

38

told that

in

"thus are

all

for

The em-

European

of their high buildings, so

absurd did such an idea seem to him. This prompted in Ricci the flection that

St.

re-

people kept content to remain in the modes

which they were brought up." 39 Yet ultimately

of Wanli, so apparently autocratic

at

213

one

this

level, so

enigmatic figure

hedged

in

with

re-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO strictions at another,

had

powerful

a

on

effect

RICCI

Ricci. If

we may judge

from- his intense admiration for his younger Jesuit contemporary, Pierre

Coton, which he expressed on his deathbed, Ricci may have dreamed

some

level

of one day becoming confessor to Wanli,

that reconverted Catholic

Henry IV, king of Navarre and

But Ricci was never to speak and

in a

world

women

palace

in

Coton had

as

France.

at

for

40

to the emperor, let alone convert him,

which the emperor

restricted his conversation to his

and eunuchs, the power of the

latter

was bound to

rise,

became the only intermediaries with the bureaucrats outside

for they

the palace walls. All of Ricci's dealings with the emperor were con-

ducted via the eunuchs, and here again he had tion, as

For

his chief

book of Daniel (1:3-4) had not Nebuchadnezzar

eunuch

"skillful in

all

to select

from the captured

wisdom, and cunning

in

might be trained

science," so that they

situa-

Israelites

care.

called

on

who were

those

knowledge, and understanding in the

Chaldean language and

"to stand in the king's palace"? As Ricci labored at his scientific

works with the eunuchs of Peking, that

view of the

one might expect from someone who read the Bible with

in the

fitted

a split

many of them impressed him

it is

clear

from numerous examples

favorably. In addition to the four eu-

nuchs from the palace music department to

whom

he taught

his

songs

while Pantoja taught the harpsichord, there were four other eunuchs

whom

he taught to wind and service the palace clocks

those with

whom

and besides these were the eunuchs from the de-

partment of mathematics

map of

—ordered

months of

ily in

the early

Ricci,

and when they

"most

who

helped him assemble the twelve sets of

the world that the emperor

could not be refused

the

1608. These

visited the Jesuits'

affectionate

way"

real

power

— on

a

sudden

to be delivered for himself

whim

and

men became "our

that

his fam-

friends" to

Peking house they behaved

in

(con molto amore).

Other examples show that he

who had

1601, and

he assembled the clocks' exquisitely carved and deco-

rated outer casings;

the giant

in

also got

on well with

214

eunuchs

knew that, though under Wanli they were also

in the political world. Ricci

often "from the lowest classes of society,"

several

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM "the servants, councilors and, moreover, friends of the king, so say they

The

govern the kingdom."

old eunuch Feng

Bao

we can

— megalo-

maniac, deaf, and eager for one of Ricci's Venetian glass prisms though

—received Ricci with extreme pomp and graciousness

he might be

Nanjing

his palace in

emerged by the 1590s

And

in 1599.

him

figures in the coun-

with the acrobatic shows he invited

huge porcelain pots on

their feet

ceeded to do the same with porcelain drums and large

boy dancer produced it

on the

"charming,"

model

a

floor in

as Ricci

Eunuchs were

a

one

figure

had to admit.

at

and then pro-

wooden

tables, a

and then frolicked and tumbled

startlingly

way

realistic

—

all

of

this

was

43

the forefront of at least three major crises during

at

Ricci's residence in China, to

writings. In

who had

during 1600: jugglers tossed three large knives

once, acrobats swiveled

with

Tang,

Ricci that they could never try to boss

officials

to in Tianjin

Ma

eunuch

one of the most powerful

as

warned —prominent Ma Tang— overwhelmed Ricci try

the

at

crisis

all

of which he referred in his historical

during 1598-99,

after the

war with Hideyoshi,

the accidental burning of part of the Peking palaces brought eunuchs to central

and southern China

in search

of funds, in pursuit of which

they recklessly thrust into people's houses, tyrannized and blackmailed

and caused massive

to get their quotas, ual laborers in

such

cities as

risings

of townsmen and man-

Linqing and Suzhou.

It

may have been

connection with the unrest and terror of the time that a courier eling for Ricci between

Wanli and

his

mous pamphlet, vorite consort,

thrown into the

case involved the

eunuchs

trav-

Nanchang and Nanjing was robbed and mur-

dered, and his corpse then

The second

in

wave of

45

river.

terror

launched by Emperor

in 1603, following the appearance

circulated in Peking,

and those

who

of an anony-

which attacked the emperor's

fa-

were conspiring to make her son heir

apparent in place of the emperor's unloved elder child. Ricci wrote vividly

of the unlicensed

torturing of

literati,

arrests at this time, the

omnipresent

spies,

and the death of the influential Buddhist

the

monk

Zhenke. Zhenke did not survive the beating of thirty blows with

215

a

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

bamboo

pole that Emperor

RICCI

Wanli ordered him given because of

his

leged .complicity in the writing of the pamphlet. Zhenke, a deeply

who was

gious and ascetic man, and a fine scholar and essayist

many of

with

al-

reli-

friendly

China's leading intellectuals of the time, including the

Tang Xianzu, was

when he died. In a harsh aside that showed how deeply his hostility to Buddhism had become rooted, Ricci noted that people despised Zhenke because, though "he was

great dramatist

wont

nothing

to boast of caring

sixty

for the things pertaining to his body,

afterward, while being beaten, he cried out like any other profane

mortal."

The

46

last

instance concerned the

suaded the emperor to send that there were, in Luzon,

eunuch Gao

officials to

Manila

mountains of solid

who

Cai,

in pursuit

silver

recklessly per-

of the rumor

and gold. The

pres-

ence of this Chinese expedition, and the ever-growing number of Chinese traders and artisans settling in the Philippines, persuaded the

Spaniards that an invasion was imminent and led to the terrrible massacre

of 1603

lives.

Ricci's

which

in

close to twenty thousand Chinese lost their

main worry was

that the Peking Jesuits

and he described

ciated with the Spaniards' acts,

time in a

much

letter

talk at court here

ourselves be

this event."

Chinese

It

his anxieties at the

known

about the matter and we were afraid some

it,

because

as friends

we had

always been careful not to

of [the Spaniards] up to the time of

This deception was almost ruined

a Spaniard in

when

a letter written

officials

who had gone

to the Philippines.

As Ricci continued,

was translated into Chinese and sent on to Peking, with the it

Heaven" which

de-

had been written "in the year 1603 of the Lord of is

just the

same form

chose to have no one notice

warned not

by

Manila was brought back to Fujian province by one of the

scription that

God

asso-

of early 1605 to his friend Maselli in Rome: "There was

harm might come from let

might be

to say anything to

had used

this,

anyone

in

my

catechism. But

except for Dr. Paul, else.

And

whom

I

another thing that

known as people of the same religion was that name of God into Spanish as Dios while we use

helped us in not being they translated the

I

the Portuguese form,

which

is

Deus.

216

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM This care the Peking fathers took to separate themselves in the Chi-

made

nese view from the Spaniards and the Philippines was probably easier

by the eunuchs' intense preoccupation with their

own

affairs,

and

the disintegrating influence or involvement of the upper bureaucracy

with government. The "Dr. Paul" that Ricci referred to in his

Xu Guangqi, the and Xu clearly felt it

who was

letter

was the Shanghai scholar

convert

Ricci translate Euclid,

quite correct to keep this

damaging evidence away from

some of whom, it

Hanlin Academy,

his colleagues in the

especially the Buddhists,

helping

might have been happy

to use

against Ricci.

Ricci could, by 1605, be fairly confident that

someone,

in the air for

action

little

when

would be taken

there was a payoff to

harm him. Cor-

ruption could be protective, in a way:

This king

is

own

extremely cruel to the eunuchs of his

them beaten

palace and

on the smallest pretext. Thus none of them concentrate their attention on business from outside the palace, unless it is the kind of matter that promises to provide a good sum of money. And the court mandarins have learned to do the same thing, which is to demand money from those who come from the provinces on court business, making these provincial mandarins pay them a part often has

to death

of the money they have flayed from the people in the countryside and the

cities.

So has

this city

every sort of sin, with desire

The

on the

popes

as the

trace

a true

Babylon of confusion,

of justice or piety

part of anyone to cleanse himself.

rhetoric of this piece

Reformation

become

no

critics

is

in

full

of

anyone, or any

48

astonishingly like the kind of charges that

had launched against

Rome

and

"whore of Babylon," an echo reinforced by

its

corrupted

Ricci's charge

that the Buddhist church itself represented "a Babylon of doctrines so intricate that

no one can understand

it

properly, or describe

it."

In this

corrupted city of Peking, wrote Ricci in his moralistic mood, lived "an effeminate people, given to pleasure" (gente effeminata, deliziosa)

As social

a friend

of the

rich, Ricci

background of these

was

at least familiar

excesses, because

217

49

with some of the

he had written that before

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO a

RICCI

departure from an office or a city one often attended "seven or eight

such

parties,

favor."

given by one's friends, so

He showed

Yet he belied

rather like beer

is

and not very

this jocularity in the picture

he gave

— of

staggered

"men

full

city streets

of wine, tumbling to the ground,

speaking and doing countless insulting things."

The only

here between the poor and the mandarins was that the their office

pre-

feel fine

if

of the prevalence of massive drunkenness in Peking

down which

by the

you drink too much you

though you get drunk,

the next morning."

both receive and give

a casual observation

remark that Chinese "wine

cision of his

strong, and

was not

that this

to

as

home

by their debauches, could be carried

difference

latter,

shaming

in the curtained

seclusion of their sedan chairs. Ricci had a clear view of the misery and poverty in Peking.

not

tell if

that

he knew of the roving

most desperate of

social flotsam,

trated by their parents' orders

rates

all

had

gangs

there, often

youngsters

who

composed of

after

failed to get palace jobs

poor tradesmen.

drifted around, tyrannizing

understood

street

51

We can-

being

cas-

and now

Nor do we know

if

he

the complex patterns in the shifting Peking exchange

between the

silver

of the well-to-do and the copper coins used by

the poorer classes that led thousands of the poor to die in the 1590s

even while the system of charitable inept

management and

Xu Guangqi

relief

bureaucratic neglect.

in winter, for the price

of

a

know

religious topics

of straw or animal fur where

with the Confucian left

elite

of the

on

scientific

and

city Ricci crisscrossed

an unforgettable picture of himself riding in the

a black veil

to shield themselves

at

53

that in the course of his visits to talk

Peking, for he has

wearing

full

copper coin, beggars could burrow in

night to avoid freezing to death.

streets,

His friend and convert

was an expert on the miseries of the poor; he could have

described for Ricci the old warehouses

We do

was collapsing because of

over his face

as all

the wealthier locals did

from the biting dust storms that made Peking

such a nightmare in the dry months. As Ricci traveled thus, on a rented horse or mule, carrying with

him

his printed street directory

218

of the

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM houses of the notables, he could take advantage of the anonymity his veil afforded to

gaze around with extra

Ricci remarked of

care.

China that "this country

is

full

ascribed this state of affairs partly to the natural lust of the

women, and not having

able to live without

they

themselves into slavery to

sell

wife one of his

them

as

main

slaves forever

woman

some

slaves;

rich

the

money

to

men: "Un-

buy them,

man, so that he

will give

thus they and their children

who had enough money

more." Others,

He

of slaves."

to

re-

marry

women, found themselves unable to support their children and subsequently sold them for two or three ducats, "less than one would free

pay for a pig or a worn-out horse," wrote Ricci sadly, and this low price

was the going

rate

even when there was no famine in the land;

there was, prices dropped to a tenth of that level.

55

Ricci

when

went much

further than this in certain passages of his original draft of the Histor-ia

which were cut from the published version of the book by Jesuit editors in the seventeenth century. Ricci saw,

Chinese character, until maturity

—which he saw

fifteen or

as

he wrote, "the entire kingdom

from the

cases

in the

their

first

—before choosing

women when

even fourteen, with the result "that

weakened that they could never

embedded

the males unwilling to wait

twenty years of age

Many young men had

sexual partners.

were

made

a sensuality that

his cautious

they

many became

so

thereafter have children." Besides this,

is full

of public prostitutes, quite apart

of domestic adultery, which are well enough known.

Just here in Peking alone they say that there are forty thousand on

women do

public display; these

which

is

a

much

this either

or,

graver injustice, because they were bought by impure

men, who by force made them earn

their living in this filthy way."

Ming contemporaries would have endorsed on the numbers and the be found even in small in the larger cities. In state

because they chose to

and had to pay

visibility

villages,

Peking

a tax;

at least Ricci's observation

of prostitutes, noting that they could

and could be counted

(as in

Rome), they were

in the

thousands

registered by the

and though they did not lounge

literally in

the doorways, as they did in Florence, the brothels had special doors,

219

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO hinged

when

in the middle, so that

RICCI

the upper half was hanging ajar pas-

sersby could gaze at leisure at those for sale within.

The

China had

Jesuits themselves in

to face disquieting charges of

They had not been long

sexual misconduct.

57

in

Zhaoqing when

a Chi-

nese convert accused Father Ruggieri of committing adultery with a

married

woman

of the town,

a

charge in which the woman's husband

concurred, claiming that he had beaten the truth out of her. This was a classic case

of

a

shakedown, and Ruggieri was able to

clear his

name.

58

Father Longobardi was similarly charged in the city of Shaozhou and

was cleared only when the

woman

was put to the torture by the bardi while, at the

men.

local

59

local magistrate

same time, confessing

and the Portuguese,

who

same time, and

women. These

to adultery with several other

towns, mocking the Christians

little

let their priests

mix indiscriminately with

plays were reinforced by

may have been thinking of

a brisk sale, as well as

literati

themselves.

vilest

sing.

But

it

is

more

when he

and most vicious

people in this whole country," and described the way as children

by

°

these unfortunate plays

wrote that the young actors of China were "the

were bought by their masters

local

comic prints attacking the

which enjoyed

lengthy written affidavits posted by the

61

who

kept their swords and their rosaries in action

Jesuits and their converts,

Ricci

and exonerated Longo-

Such rumors were constantly fanned by the Chinese,

staged plays on market days in the

at the

he was alleged to have slept with

many of them

and then taught to dance and

likely that these heavily

made-up young male

singers enforced the agitation that he felt at the presence of male prostitutes in Peking,

and

at the

obvious extent of male homosexuality

there:

That which most shows the misery of these people

is

that

no

less

than the natural lusts they practice unnatural ones that reverse the order of things: and this

be

illicit,

is

neither forbidden by law, nor thought to

nor even a cause for shame.

It is

spoken of

in public,

practiced everywhere, without there being anyone to prevent in

some towns where

this

abomination

220

is

most

common

—

it.

and

And

as in this

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM capital city

of the country

like prostitutes.

them

And

—

there are public streets full of boys got

there are people

and dance.

to play music, sing,

made up with rouge

women

like

who buy And then,

up

these boys and teach gallantly dressed

men

these miserable

and

are initiated

into this terrible vice.

These

but he had expressed similar sentiments in 1583,

life,

in

were written in 1609 or 1610, near the end of Ricci's

lines

China only

sin to

to be

a

few weeks, writing to Valignano about "the horrible

which everyone here

is

much 63

no shame or impediment."

have had

much

when he had been

given, and about

which there seems

In taking this position before he can

evidence one way or the other, and in reinforcing

it

a

quarter of a century later after detailed observation, Ricci was express-

ing a moral outrage totally in line with his times. Indeed, the two

who had

men

published accounts of China before Ricci traveled there had

both written in similar terms. Galeote Pereira wrote of the Chinese that "the greatest fault

we do

them

find in

is

sodomy,

the meaner sort, and nothing strange

in

much the same, adding reproved among them," and

a vice very

among

common

the best."

Friar

Gaspar da Cruz said

that this "unnatural vice"

was "in no wise

that the Chinese expressed

when he spoke

surprise

any

who

told

them

that

against

was

it

ascribed the vengeance that late 1550s, in the

form of

bolts that destroyed

He emphasized

it,

a sin,

God

claiming "that they had never had

nor an

evil

thing done."

took on certain Chinese

terrible

whole communities,

as if the

ters

of Lot, seeing the destruction of

whole province of Sanxi was desolated,

whole world had perished." its

causes

cities in

the

to the prevalence of this vice.

the point by noting that the Chinese

him

catastrophe and

Da Cruz

earthquakes followed by lightning

man who brought

the news of these catastrophes "was so frightened that

that the

65

it

appeared to

just as the

daugh-

Sodom and Gomorrah, thought And da Cruz concluded that this

might indeed portend the coming of the An-

tichrist.

Both loyal

Friar

Gaspar de Cruz and Father Matteo Ricci were reacting

members of a church

that,

as

while in principle committed to a con-

221

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO demnation of all

RICCI

with particular vehemence to any

fleshly lusts, reacted

male sexual indulgence that did not lead to the

possibility of procre-

moral stand had been given solemnity by the writings of

ation. This

Thomas Aquinas, who

natural

identified

intercourse as being that

union of the sexes practiced universally by the birds and animals, an

example that humans were told

to emulate.

from the logic of Aquinas's argument male anal intercourse with

women

words of Aquinas's Summa Against

whereby sort

a

human

Thus masturbation and

—both homosexual

were

strictly forbidden. In

the Gentiles, "after the sin

nature already in actual existence

is

and

liaisons

the stern

of murder,

destroyed, this

of sin seems to hold the second place, whereby the generation of

human

nature

Deeply built into

precluded."

is

this later Christian

condemnation of homosexuality was the association of such with Islam. The

earliest

Western

translations of the

the apparent toleration of homosexuality that

numerous

late

dulged

to the existence of catamites

in,

is

practices

Koran pointed

mentioned

and

there,

medieval sources referred to homosexuality freely

sexual abuse of male slaves.

Among

to

in-

and male brothels, or to the

the earliest laws of the

kingdom of

Jerusalem, established by Christians after the First Crusade, was one calling for the

burning of "sodomites," and extraordinarily dramatic

descriptions of the Muslims' violating of captured Christian boys, clerics,

and bishops were circulated

men,

Europe to give added impetus to

in

support for the Crusades. Ricci himself, in fulminating against the painted youths of Peking, used language almost identical to that used

by William of Adam

in attacking the catamites

of Islam three centuries

before.

One

can see something of the extension of these ideas in a casual

mark made by Martin Luther

moving

intense and

—

in an otherwise far

letter that

1542 in an attempt to reconcile birth.

"For

Luther, "

who

—

if it

is

from casual

— indeed,

he wrote to his friend Justin Jonas

him

re-

in

to the death of his wife in child-

not weary of the abominations of our world?" wrote

ought

to be called a

world and not

a very hell

of

evils

with which those Sodomites torment our souls and eyes day and night"; here Luther

made

clear that

222

by Sodomites he meant "Turks,

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM Jews, papists, and cardinals."

1

Naturally such

'

a

mocking

association of

groups was unacceptable to Catholics, and we find Jesuits brated Peter Canisius, so in the 1570s

dominant

of the order

in the intellectual life

and 1580s, restating an updated version of Aquinas's doc-

on homosexuality with passionate vigor

trine

like the cele-

drew together the

classic biblical

texts,

in his Catechism. Canisius

which included the

fate

of

Sodom and Gomorrah as described in Genesis (chapters 18 and 19), the Lord's comment on the cities as recorded by the prophet Ezekiel (chapter 16), and the dire warning in Leviticus (18:22) that men shall "not deal together carnally" as they do with women, "because it is abomination." Many church fathers, and indeed Luther as well, had interpreted the sin of Sodom to be primarily composed of a mixture of greed, sloth,

made

it

and indifference to the plight of the poor, but Canisius

clear that

Sodom, he wrote, "guilty of this

he rejected such a reading as well as failing to

most abominable

was very much

this type

schoolboy in Macerata, uality

when

fears

not to violate the law

70

of God, yea, and the law of nature." It

The men of

help "the poor and needy" were

which

vice

as inadequate.

of interpretation that Ricci heard

as a

Pius IV's fulminations against homosex-

were presented there in 1566. These, too, were the interpretations

that the Jesuits took with

them

as they traveled to the East in the late

sixteenth century, reinforced by the general sense of the time that vices

of

all

Goa

kinds flourished

could write

more

home

hot climates.

easily in

71

A Jesuit

almost immediately that "the heat

is

landing at great here

by day and night, and most of those in the college sleep without bed covers, wearing always light drawers

and

a sleeveless shirt,

and by day

wear only

a very light

we know

that the Jesuits in charge of the dormitories in

speedily all

cotton vest; the heat enervates everyone."

abandoned the attempt

to enforce their

And

Goa had

customary rules that

those in their care should sleep properly covered, with the

window

shutters closed.

Some

observers, like the Italian

transfixed with admiration at

merchant Francesco

the resulting sensuality;

wide-sleeved, dangling, loose white clothes, the

223

women

Carletti,

the

were

men

looking

in

as if

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

they were "formed on a lathe," with their limbs "sculptured and in lief,

such

in

a

way

that the eye can judge exactly

Striving for a simile that

would explain the

which

in

surplices

women

dress of the Indian

and other garments of the religious

pleated,

without

enough

to hold those pleats

may

they are made."

chose to say that they were pleated "in the

in greater clarity, Carletti

manner

how

re-

starch, as the water

are

and burning sun of that region are

and keep them

The

stiff.'"

description

well have been accurate, but the association of ideas was altogether

unfortunate, and perhaps suggests one reason for the passion with

which

local clerics

ity in

the

Goa

moved

to root out

region. Letters

thoughts of male homosexual-

all

from the Goa inquisitor spoke of the

Men

spread of this "infamy" and the need for harsh measures.

committing sodomy were publicly burned

Rome.

in

Goa,

caught

they were in

as

7

There was nothing localized about the

distaste Jesuits expressed,

and

they were in fact following a line of reasoning and behavior that had

been sanctified for the church in the Far East by Francis Xavier himself. In an open letter to the younger Jesuits of the

he wrote from Japan

in 1549,

company

Xavier expressed his shock

which homosexuality was entrenched among the

to

in

Goa, which

at the

priests

extent

of the Japa-

nese Buddhist church, a shock intensified by the casualness with which

The

the whole business seemed to be taken. sent

boys,

them

to

to be educated,

laughed when questioned about habit," he wrote; "the priests are

deny lic,

it,

they acknowledge

so clear to

to seeing

it

it.

"The

evil

evil,

men and women, young and

all,

is

lived openly with nuns,

soon

as

shouting aloud

him

and they

is

so pub-

are so used

it

was born.

at a startled

a free

meal

One Jesuit

the

nun

else the child

was

wrote Xavier, and

became pregnant she was aborted with drugs, or

served

and don't

that they are neither depressed nor horrified."

Other monks

killed as

and

simply become a

furthermore, old,

young

pleasure,

to sins against nature

openly. This

it

their sexual

for

drawn

priests used the

if

described Xavier a year later

group of Japanese monks (who had

in their

just

temple) "for the abominable vice of

224

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM

Sodom which

reigned amongst them," a charge their abbot did not

deign to answer.

By 1580 the

enough

est

Alessandro Valignano, was hon-

visitor in the Far East,

to realize that Catholic priests, because of their harsh atti-

tudes and lack of

human warmth toward

had come to study similar state of

might be contributing

in Jesuit houses,

affairs:

"Worse

as

still,

who

the Japanese students

they lived such

to a very

unhappy

lives in

our house, many of them went about taciturn

the Church, that

is,

and dissembling,

falling into coarse

in

and

some

sinful ways,

in order to

seek consolation by very undesirable methods, others in order to force

Valignano

[the Jesuits] to open their eyes to the reality."

some median position

that

would check the "corrupt character of the

people (beyond that corruption to which

and

tried to find

in his rules for the Jesuits'

we

are

naturally prone),"

all

Japanese seminary, drawn up in 1580, he

on

stipulated with meticulous care that the students should sleep

tami mats, separated by

little 7

be kept burning

all

night.

wooden

ta-

benches, and that a light was to

Father Francis Cabral,

who

lived in

Japan

when he had of 1596 to Rome,

almost twenty years, saw no amelioration of the situation

been transferred back to Goa. As he wrote in

a letter

Japanese homosexuality was the major obstacle to their religious pline.

disci-

Their "abominations of the flesh" and "vicious habits" were "re-

men

garded in Japan as quite honorable;

of standing entrust their sons

to the bonzes to be instructed in such things,

serve their lust."

and

at the

same time

The weight of such dominant views among East was such that other

Western

travelers

missionaries in the Far

tended to

feel

the need to

develop complex explanations for an absence of homosexuality in tain areas.

enticing

Thus the Venetian merchant Cesare

slit skirt

strait that at

cially ral

worn by the women

every step they

designed by them to

practices."

the absence of

to

79

A

shew

woo

in

wrote that the

Burma (Pegu), which

their legs

their

Fedrici

is

and more," had been

menfolk away from

cer-

their

"so spe-

"unnatu-

missionary in the same area concluded in 1544 that

sodomy

there was because the lord of the realm, an-

225

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO swering the entreaties of his queen, had ordered

"between the skin and the

bell

flesh

RICCI

all

men

to set a tiny

of their members" and that

this

device had successfully stopped the covert practice of the "abominable sin.

among

Certainly homosexuality nasty despite laws against

century because of the growth of

scholar Xie Zhaozhe,

century author

Song dynasty

who go

and

show

that "the

filled

all

gone

relaxed urban say.

life

The Ming

quoted the tenth-

honeycomb

of the

alleys"

with male prostitutes willing to

Ming

dynasty was not so

"In today's Peking," wrote Xie, "there are young boy singers

to

all

the gentry's wine parties, and

his energies to obtain

crazy.

This has

no matter how many

everyone uses them. ... As soon

are,

now

had them, then the custom spread, and uses

new

Ricci,

in that respect the later

prohibitions there

cial

to

had been

capital

their bodies,

different.

Gu

Tao

dy-

which Ricci was

impossible to

is

contemporary of

a

Ming

there had been a dramatic increase in the

and changing moral perceptions

styles

sell

in the statute books, of

Whether

apparently unaware. late sixteenth

it

males was prevalent in the

them,

come

really

it's

as

offi-

one man

every single gentleman

as if the

to be absurd."

whole country had

Xie

that if

felt

it

had

ever been true that male homosexuality was largely a southeastern Chi-

nese practice, as earlier writers posited, that was certainly case: in

no longer the

Peking, over half the male prostitutes came from the town of

Linqing in Shandong province, ending the old dominance of the males

from Zhejiang province (especially the two

cities

Ningbo), who had once been the most notorious. thought that

up

as

who

in the

Ming one now found many

women, whereas

dressed as men.

in previous dynasties

his 1581 visit to

learn that several marriages

brated in the church of to bed

and burned

and

Xie added the

cases of

men

had been the

dressing

women

83

Montaigne, during

"went

it

of Shaoxing and

St.

at the stake.

ticular incident allegedly

surprised to

between Portuguese males had been

John

a

cele-

few years before, and that the couples

lived together" for 8

Rome, had been

some time

If Ricci ever heard

before being arrested

such stories

—and

took place in 1578, the year 226

after

this par-

he

left

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM

— the global prevalence of such customs would have been amply

Rome

confirmed for him by the friend of his in

general studies

Peking

on

Ming

who became

scholar Shen Defu,

Shen wrote

in the early 1600s.

a

book of

in his

customs, the Bizhou zhai yutan, that in Fujian

social

province homosexual males often lived together conventionally in households, the elder partner being treated by the younger one's parents as their son-in-law and supported with the aside for his marriage portion.

The

money

they had laid

had even created

locals

a special

ideograph to express the closeness and sexual ambiguity of these unions, substituting the

component meaning "female"

for the

compo-

nent signifying "physical strength" that was conventionally used in the ideograph for "male."

One would

dard dictionaries, noted Shen. findings of Xie and Shen

85

not find

this

new ideograph

in stan-

Various other sources corroborate the

on the prevalence of homosexuality

in their

time. For instance, erotic prints that were widely circulated in the late

Ming, though dominated by scenes of heterosexual

numerous examples

either of

love, also contained

male anal intercourse with

women

or of

male couplings. In obvious reference to the prevalence of such customs

among

the upper levels of the

practicing "the Hanlin

literati,

Way."

Just as the Inquisition had

become

sexuality in the pontificate of Paul a child, so

these males were described as

IV

by the end of the century

particularly active against in the late 1550s,

its

when

several

Chinese

during the 1580s,

men

at

ment on the

a harsh fate that did

Philippines:

on

a pile

With edge,

it

though

They

The

Spaniards

not escape the notice of in a succinct

Ming com-

"Luzon has the strongest prohibitions against

perverse intercourse with boys. Chinese act against heaven.

was

the stake for homosexuality in Manila

As the Ming geographer Zhang Xie wrote

scholars.

Ricci

hand had reached around

stern

the world to Manila, as Ricci began his China mission.

burned

homo-

are at

who

violate this are

thought

to

once condemned to death and burned

of firewood." the sternness of these punishments

was this

becoming public knowl-

essential that the Jesuits themselves

was not always

possible.

227

be kept

free

of all

taint,

As with the charges of adultery

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO launched

at

RICCI

Ruggieri and Longobardi, so did other unpleasant rumors

around the Jesuit residences. The celibate

collect

Jesuits,

with their

black male retainers (at least in the earlier days of the mission) and

young

their

servants and novices, inevitably sparked stories. Ricci wrote

on one occasion he was charged with having kept

that

a

Chinese boy,

drugged, in his house for three days, the implication being that he had

had

way with him before planning

his

him

to sell

to the Portuguese in

Such charges hung over Western missionaries

Macao.

one Catholic father

secretly

brought

a twenty-year-old

formerly the disciple of a Buddhist priest

in general after

Chinese youth

— out of China with him

to

Macao, where he had him baptized. Scandalized Chinese threatened to

round up Portuguese

young man was

city unless the

yielded,

ships, confiscate

and one of

all

merchandise, and destroy the

returned. Reluctantly the Portuguese

their senior clerics escorted the

youth back to Can-

ton and was then forced to watch as the youth was savagely beaten for his indiscretion.

The Jesuits that

the

tried to

would preclude

keep

a

strong moral stance on these issues, one

further Chinese speculation. In the

Ten Commandments, which

in 1584, instead

form

as

"Thou

far

tled the

version of

Ricci and Ruggieri translated together

commandment in its simple commit adultery," they wrote "Thou shalt not

of translating the sixth

shalt not

do depraved, unnatural, or point

first

more strongly

filthy things."

90

Ricci emphasized the

same

in his explanation of Christian doctrine enti-

True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, though before coming to

it

he explained the church's theory of celibacy on eight grounds, in a lengthy elaboration of the arguments for the celibate

found

in Paul's epistles to the Corinthians

Epictetus's reflections

the world.

91

on the need

Ricci's eight points

men competing

for

moral

were

for sustenance gives those

that could be

and to Timothy and

men

these:

life

in

to see to the needs of

the large population of

with families no spare time

to think of spiritual matters; continence sharpens spiritual perception;

ample

mands

when

linked to chastity makes

easier to serve as a

moral ex-

to others; the goal of spreading the faith across the

world de-

poverty

total

commitment;

in

it

Europe, where people are passionate to

228

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM spread the faith, priests play

among

the general population a role simi-

of the tax and seed grain that any farmer

lar to that

harvest; the highest conceivable calling for

mankind

God, and since some saw "the world were better

from each

sets aside is

to reach

to be

toward

without food

than without God, the world were better without inhabitants than

without religion," they devoted their whole

must be

aries

of the binding

free

ties

lives to religion;

mission-

of wife and children, and always

ready to travel where they are called, since "if they can't succeed in the

West

they

must go

to the East, if they

the South or North"; and angels,

is

closer to

fail

in the East they will

with chastity one

lastly,

God, and so can

things, as Ricci

all

wrote in

to

lives nearer to the 92

more

fight the devil

effectively.

False celibacy, or the rejection of marriage but not of lust,

than

go

was worse

followed his eight

a stern passage that

reasons:

who reject normal sex and indulge in depravity, they abandon sex with women and instead they corrupt young males. This kind of filthiness is not even discussed by wise men in the West, for fear of defiling their own mouths. Even the wild animals In China there are those

only

make

their

bonds between female and male, none of them over-

turn the nature heaven gave them. for shame;

how

sinful these

society retain

fields. If

you doubt the wisdom of

question throwing

In the

first

it

their seed,

away into

week of the

are like this never blush

men have become. The members of my

humble

all

Men who

and do not plant

this,

it

how much more

a ditch or a gutter.

out

in the

should you

93

Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius of Loyola enjoined

each priest making the exercises to apply his whole being to the con-

templation of

sin,

using

all

the powers of

memory,

approach an understanding of God's grace in the angels, of

Adam, and

the mortal sin of

its

reason,

and

will to

contrast to the sins of

men

that followed

from

them. The second exercise of that week was profound contemplation of the

self,

of the "loathsomeness and malice" of the sins each

committed, until one could see clarity

of

all

guilt: "I will consider

man had

one's being in the harsh and terrible

myself

229

as a

source of corruption and

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

contagion from which have issued countless sins and

evils

and the most

offensive poison." This contemplation should lead, not to sorrow, but to an astonished "cry of

the

maker of the

wonder accompanied by surging emotion"

exercises, conscious

of the depth of his

sin,

grew

same time conscious of the true meaning of the mercy of that

would

forgive such sins.

9

Ricci and his fellow Jesuits in

have practiced these contemplations in their cises,

and indeed

their general,

as

at the

God who

China would

own making

of the exer-

Claudio Acquaviva, urged them often

not to give up those crucial reflections on the "two standards" of Christ and of Satan as they labored in the missions.

95

new directory on the exercises that he worked on with the of members of the order during the 1590s, Acquaviva further

In the vice

veloped his thoughts on

how and

whom

to

ad-

de-

the exercises should be

administered. His conclusion was that the limitations which Ignatius

imposed on use of the exercises should

still

reference to excluding married laymen,

be followed, especially with

however devout, from explor-

ing the entire exercises. Acquaviva followed Ignatius in emphasizing that

good

results

came from allowing

at least the first

week of the

cises to

be read by those "who, after reforming their

mained

in

lives,

exer-

have

re-

the world," and in reminding the missionaries that the

exercises need not only be given

when

in retreat

but also in the con-

"own homes if possible." This final decision of 1599 was reconfirmed in 1601, when Acquaviva wrote to the missionaries that local superiors "ought to show themselves ready and willing to entertain any who may wish to make the Spiritual Exercises. " 9 There are only scattered hints as to how often Ricci led Chinese converts through the first week of the exercises. The first time seems to have been with a wealthy merchant convert named "Cotunhua" in verts'

Shaozhou

city

during 1591, the second time with Cotunhua's friend,

the scholar-alchemist citly that

Qu

97

Cotunhua was the more

he was already prepared

Buddhist

Rukuei.

beliefs; in

In the

ready to

in the practice

first

case Ricci noted expli-

make

the exercises because

of meditation by his previous

the second case Ricci believed that

230

Qu, the

pas-

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM sionate alchemist, had his soul purged of the fear of death that had

driven

The

him

to a ceaseless quest for elixirs of immortality.

delicate point in the exercises of the

natius and Acquaviva had emphasized, was that literal in

one's reflections

on the

sins

self,

and

as

life it

was proper,

as

one was not

one contemplated,

Ig-

to be too

especially not

was concerned. In the meditations

so far as the application of the senses

on Christian

week, which both

first

Acquaviva wrote, "to picture to one-

were to see with the eyes of the imagination, the place

it

where the thing on which we meditate occurred." The contemplation of sin, however, raised very different problems: while being aware of the

whole range of human one's

own

and expressing the deepest contrition for

frailty,

shortcomings, one had to avoid any mental involvement

one

that could lead

to partake, as

it

were, in the sinful thoughts or act

themselves. Ignatius of Loyola had suggested that the best

on

flect fruitfully

sin

way

was to hold the three powers of memory,

reason in the tightest possible balance, so that

to re-

will,

and

no one of the three

powers should be able to gain the ascendancy. Rather surprisingly, Acquaviva had concluded that those in this matter than others," far

mind, were in keen."

98

those "in

One might

strongest and

of

fact

who

proved to have "greater

from being those without boldness of

whom

imaginative powers are especially

meaning

interpret this as

most far-ranging

this particular exercise, to

facility

intellects

that those with the

were able to see

all

dimensions

understand the need for reining in the

passions just because they were so aware of their scope and complexity.

Perhaps Ricci managed to share some of this insight with

Cotunhua. His,

"men and left"; it

after

all,

was the

fierce

animals and insects were

was

in the

how

burned up and nothing was

his

imagination that "the trees

and rocks were turned to ash and sank into the ground.

231

and with

pen that told the Chinese

all

grim sharpness of

Qu

s

EIGHT

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE

In

the middle of August 1599, Ricci wrote to his friend

Girolamo Costa, from

whom

he had just received two

letters,

one dated 1595 and one 1596. Letters from Costa often Ricci to musing, for Costa was also from Macerata, was only

older than Ricci, and had entered the Jesuit order in 1570s.

Rome

set

one year

in the early

In this particular case emotions were especially frank since

Costa's letters repeated the sad

The news happened not in his reply

he dwelt

news that both

Ricci's parents

know

to be true, but Ricci could not

briefly

on

their passing;

had

died.

that,

he also mentioned

and

how

cheered he was at hearing from other friends, such as Nicolo Benci-

who had been his and Costa's childhood teacher in Macerata, the man "who during our most tender and most vulnerable years taught us and put us on the road to the state where now we find ourselves." The news from Costa and Bencivegni was good, both about his home re-

vegni,

gion and about the work of the Jesuits there, and Ricci rejoiced in

Then he added, times in the past

as if I

suddenly struck by the thought,

"A good many

have boasted to these barbarians that

232

it.

I

come from

a

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE land to which Christ our Lord, from

house

And that

in

which he and

his

they are astounded

God

has

wrought

many

miles away,

mother had spent

when

I

in those

tell

them of

their time

the

this earth.

and of other marvels

this

Western lands."

on

moved

1

Ricci was obviously referring, almost with pride of ownership, to the

shrine of the Virgin

the sea,

The

among

Mary

fruit trees

at Loreto,

which stood on

and vineyards only

a

verdant

a short ride

site

near

from Ancona.

shrine itself was in the form of a house nine and a half meters

long, four meters wide, and five meters high

the one in which

Mary

raised the child Jesus.

—which was believed

received the Annunciation and in

to be

which she

According to legend, the house had been mirac-

Holy Land,

ulously transported by angels from Nazareth in the

Fiume, then to a forest outside Recanati, and

first

to

finally to Loreto. Initially

the house rested unrecognized and abandoned in the woods, sheltering

most treasured

its

relic, a

Luke

portrait of the Virgin rendered by St.

the evangelist; until at the end of the thirteenth century, alerted in a vision, sixteen

young men from Recanati

traveled to Nazareth

confirmed that the foundations of the Virgin's house that could

and

still

be

seen there matched exactly the dimensions of the house at Loreto.

So read the descriptive legend hanging

in the church,

the late fifteenth century and translated into French, Spanish; and so

composed

in

German, and

was confirmed by overlays of papal bulls and reports

it

of miraculous occurrences. The simple house had become, by Ricci's time, a

famous shrine enclosed

in a glittering

by Andrea Sansevino and paid for by Julius popes, and the fame had brought changes:

marble carapace designed

and

II

the

his four successor

wooden

ceiling of

painted blue on which stars had glistened was removed because of the

danger of fire from the candles of the

Mary and her

faithful,

an ancient cedar statue of

child was swathed in precious fabrics to preserve

it,

while

Sansevino's marble carapace in turn was contained within a magnifi-

cent church, for which Bramante completed the facade in 1571. For his

time in China

new

richness and

this shrine

would have been present

to Ricci, given

meaning by Ignatius of Loyola's instructions

233

all

to those

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO making the second week of

RICCI

exercises that, after contemplating the In-

carnation of the Virgin, they should

house and room of our Lady

make

in the city

special efforts "to see the

of Nazareth in the province of

2

Galilee."

The grandeur

that

was added to the once-simple shrine

sixteenth century had not vitiated

cording to Montaigne, gift

who

visited

its it

in the late

poignant solemnity, in April 1581

and

at least ac-

left

there the

of a composite portrait of himself, his wife, and his daughter wor-

shiping the Virgin Mary, the whole wrought cunningly in

silver.

Not-

ing that the church was "beautiful and large," and that Bramante's over-building was "the most finely worked and of the loveliest marble that

one could ever

humble

little

Montaigne reserved

see,"

house: "Here there

no paintings or

tapestries

serves as the reliquary."

is

on the

He

no ornament, no bench or hassock,

wall; for

added,

"One

it is

had returned home, other

the building itself that

finds there

sense of religion than in any other place that after they

his greatest praise for the

I

travelers

more of the

have ever seen."

3

real

Long

of the same period

re-

membered

the haunting music to which the litany of the Lady of

Loreto was

set,

while Macerata in the 1570s was already the center for a

thriving publishing business in the Virgin's

on Loreto and on the cures worked there

name.

Macerata was

a

way

station

Loreto, and from his earliest years Ricci

to the region. Indeed in Macerata

years before Ricci

itself, as all

the

townswoman, Bernadina

was born;

all

through

church was being raised in honor of the miracle had occurred.

this

in 1573

Mary

that

gave

it

town knew, the di

Bonino,

Vir-

just four

his schooldays a magnificent

event on the very spot where

Though marred somewhat by

lawsuits that slowed construction, the church of

was completed

to

would have been aware of the

shrine and the special focus of devotion to the Virgin

gin had appeared to a

Rome

on the pilgrim route from

St.

a

number of

Mary the Virgin

and became one of Macerata's proudest monu-

ments, a worthy addition to the twenty other churches, with their exquisite collections of frescoes

Ages.

and paintings dating back to the Middle

In the presence of this evidence of the Virgin's

234

power

Ricci

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE could

feci reassured, for

reached out to

all

strength and gentleness combined in her and

One

men.

can catch a fragment of this emotion in

the words used by Ludolfus of Saxony to describe his personal sense of the Virgin's fruitful majesty, words that were to touch Ignatius of

Loyola deeply, and reach through him to his followers in the instruc-

between

tions that he left concerning the Virgin's role as mediator

sin-

mortals and her Son in heaven:

ful

For just

as in

springtime,

when

the sun begins to rise towards the

height of Heaven and to pour the life-giving brightness of

upon the

earth,

again; animals

life

and birds hidden

eyrie begin to breathe because

up

their strength again

praises;

it is

the

is

in each

and every cave and

of the renewal of such

and make their joy known

and old and young

face of the earth

men

exult in

in

its arrival;

light,

to

and

lair

and take

songs and happy

and the whole

sur-

—so

beautifully adorned, celebrating and rejoicing

when the life-giving Virgin comes, preeminent Queen of Heaven. Like the sun, with

come

plants fettered in winter's frost begin to

all

rays

its

clothed with the sun,

us,

she enters the borders

of our hearts, and the remembrance of her pours upon our minds

which glow brightly without cloud;

for indeed,

lack of feeling

all

continually melted in the greatness of such a light; is

watered by the

a

new

dew of Heavenly

light appears,

Grace; the darkness

that

all is

is

dry

is

put to

and the unending theme of joys

is

flight;

built

up

for us.

That

"all lack

of feeling" was "continually melted in the greatness of

such a light," in Ludolfus's wonderful phrase,

may suggest

a further

reason for Ricci's finding solace in the Virgin Mary's presence. eldest

of fourteen children, Ricci can have had

little

attention from his

mother, the noblewoman Giovanna Angelelli, and he twice in

all

his letters,

refers to

once asking to be remembered

and once expressing satisfaction that she was spending church. all

His relationships with his

seem muted

if

we

father, his brothers,

can judge from his

letters,

which

Laria did he write with real affection,

235

and

her only

in her prayers,

much and

time in

his sisters

are filled

complaints that no one in the family ever writes to him.

grandmother

As the

it

9

with

Only of

his

seems typical

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO of the family distances that

it

RICCI

should have again been Girolamo Costa,

then .living in Siena, rather than a

relative,

who

told

him when

Laria

died. "I

cannot stop remembering with the greatest tenderness the love

that she

showed me when

I

was

a little

boy," Ricci wrote in 1592, after

how much I owe to her me like my second mother."

getting the news, "and occasions raised

Costa's letter bringing the sad

window of

having on various

news reached Ricci when he was con-

when he jumped from

fined to bed with a badly injured foot, suffered

the

for

the Shaozhou mission house during the nighttime

tack by Chinese youths in the

summer of

at-

1592. Ricci's lying there in

pain echoes, in a softer way, the long and agonizing weeks that Ignatius

of Loyola spent in bed seventy-one years before,

after a

French

ball

of shot had broken his right leg in the siege of Pamplona. As doctors

probed Ignatius's leg for shards of shattered bone, attached

metal

a

brace in an attempt to stop the right leg from permanently shriveling

wound

and reopened the

to a shorter length than the left one,

to re-

place a splinter of bone that pierced through the right kneecap, he

courage from

he

a vision

of Mary and her child that came to him, a vision,

said, that left his heart serene

thoughts of 1521, he

went

11

lust.

first

When

and

transcribed selections

to visit his sister;

his flesh never again troubled

when

from Ludolfus of Saxony and then

Ricci could stand again, in all

in Laria's

who had

August 1592,

memory, and

embarked on an exhausting and apparently endless ceedings involving those

by

Ignatius could walk again, in late September

he said three Masses in sequence,

ity,

drew

series

thereafter

of legal pro-

attacked the mission. All this activ-

coupled with the inability of the Macao doctors to correct the

damage, ensured that he too would limp

when

the pain

came flooding back

Poi

ch'ei

own

posato un poco

il

of his

murmur

the lines that

quest in the Inferno:

corpo lasso,

Ripresi via per la piaggia diserta,

Si che'l pie

fermo sempre era

236

life.

Later,

long day's walking or stand-

after a

ing in Peking, one can almost hear Ricci

chose to introduce himself and his

for the rest

'I

piii basso.

Dante

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE So having I

rested, for a

my way up

resumed

With my

moment, my

tired

body,

the deserted slope

firm foot always staying the lower.

That English version can only be

a partial translation; for

Dante here

used the highly resonant language of Aristotle and the church fathers to

show how

the exhausted pilgrim dragged his

left

him

foot behind

as

he limped tenaciously forward, given courage by the thought of his 13

Beatrice.

Limping

literally

just the solace

and metaphorically toward the

memory but

of visions and

him courage along

tional objects to give

had not

light, Ricci

the real presence of devo-

the way.

We

can guess that

the idea of Loreto as reliquary, caught by Montaigne, was present also in Ricci's

mind

after

childhood

moved from Macerata

to

visits to

Rome

residence literally in a city of

as a

relics.

127 churches could be found,

In the myriad shrines of the city's

was believed, the bodies of

it

when he

schoolboy of sixteen he took up

Luke the evangelist and of

and

St.

the

arm of Joseph of Arimathea, and

Paul, the heads of St.

the shrine; certainly

St.

St.

Peter

Sebastian,

Christ's face imprinted

on the

linen cloth once held by Veronica. There too were stored the tip of the

spear that pierced Christ's side, a piece of the true cross, the head of an

arrow that pierced

St.

Sebastian, the table

on which the

Last Supper

was

served to Christ and his disciples, one of the thirty pieces of silver paid for Christ's betrayal, the chains that

barley loaves with

which Christ

bound

fed the

hungry multitude, the towel

with which Christ washed his apostles' ascended to the house of Pontius Christ to his cross, and

As important tain holy places.

giore, for one,

reign of

Snow.

Pope

It

was

Pilate,

feet,

were the

The church of

here,

the response to

St.

Romans

his

nails that fastened

crown.

1

special legends that sanctified cer-

the Blessed Virgin, Santa Maria

was built on the spot where snow Liberius;

the stairs that Christ

one of the

two of the thorns from

as the relics

Paul, part of the five

St.

still

called

it

fell

Our

one August

Lady's

Magin the

Church of the

during one service long ago, that an angel uttered Gregory, so that 237

still

in Ricci's

time the choir did

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

not reply to the blessing "The Peace of the Lord be with you always" in

hope

that the angel

And

spirit."

would speak once more the words "And with thy

there was lovingly kept a part of the shelter and ox's

where Mary

first

placed Christ in Bethlehem, of which

wrote, "That

stall

wherein the

infant cried

little

with silence than with speech too base for derstood by the

Roman matron

in this very spot,

Paula,

Not

surprisingly, Ricci took with

We

know

he could on his

him

that he had with

made of remnants of

own

in his

some of whom acknowledged

Marian sodality

in

in

the true

personal baggage

lest

their

they

to his

ownership proudly and

Luke

Li,

in

the founder of the

China, commissioned to memorialize the Chris-

own

within his

hung around

holders that

relics as

At propitious times he gave these away

at the court.

tian converts

lived out her life devoutly

him such

public. For instance, in the painting that first

pledge of honor un-

fragments of the bones of certain saints and a box of

from Jerusalem; he kept these

converts,

honored

was the station chosen by the

China, lovingly preserved, a tiny cross

be defiled

rather to be

1

voyage half-way around the world.

soil

Jerome

St.

"the cabin wherein the virgin Childwife brought

Christmastime.

cross, as well as

it," a

who

forth our Lord a babe." Naturally this faithful at

is

stall

family,

one could

their necks,

see the tiny reliquary

though of course the viewer

could not be sure what they contained.

This same Luke Li was the founder of a group of Chinese Christians in

Peking

Mary and the

first

China.

who met

together to pay particular

to devote their lives to

to bring

The

throughout

"Marian

to the Virgin

lays claim to

be

such groups were termed, into

behind such sodalities were prevalent

ideas

that

much

of Europe

groups of religious

good works. He thus

sodalities," as lay

homage

in

the

men and women

Counter-Reformation.

pledged themselves to

Small

lives

of

heightened spiritual service in order to reinforce the work of the large organizations or institutions to which they might already belong.

The

groups were united by their pledges to attend regular meetings, usually weekly, to the

make frequent

modes of

confession and

social service, reconciliation,

238

communion, and

to explore

and charity that were most

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE needed in their communities. The members did not have to be in

and

orders,

among

the

Florence,

gaged

in the

midsixteenth century one could find Marian groups

women

among

all

social

groups

in Venice,

in similar activities in hospitals

even paid for the upkeep of

and held

women

of

Genoa, Siena, which en-

One group

separated from their husbands 17

The

first

such Marian

so-

Macerata was established in 1551, the year before Ricci's birth,

meetings in the church of

its

when

1566,

the artisans

and among the poor.

while they sought to arrange reconciliations. dality in

among

of Padua and Naples,

the

members moved

St.

Anthony of Padua

to the even

Madonna of Loreto. Whether Ricci was a member of certainly was an active member of

more apposite

until

shrine of

the

been founded

at the

Roman

gian Jan Leunis in 1563. it

By

thirty,

enty.

group we don't know, but he

the sodality in

Rome, which had

college by the Belgian Jesuit and theolo-

1569, just before Ricci joined the sodality/

had grown so rapidly that

for those

this

it

had been divided into two sections, one

whom there were around older, of whom there were sev-

between twelve and seventeen, of

and one

for those eighteen

As expansion continued,

and

was subdivided yet again,

it

this

time

into groups for those over twenty-one, those fourteen to twenty-one,

and those under fourteen.

worked

side

active at

1

These groups of young Jesuits would have

by side with numerous groups of

Rome

lay believers,

who were

Among groups of laymen that flourished in Rome we find those who visited prisons,

as elsewhere.

during Ricci's school years

giving out bedding and pallets, arranging appeals or physicians'

visits,

paying off debts, or giving spiritual solace to those condemned to death. If death came, then

it

was the Compania de Morte that gave

cent burials to the poor, while the

those executed criminals

(who

Compania de

family,

now

Misericordia buried

confessed themselves Christians)

consecrated ground rather than leaving for the ravens.

la

de-

in

them hanging on the gallows

Other companies solaced the Vergognosi (those of good

impoverished, too proud to beg), while yet others me-

diated in disputes between citizens or looked after the deranged or

dangerously mad.

20

239

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

Leunis's special contribution was to give a powerful internal unity to

the students of the Jesuit order, with the goal of integrating their scholarship into a

life

of Christian

service.

missions became a central focus for

Naturally service in overseas

much of this

had himself yearned to serve

nificant that Leunis

energy, and

was

it

in the Indies,

sig-

but was

prevented from doing so by the fact that he suffered from blinding

headaches that led his superiors to order him to stay

at

home.

It

was

after his headaches ceased following a pilgrimage to the shrine in

Loreto that in gratitude he began to meet with the students and to

deepen their devotion to the Virgin.

l

From

this

in the Jesuit college the ideas that stimulated the

marshaling of forces

group spread

to Spain

and France, and then out to Portugal and her overseas possessions.

There tive in

helping minister to the needs of the

Muslims,

in trying to eradicate

—

quarrelsome citizenry riod

Goa, where they were

are frequent references to sodalities in

some

place.

fifteen

this latter

slaves, in

ac-

converting the

concubinage, and in reconciling the

no

one six-month

easy task, as in

hundred disputes were recorded

as

Similar groups were also being established in

pe-

having taken

Macao

just as

Ricci arrived there, and perhaps because of his experiences with the

Marian

sodalities in

1582 to head the

Rome

or in Goa, Valignano assigned

new Macao congregation of

the

him

in late

name of Jesus. This

was designed to help recent Chinese and Japanese converts residing

Macao deepen members.

their spiritual

life:

in

Portuguese were not permitted to be

23

The Marian

Rome

sodality in

had been given extra prestige by

papal bull issued by Gregory XIII in 1584,

which named

it

the

a

"first

and principal" congregation, and the organizational passion of General

Acquaviva followed up groups

2

in 1587.

for the officers

fession every

this lead

Among

by formulating new

rules for the

other things Acquaviva tightened the rules

of the Marian sodalities, instructing them to make con-

two weeks; he

also specified

no outsiders present (unless

weekly Sunday meetings with

special dispensation

was obtained),

or-

dered the maintenance of secrecy concerning the sodalities' activities,

arranged for admission to each sodality by an electoral process con-

240

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE

women

ducted by the local members, and banned the admission of

deemed them "not conducive

since he

Luke

Li built

on

this

foundation

to edification."

as interpreted for

him by

Ricci and

established the Peking sodality in 1609, the inauguration coming, suitably enough, event,

which

on the

natal day of the Virgin. Ricci's account of this

moved him

clearly

deeply,

comes

end of the

at the very

autograph draft of his Historia, and the structure of the draft suggests

may indeed have been

that these illness

and death.

friend Li Zhizao,

monthly ers,

for a

wax

how Luke

noted

drew up

Li, a

former retainer of Ricci's

which was

to

meet

members gave

flow-

rules for his little society

sermon and

for candles,

tling disputes their

He

the last lines he wrote before his final

how

prayer,

and incense

the Chinese

to the

and helping prisoners

Peking church, worked on

in the churches,

main energies on providing decent Christian

who

could not afford

forty

members.

it.

Thus

at

By Christmas 1609 the one

level

we

and concentrated

burial for converts

sodality

had grown to

can see that these activities were

based on the experiences Ricci had had in

Rome, and probably

followed Acquaviva's guidelines, and yet there were also

The concentration on decent

burial

was particularly

Chinese raised with Confucian ideas of for

whom

a dignified funeral

set-

filial

was obligatory

partially

new

twists.

likely to appeal to

piety toward their elders,

—Xu Guangqi spent

120

ducats on a cedar coffin for his father, while Li Zhizao provided fifteen

ounces of

silver for Ricci's.

burials probably attain a their

Moreover, the mere prospect of such

fine

encouraged the poorer Chinese to seek baptism and

posthumous dignity

that

would otherwise have been beyond

means.

From

the very earliest days of the founding of the

sodality of the Virgin, there

members formed an sodalities

elite

Roman

college's

had been rumors and accusations that the

within the Jesuit schools, and indeed that the

were used expressly for the purpose of identifying the most

promising young

men

so they could be given

more

rapid advancement.

Such rumors were given substance by the existence of ings within the sodalities, for as the sodalities

grew

secret

in size, smaller

groups often coalesced to meet in private and pursue their 241

subgroup-

own

goals

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO or

—

as in

the case of a group of

a stronger sense

himself

who

young nobles

of piety. In this

latter case

RICCI

in the

Abruzzi

not only gave permission for the subgroup to continue to

Rome.

in

strength of the bonds that could be forged by those

who

experience was carried over into China, reinforcing the

wrote about Francesco de served with

him

in

until his death in

Roman

college at an unusually

two may have known each other before Ricci wrote

later that Petris

"was unable

Madonna" and

tion he felt for the

November

to hide

left

of

way he

who

1593. Since

young

Rome

The

ties

Petris, a Jesuit father ten years his junior

Shaozhou

had entered the

28

shared this

shared hopes and dangers. Ricci showed this clearly by the

Petris

to foster

was General Acquaviva

it

meet but encouraged the formation of similar groups

common

—

age, the

in 1577; Ricci

from anyone the deep devo-

that the

young

priest

had told the

Chinese novices in Shaozhou that he had entered the Society of Jesus because the Virgin Mary, in

was

a

a vision,

had urged him to do

devout member of the Marian sodality

in

Rome, added

so. Petris

Ricci,

even on his deathbed continued to chant aloud songs in her After

making

his final confession, Petris rose

arms around Ricci's neck.

When

tried to reassure Petris that

mained ther.

side

There

by is

side,

in Ricci's writings.

his

praise.

bed and flung his

Ricci gently disengaged himself and

he would recover, the two missionaries

bathed in

no passage so

from

and

prevented their speaking

fur-

with personal emotion anywhere

else

tears that

filled

re-

29

General Acquaviva was himself strongly drawn to the cult of the Virgin, a trait that he shared with the founder of the Jesuit order, Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius had written that the constitutions of the society

had been drawn up

through

rumor

with the help of the Virgin Mary

visions, an observation that led to the

wide circulation of

a

that the Spiritual Exercises themselves had been in part "dic-

tated" by the Virgin. sive

in part

30

Meditations on the Virgin Mary are "unobtru-

and fundamental" to the

exercises, according to a leading Jesuit

scholar of spirituality, an interpretation given weight by the fact that

Ignatius had waited a his first Mass,

full

year between his ordination and the saying of

both "to prepare himself and to beg our Lady that she 242

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE might

desire to place

Mass

his first

Rome

him with her Son."

in 1538,

was

it

in the l

and on Christmas Day.

When

Ignatius did at last say

church of Santa Maria Maggiore

in

General Acquaviva reinforced this un-

derlying theme of the Virgin's centrality to the order in a letter to the

May

Jesuits of

which Ricci probably saw

19, 1586,

he was evicted from Zhaoqing. The

just before

several years later

was

letter

geared to aspects of the China mission, since Acquaviva wrote the missionaries that

tify

ebrate the "bright

Pope Sixtus

dawn of

faith

V

upon

had authorized

this vast

directly it

to no-

a jubilee to cel-

empire" of China; one

can imagine the effect of Acquaviva's ringing rhetoric on Ricci as he knelt before the altar in

the cowled in his left

Zhaoqing on which was displayed

a picture of

Madonna holding the Christ Child (the Scriptures clasped hand). The picture was a reproduction of the one in the

church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which Ricci had brought into China

and displayed

room he

Mary

first

built to serve as a church.

the

is

Mother of

Him who

very properly honored by

Queen of heaven and

St.

32

In his letter Acquaviva wrote:

created

is

my

and hence she

things,

all

Damascene with the

earth. It

in the larger

of Mistress and

title

wish, that at

is

times and in

all

all

—whether our individual wants or those of the whole —we with veneration and unwavering confidence,

things ciety

house he rented and then

in a little

in

So-

in

seek,

a special

the protection and patronage of the Blessed Virgin; for she

uge of

all

is

the

ref-

those that are heavily laden with the weight of their labors,

or troubled in soul. Indeed,

when

I

reflect

upon the tender devotion

of the saints to our Blessed Lady, and the holiness which they attained through their persevering and fervent love of that

we

God.

I

all

do not forget

of you to pray

to

may

daily

that,

that our holy Father rested

upon Mary's

call

all

protection, and

I

his

Mother of

hopes for the

consequently beg

through her intercession, her honor and her

become

mem-

And truly, the exceptional dignity God has been raised is such that it

dearer to us.

which the Virgin Mother of

must

cannot but desire

I

cherish with devoted hearts a veneration for the

future of the Society

ory

her,

forth our love

and admiration.

If

with which she has bestowed upon us her

243

we

recall

gifts,

the generosity

our gratitude can

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO never equal her goodness to us; and sities

and

helplessness,

we must be

if

we

reflect

RICCI

upon our own

neces-

forced to call in to our aid her

all-

powerful patronage.

The quid pro quo

we

for this devotion

would be

clear,

he concluded: "If

only prove ourselves her faithful clients, she will take us into her

confidence and will herself protect us."

33

Ricci hardly needed reminding of the role played by the Virgin

He

within the order.

had seen her

in

Mozambique,

in his brief days

ashore there, after the long voyage from Lisbon, in the shape of

Lady of the Bulwark" guarding the Portuguese tian;

Mary

"Our

of San Sebas-

fortress

he had seen Akbar's ambassador remove his shoes and prostrate

himself before her image in the Jesuit church in Goa; and he had noted that the finest church in

Macao was the one dedicated

to the Virgin.

34

In China, indeed, she had been almost too potent a force, displacing in the popular Chinese

Perhaps in part

it

mind

the august parties of the Trinity.

was the extraordinary realism with which the

beauty of her image had been caught dents to

kowtow came

his

it

Wang

Pan

resi-

to request a

—but the Chi-

aged father in Shaoxing

to believe that the Christian

image fused with other visions of benevolent past,

Zhaoqing

a realism that led

before her and the prefect

copy of her image to send to nese slowly

—

God was deities

a

woman. 33 Her

from China's

own

and the very realism with which her long robes were painted made

hard for some Chinese scholars to recognize the humanness of her

form. As Ricci's contemporary, the scholar Xie Zhaozhe, wrote in his

book of observations and reminiscences, "The image used Christian

God

is

the body of a

woman, but

her appearance

is

for

the

most un-

usual; she's like those figures we used to describe as 'having a human " 36 Once it had become clear to Ricci that head and a dragon's body.'

misunderstandings were arising, he considered replacing the main

image of the Virgin and Child with one of the mature

Christ.

The

Chi-

nese could not help being "a bit confused" (un poco confusz), he noted,

because

at

the same time they saw Mary's image everywhere the Jesuits

were teaching them that there was only one God; indeed, they had 244

just

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE translated the

Ten Commandments with

statement to that

effect.

Since the Jesuits did not yet

plain to the Chinese the mystery of

womb

in the Incarnation,

rumors. That the Christian

how

its

ready to ex-

feel

Christ had entered the Virgin's

some confusion was

ing the Virgin's picture from

was

unambiguous opening

their

and remov-

inevitable,

prominent position did not end the

God was

a

woman

with a child in her arms

item of knowledge in Nanjing by the end of the

a well-established

sixteenth century, and later Chinese writers continued to circulate the

same information

in their printed works.

Perhaps indeed Ricci did not do

as

37

much

he might have done to

as

these rumors, since, in the days before the missionaries had

dispel

begun teaching the

full

burden of the Christian

story, the effect

we

Virgin's image was so valuable in their work. In October 1585

him

Ricci writing to Acquaviva, asking

"that could be

for

worn around the neck" and

do not understand."

yet they

made

very fine oil painting,

some more

small clocks

some

religious pic-

also for

38

Sometime

in Spain, as a gift

Baptist,

and was displayed to great

from

a priest serving in

Near the end of

copy of

this painting

room of

a

by

it

country

the

later in Pe-

were surprised to find

among

fifty scrolls

villa

of some

a pile

39

The owners

outside Shaozhou.

who was

overland from Macao.

John

Ricci's life other Jesuits

was, but the Jesuits deduced that

a local painter

Nanchang and

effect in

able to view

it

it

as

1586 Ricci received a

after

the Philippines. This picture was of the Virgin, Christ, and

what

find

but "not those which show details of Christ's Passion, which

tures,

king.

of the

in the

did not

a

back

know

had been copied privately

while

it

was being conveyed

This was the kind of informal circulation of

religious material that Ricci usually encouraged.

Another copy of the Santa Maria Maggiore Virgin reached Ricci via

Macao

in late 1599, a full-size color reproduction this time,

This copy and the

Tang when he

first

oil

not a print.

painting had a major effect on the eunuch

saw them, and he promised Ricci that the Virgin

"will have her place in the palace of the king." This promise filled,

for there

cient style"

Ma

— one

were two large paintings of the Madonna

and one

was

in

"new

style"

—itemized

245

ful-

in "an-

in the gifts that

were

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI given to Emperor Wanli in 1601, and they were presumably

finally

these

same two. According

to

who

eunuchs

reported the circumstances

emperor was "stupefied" and believed

to Ricci, the

must be "a

this

liv-

ing Buddha," but was upset by the paintings' realism and gave them to his

mother. She, a devout Buddhist, was also made uneasy by them,

and the paintings ended up

°

in the palace storehouse.

This generally pious reception of the pictures of the Virgin and Child contrasts sharply with attitudes to the crucified Christ,

had encountered them the previous

year.

One

which Ricci was

crucifix,

must have been small

carrying in his private baggage,

yet vividly real in

the style of the late sixteenth century, designed to give

mediacy to the

man contemplating

tions to be present as Christ

is

crucified. Ricci described

carved out of wood, with blood painted on

it,

maximum

im-

with Ignatius's injunc-

in line

it,

as Ricci

so

it

it

as "beautiful,

seemed

alive."

The

— that same Ma Tang who had admired

eunuch who found

it,

the Virgin's picture

—suspected black magic and shouted aloud, "This

is

a

however

wicked thing you have made, to

who

people

practice such arts."

gage of Ricci and

his

their depraved designs,

The main

tile

it

it

evil"

and that

want

among

in the face

to say that that

"On

the one hand," as he wrote

was our God,

it

as

he often did), "he

seeming

difficult to

him

these ignorant people, and at such a time, to talk of these high

mysteries, ...

on the

saw

other, because he

of disgust for the cruelty which,

him,

full

done

to that

man"

—

that

is,

to Christ.

all

the people turned against

it

seemed to them, he had

The explanation he

did not really satisfy Ricci or his listeners; he told

would not understand what manner of thing famous

of the hos-

hard to marshal an adequate explanation of

(speaking of himself in the third person

didn't

for further clues to

noted with honesty, that the eunuch

the significance of Christ crucified. later

up and the bag-

Soldiers were called

and they were threatened with savage beatings.

was something

crowd Ricci found

our king; they cannot be good

companions was ransacked

difficulty was, as Ricci

"truly thought

kill

saint

from our land

who had

246

finally

them "that they

this was; that this

wished to

gave

suffer this pain

was

a

on the

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE our

cross for

him

way

in this

him

thanks to Ricci,

was

it

sakes;

and

we

for this reason

so as to have

him always

sculpted

before our eyes, and to give

As one Chinese

friend said to

"not good to have someone looking

like that"; an-

for his great goodness."

really

him and

painted

other suggested that the Jesuits "crush into powder any other cruci-

had with them, so there would be no memory of them."

fixes they

In the face of such incomprehension

it

2

was more sensible to continue

giving visual primacy to the Virgin and Child, despite the difficulties of describing the Incarnation adequately, although images of Christ cru-

were

cified

that were

still

circulated in the

worn around

form of the small bronze medallions

their necks

who

could be given to converts

by the

requested them, in a plain cross used to

ornament the roof of a church, or even by as

faithful, as small prints that

a

simple display of the rosary

proof of devotion. At other times, images of Christ were hidden 3

gether.

some on

So Ricci continued to make copies of the Virgin's image, paper,

some even carved on

stone,

and to commission new

paintings of her from any Jesuit painters with adequate talent

and the number of

could

find,

their

effect.

Child

—

Father

set in a beautiful

effect

on

Xu

Macao

Guangqi when he saw

in 1602.

that

it

to his conversion. Jesuit priests in the south tures of the Virgin

another

it

pillars

This picture had

acted as a catalyst

began to carry small

with them when they preached

he

Madonna and

background of gilded cornices and sick leave in

whom

grew, along with

fine versions slowly

Cattaneo brought yet

when he came back from such an

alto-

pic-

— they would cover

small table with an altar cloth and place the Virgin's picture

on

a

it,

flanked by candles and incense. Slowly the Chinese converts began to

make

their

own

printed images of the Virgin, which they stamped on

sheets of colored paper festival

and hung outside

and on other religious or

voke the Virgin's name

in

their

door

festive occasions.

exorcism of

at the

New

Year's

Others began to

in-

44

evil spirits.

In the presence of these images, and with the circulation of gospel stories

one

about Mary, the Chinese began to dream of the Virgin. At

sick convert

dreamed that Mary, robed

247

in

least

white and carrying the

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

and recommended that he be

child in her arms, stood by his bedside

sweated of his

fever;

RICCI

he did so and recovered.

45

And

the wife of an

offi-

charge of grain transportation on the Grand Canal dreamed of a

cial in

woman

with two small children and

later realized

who had met

picture from her husband,

Ricci

—

—hearing about the

that she had seen the

John the Baptist. When she sought permission to Chinese artist make a copy of the painting, Ricci, fearing that

Virgin, Christ, and

have

a

the rendition might not be faithful, had one of the Jesuit brothers

was

good painter do

a

In a

it

more complicated

dream of

calling his

for her.

incident, a Chinese child, desperately

woman who came

a

who

to

him

ill,

had a

carrying a baby in her arms and

name, saying she would protect him. After the child recov-

ered and told the

Joao Soero,

dream

who had

to his parents, they in turn

went

to the priest,

baptized their son seven years before, to thank

him. In the Jesuit chapel the child saw a painting of the Virgin of

Lucca and recognized her

as his protectress.

But

at this point,

St.

Father

Soero, embarrassed, explained that he had never baptized the child,

doubting the

sincerity

water on him.

Now,

of the parents, but had merely sprinkled holy

assured both of their sincerity and of celestial ap-

proval, he proceeded to baptize the

As the Jesuits spread abroad

their

boy properly.

own

7

images of the Virgin Mary so

did they slowly try to beat back the images used by their rivals from

other

faiths,

through various types of religious persuasion that some-

times ended up as open iconoclasm. Ricci tried to discourage the cruder

forms of idol smashing

— the "breaking

they could" from temple figures which ried

—

48 ity.

hands or

feet or

But

full

who

who

new Chinese

converts: for the

gave Ricci forty ducats' worth of the bronze religious sell,

so they could be melted

built a furnace in the

he could melt

hostil-

of praise for other purges carried out by

cooperation with their

statues he used to

convert

car-

in order

such acts inevitably stirred up local

his writings are full

the fathers in

merchant

for

whatever

some overzealous converts

out near Shaozhou, or the stealing of idols from temples

burn or bury them

to

off of

down

down; or

for another

grounds of his own Peking home so

the figures that others didn't dare to harm; or an

248

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE old

man

burn

his

49

of seventy-eight who, over his sons' protests, got the Jesuits to

Buddhist images since the family wouldn't

self.

On

them

to

him do

let

so him-

occasion, if the statues were impressive enough, Ricci sent

Macao

as "battle prizes," in his

more common and extended to the printed word.

words, but destruction was

on wood and paper and

also to paintings

One young

painter burned his entire collection of

paintings of religious figures, at which he had been a specialist.

Rukuei brought three

Qu

of his alchemical and religious books,

crates

whatever printing blocks he had, and a number of original manuscripts

burned when he was converted, saving only

to be

which he and the Jesuits studied

cial subtleties"

they ficial

would

better learn

how

Li Yingshi, a veteran

burned

his collection

Qu

and

few that had "spe-

in

common

to refute such arguments.

The

so that

military of-

of the Korean campaigns against Hideyoshi,

of manuscripts on divination techniques which

he had accumulated over many years

Both

a

at great cost.

Li left carefully written statements

of

faith at the

time

of their baptism. Qu's in particular was imbued with devotion to the Virgin Mary.

Qu ended

larly regretted

his confession, in the

having dedicated so

bulk of which he particu-

much money and

energy to the

propagation of Buddhism, with the heartfelt words of a

Reformation Chinese rhetoric of Marian

As

to the articles of the Christian faith,

the grandeur of every mystery, with

them, and believe

all

that

is

Qu

Sando"] to make them

clearer to

my

heart

is

like a fragile

faith:

though

my

sounded out and

Mother of the Lord of Heaven

me.

I

soft ear

am

cannot comprehend

I

heart

contained in them.

Sancto [a phrase that

and

all

new Counter-

in

I

I

subject myself to

pray to the Spirito

Chinese

as

"Sanbilido

starting to believe afresh,

of corn. Wherefore

that she will deign to give

courage and strength, and that she will pray on

my

me

I

beg the spiritual

behalf to God,

my resolve remain strong and firm, never vacillating, opening up for me the full potential of my soul, and making my spirit pure and clear. And so, with my heart filled with light, and holding fast to both truth and reason, my mouth will open to speak the holy word, spreadthat

ing and sowing

holy law of

it

across the

God and

whole of China, so

submit themselves to

249

it.

that

all

may know

the

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO That there was indeed unusually deep feeling of and Ricci

is

mal name, and gave to

—perhaps most— of

much since

Buddhism was

performance of

son the

its

between

Qu

as his baptis-

name of Matteo. 52 would spend

their converts

Buddhism

their energies attacking

their central rival in

acts

affection

took Ignatius

his fourteen-year-old

was inevitable that the Jesuits and

It

in

Qu

suggested by the fact that

RICCI

in

China,

claim to ethical good and

of charity. Buddhist charitable organizations

often involved themselves in projects to improve the lot of the poor

through endowing hospitals and homes for the aged, giving food or low-interest loans in times of trouble, establishing bath houses, plant-

ing

trees,

and mending bridges; while Ricci was living

Peking there

in

were institutions to give food and medicine to the poor and to provide coffins

for those

Marian

sodality,

who

died indigent. Luke

had been

a

before founding his

Li,

member of several Buddhist

ganizations and the director of at least one.

53

charitable or-

So Christian converts

burned statues of Guanyin, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, along with other images and perhaps with an added urgency, since even Christian missionaries themselves had confused her image at

first

sight with that

of the Virgin Mary. Ricci himself spent a prodigious

amount of time

the arguments of those Buddhist believers life

most dedicated

of fasting, even though he acknowledged

before

him

—

that these were often holy

trying to demolish

—

to a rigorous

as Francis

Xavier had

men, that they made the most

devout converts, and that many of them were particularly adept moral argument.

55

Ricci

a Buddhist-style diet fast days,

met them halfway,

in

one

of vegetables and bread or

touching no

fish,

sense,

rice

at

by keeping to

on the Christian

meat, eggs, or dairy products at such times

"to conform to the fasting patterns of the Chinese pagans." But he

completely rejected the Buddhist explanations of all

animal products was necessary

why

abstaining from

— on the grounds of the oneness of

all

beings, for instance, or because of the doctrine of transmigration of souls. Ricci tried to

argue that fasting

made

sense only

if it

was under-

taken as a penance, to remind oneself of one's state of sin and to keep

250

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE one's

mind

alert at all

times to the

frailties

of the body. There was an

inherent absurdity in abstaining from something in order to preserve

"There

are

Western barbarians who shun pork; so one

Was

their country."

Ricci

made

a similar

way

that the

finds

no pigs

it:

in

to protect a species, Ricci asked?

point about purpose and technique in a slightly

roundabout way, by means of the third of the Chinese ideographs that

own

he chose to represent his

common word

which was the

of a king on a horse, Classic,

Chinese name, Li Madou. Unlike

for profit or harvest, or

Dou was

Ma,

memorized by any

Chinese child beginning to embark on the study of his this old

nese Ricci ever read,

Dou

the education of his

"knew

Chinese

was

own

the symbol

taken by Ricci from the Three Character

the basic Chinese reading primer that was

According to

Li,

probably also the

text,

own

book

first

and scholarly man

a reflective

language. in Chi-

who saw

to

children with brilliant success because he

the right techniques" and was one of the finest examples of

the ethical and conscientious

man

that the Chinese tradition had to

57

offer.

As

early as 1585, as

we

that the lower orders in

can

tell

from

who

Ricci's conviction that the

pervasiveness of ideas of reincarnation accounted for the great

of infanticide in China, since the very poor would the hope that they

tied

transmigration, and he never

way of describing them.

this

had decided

China were often "Pythagoreans"

their dietary habits to their belief in

abandoned

his letters, Ricci

would be reborn soon into

additional moral urgency to his criticisms.

He

kill their

infants in

a richer family,

elaborated

amount gave an

on the origin

of transmigration theories with Pythagoras in his True Meaning of the

Lord of Heaven (even spelling out losopher's

—

name

it

a

Chinese transliteration of the phi-

came out "Pitawoci"

more memorable) and explained

as a

particularly lax

in

an attempt to make him

that Pythagoras had invented the

doctrine of transmigration of souls from

animal bodies

—

humans

into various types of

kind of allegorical teaching device during

a

time of

European morality. From Europe the mistaken doctrine

spread to India,

whence the Chinese brought

251

it

home

58

in error.

The

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

number of grounds,

doctrine was absurd on a the fact that

them erly

mankind

there to serve

followed

never one's

is

lord of

him and

all

RICCI

Ricci argued:

other creatures and that

God

to be exemplars of certain traits;

if

put

prop-

would make marriage impossible, because one could

it

know one was not marrying one's own deceased ancestor, even own former parents if they too had died; it would destroy the maid one ordered

structure of domestic service, since the valet or

around might

also

have been

souls

might be

transmigration

of

in each

us,

in those creatures;

some memory

and

by a Paradoxical

a relative or parent; there

and no draft animals,

beasts used in agriculture, ters'

denied

it

this

traces

could be no

own

for one's

and were there such

beget-

a thing as

of former existences would inhere

was patently not the

Man, which he published

these ideas, presenting his thoughts as

if

39

case.

In his Ten Discourses

in 1608, Ricci elaborated

on

they were a dialogue held with

the convert Li Zhizao after Ricci had been fasting. Here he designed a

stronger defense for the Christian view of penitence that could justify fasting at certain times, while restating his opposition to the

Buddhist

premises on fasting.

One by

Chinese scholar,

letter,

asking

Yu

Chunxi, took the time to respond to Ricci

him why he defamed Buddhism without having taken

the trouble to read Buddhist scriptures carefully, and

why he

felt

he

had the right to condemn whole generations of worthy Confucians

who had

been influenced by Buddhism; he pointed out that in any case

Ricci's published

Buddhism and reading clearer

list

work showed

there was considerable overlap between

Christianity in other areas of morality.

Yu

sent Ricci a

of basic Buddhist works that he believed would give him

view of things. Ricci replied

a

explaining

at considerable length,

the nature of his mission, his use of Western science in pursuit of his ends, his conviction that

Commandments, and in

Buddhism

his feeling that

violated the very it

had not

raised

first

moral standards

China despite the two thousand years during which

preached. viva

61

Ricci was

on August

proud of

22, 1608, that

his letter,

it

had been

and wrote to General Acqua-

he had responded to

252

of the Ten

Yu

"in such a

way

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE that

I

don't think

he'll reply to

planning to print both the

many

to explain

letters,

in that fashion again,

because by so doing

we

and we will

are

be able

aspects of our faith." In the case of other scholars,

who had sought

Ricci added,

me

to use certain publications circulating at

the triennial jinshi examinations to propagate their criticisms of Ricci, the senior examiner had stepped in and censored the writings

behalf "by changing a few words, so that

been directed against us were made to

Ricci's

the criticisms that had

all

on the

fall

on

idols

of the other

re-

ligions.

In fact Ricci was mistaken in thinking he had silenced

arguments and the sharpness of

force of his

that

Yu

mer

teacher,

late

Ming

Zhuhong, one of the leading Buddhist

monastic

ment

Yu

at

and

life

that Ricci

shallow.

As

He

for

him by

criticism:

back into Buddhist

up the

lay

Buddhist devotional move-

was not worth refuting since

to the style of Ricci's letter,

a

Chinese scholar.

was because

A

Ricci's letter

his

which was it

few years

and told

arguments were so far better

than that

had probably been written

Zhuhong

later

the prohibition against taking

Ricci's discussion

of the

in bringing morality

was unimpressed by

in his published works, that

intellectuals

of Hangzhou, Zhu-

for building

the same time.

we know Yu's own for-

city

As abbot of Yunqi, near the

hong had been instrumental

by the

his ripostes, for

sent both his original letter and Ricci's reply to

period.

Yu

life

elaborated his

was an absolute, but

of mistreatment of parents was muddling the actual

with the merely possible. There were fundamental differences between the

two

realms:

men and women, the use of carts and horses, as employment of servants are all ordinary things in the world. They can never be compared with the cruelty of taking the lives of animals. That is why the sutra says only that one should not

Marriages between well as the

kill

any sentient being, but does not say that one should not get mar-

ried or

employ domestic animals. The kind of sophistry [used by Mat-

teo Ricci]

is

a clever play

on words.

teaching of the Great Truth?

3

253

How

can

it

harm

the clear

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI Ricci probably never saw

by the time the

Zhuhong's

fuller criticism

original letter,

and he was dead

was published, but he was very aware of

another set of detailed criticisms that were directed against him by

Huang Hui, a highly regarded Hanlin scholar, also a devout Buddhist. Huang had somehow obtained a draft of Ricci's True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, which he covered with

critical

marginal comments and

among his friends. Ricci was shown a copy, but chose not to respond to Huang directly, since he had no desire "to rouse any further enmity from one who was such a senior mandarin, and powerful at the circulated

court.

one quite

Ricci left

such disputations.

detailed account of

He

in early 1599.

While

monk

Sanhuai

that both

human mind

in that process.

men were shouting

Sanhuai argued for the

at a

dinner party in

the other guests listened and occasionally

intervened, Ricci and Sanhuai argued over the

the role of the

he attempted to handle

described an argument that he had over religion

with the well-known Buddhist

Nanjing

how

at

each other

full creative

meaning of creation and

The debate grew

much

of the time. While

powers of the mind, Ricci coun-

tered with an analysis of the mind's storage capacity

power when

it

came

after

The mirror, after all, he told reflects. The dialogue was opened to served,

attitudes

and the muddled arguments of the other guests,

one hour had passed Ricci used

original sin

on the topic of the innate

nature; here, in response to the Buddhist priest's

the arguments

all

reflective

human

goodness of

ambiguous

it

more food was

the guests, as

and

to the supernatural.

Sanhuai, does not create the sun all

so heated

made

so

far.

He

his

of

God

to

show Sanhuai

a

just as brightness

to

summarize

then drew on his conceptions of

and divine grace to present

goodness of the Creator,

memory powers

his interpretation

of the innate

goodness that naturally informed the nature

was innate to the sun; he

that the author of

all

tried to use reason

things could not be of the same

substance as man, though Sanhuai remained tenaciously unconvinced. Ricci had not later,

ful,

wanted

to get involved in this particular debate,

and had begged off

and the content of

several times.

their

But

in the event

argument formed 254

it

he wrote

proved use-

part of the revised ver-

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE Meaning of the Lord of Heaven. Indeed, in that work we traces of the dialogue: on the reasons for God's existence in

sion of his True

can

see

still

chapter

on innate phenomena

1,

in chapter 2,

on natural goodness

in

65

chapter

7.

Just before this debate with Sanhuai, Ricci had met a far

who

dable man, the brilliant but irascible scholar Li Zhi,

was seventy-two.

Li flattered Ricci

by visiting his house

had called on him, by writing two poems

fore Ricci

ing to express his acceptance of

(through silence joying Ricci's

at debates in

work On

many of Ricci's

for

more by

in

time

this

person be-

him, by seem-

criticisms of

Buddhism

which they were presented), and by

much

Friendship so

en-

that he shared copies with

In a letter to a friend, Li wrote

friends in other provinces.

formi-

how

Ricci

had learned about Buddhism in India before coming to China and throwing himself into the study of Confucian

working

steadily

classics in

Zhaoqing,

through the canonical writings with the aid of

local

scholars. Li added:

Now

he can speak our language fluently, write our

cording to our rules of conduct. a

He

is

script,

and

an extremely impressive

act ac-

man

person of inner refinement, outwardly most straightforward. In an

assembly of to his

own

voked to

many

people,

all

talking in confusion with each holding

point of view, Ricci keeps his silence and cannot be pro-

interfere or to

acquaintance no one

is

become

involved.

Amongst

the people of

comparable to him. All those

too overbearing or too flattering, or those

who

who

my

are either

parade their cleverness

or are narrow-minded and lacking in intelligence are inferior to him.

Since Ricci admitted in his driven to try to shout Li

down

own

Ricci's control

somewhat; but

in

any

—whom many other conopinionated, and rude— was "prudent and

by noting that

temporaries found eccentric,

was occasionally

the opposition (as in the case of Sanhuai),

Zhi may have been overstating

case Ricci reciprocated

Historia that he

67

Li

Zhi

experienced" at the kind of negotiations needed to obtain permission to establish residence in

Peking

for the Jesuits.

255

The reunion of

the

two

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO RICCI

men

Jining

in

Shandong province,

city,

in the spring

of 1600, must

have been an emotional and loving occasion. Ricci wrote that Li Zhi

and

him with such

his friends "treated

through the day, that

all

it

tenderness [amorevolezza]

real

seemed to the father that he was not

at the

ends of the world in the midst of the gentiles, but rather in Europe

among Li

the most friendly and devout of Christians."

Zhi gave Ricci

Peking

several introductions to

68

and

friends,

these,

added to the ones that Ricci already had from Nanchang, Nanjing, and elsewhere assured that to

when he

finally settled in the capital

mix with some of the most stimulating and

some of

the day,

69 critical.

whom

Ricci was

still

talented intellectuals of

admired him and some of

hoping

to convert Li

he was able

Zhi

whom

were sharply

in 1603, or at least to

build further on the interest in Christianity that he thought he de-

when he

tected there,

imprisoned by hostile local scholars, had cut his

own

news

received the shocking

slit

that Li,

defamed and

his throat in prison.

"He

throat with a knife," wrote Ricci in an emotional obituary,

because a mandarin having written a bitter memorial about Li and his writings was told by the king to seize and burn seeing himself taken and

wishing to die

more

at the

—wishing

world that

made

a

mockery by

hands of the courts, or

this

Li,

and not

moved him

show his disciples, his enemies, and the whole he had no fear of death, killed himself in this manner and to

70

words here suggest that he had read

death, or had at least discussed essay called "Five est,

And

books.

his enemies,

—and

else

thus put an end to the plots of his enemies.

Ricci's

all Li's

Ways

Li Zhi's

them with him. As

to Die," death for a

Li

own

on

essays

had written

in an

worthy cause was the

fin-

followed by death in battle, death as a martyr, death as a loyal min-

ister unfairly

good

An

calumniated, and premature death after finishing some

piece of work:

one of these

intelligent person should elect to die in any

ways. one's

One may life.

As

be better than another, but each

for those

who

is

a

good way

to

five

end

die in a sickbed, surrounded by wives and

256

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE children

— one

them everywhere

finds

in the world.

.

.

.

This

hardly a

is

As man is born for some good reason, how can he die but for some good cause? But I am already old. I am denied How the opportunity to die in any one of the five preferable ways.

way

for a

man

to die. ...

.

then shall

to give vent to

However fond

my

Ricci

fail

to understand

me

will

I

.

.

die

—

just

resentment.

may have been of

Li Zhi,

prudence dictated that

death Ricci should align himself with those

after his

for

who

die? For those

I

immoral behavior,

when

particularly

pages after writing so movingly of

Li,

criticized Li

those criticisms were couched

Thus

in a broadly anti-Buddhist context.

who

in the Historia,

some

sixty

he also quotes approvingly from

the powerful indictment that the president of the Board of Rites, Feng

Qi, had

made of Li and

those

all

who

tried to syncretize

Buddhism and

Confucianism.

known among Ming Chinese censorship of new books, his attempts

This Board President Feng was well scholars for his support of state to

ban ideas from student essays

if

they did not follow conventional

schools of Confucian interpretation, and his rule that any student

quoting from for a

month.

a

73

Buddhist sutra have his government stipend suspended

It is certainly

unlikely that such a man, with such views

on orthodoxy, holding such high

would have been

office in

seriously interested in Christianity

plated conversion, but such was the claim

book of

his

that particular ministry,

made by

and even contem-

Ricci in the second

Ten Discourses by a Paradoxical Man, where he wrote that

Feng "strongly inclined toward the true

religion

Heaven" but had died before he could put

his intention into effect.

Feng, in

fact,

had died

What makes them

all

in 1603, five years before Ricci

the

more suspect

is

of the Lord of

wrote these

lines.

the fact that the entire open-

ing section of the dialogue, which in the Ten Discourses Ricci ascribes to

Feng Qi, had already appeared ing of the

in quite

Lord of Heaven, begun

in

another place

—the True Mean-

1593 and published in 1603.

central passage, ascribed to "a Chinese scholar" in the

and to Feng Qi

in the

Ten

74

In this

True Meaning

Discourses, Ricci's interlocutor first talks

the birds and animals, and of

how

swiftly they

257

grow up and how

of

per-

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO fcctly

this

RICCI

equipped they are to feed and defend themselves.

with the melancholy

fate

all

contrasts

of mankind:

At the time of our birth our mothers endure naked baby comes out into the world he opens he already knew

He

the hardships of the

life

great pain, and as the his

mouth

to cry, as

ahead. In infancy he

is

if

so

weak that he cannot even walk, and it's only at around three that he no longer needs support. When they are grown, all must make their livings by painful toil. The peasant works in all four seasons to turn the soil in his plot of land, the merchant spends his years traveling

over mountains and

seas.

The

artisans of

all

the different trades ex-

haust their hands and feet day after day, the scholars day and night ex-

Thus

it is

with their minds and

the

haust their brains by thinking. labor

rulers

said [by

Mencius] that the

poor with

their

physical

strength.

Our

fifty

years of

hundreds of kinds of misfortune. find that there are three

more

are there for the

hundred

we examine

we how much

the medical texts,

diseases of the eye alone

to heal us are bitter to the taste,

with animals and

insects, large

sons and weapons to do us harm, tiny insect

If

—

whole body, how can we even count them

The medicines we need is filled

of pain, and our bodies subject to

are fifty years

life

as

all?

and the world

and small, provided with poi-

if by some

common

no more than one inch long can destroy

a

agreement.

A

grown man.

This cry of despair, already poignant enough in the True Meaning of the

Lord of Heaven when put in the mouth of an anonymous Chinese scholar, becomes doubly so when ascribed to Feng Qi, the passionate anti-Buddhist. For

if all his

Confucian wisdom has led him only to

this

deep well of pessimism, Ricci was saying, then nothing but Christianity can help him, nothing but a clear understanding of the intentionally transitory nature of

our

life

on

earth,

eternal joy for the faithful in the

and the

possibility

of

a life

of

world to come.

To get this message across, every means that skill, artifice, training, and memory could provide had to be called into play: prisms, clocks, paintings, Euclid, tracts, dinners, the fathers of the church,

258

Roman and

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE Greek philosophers,

God

herself. It

under the divine guidance of the mother of

all

not surprising that Ricci boasted

is

at

times to the Chi-

shadow of

nese that he had been born near Loreto, virtually under the the house where the Virgin tion took place that

made

Mary had

the

word

lived

and

into flesh;

it

in

which the Incarna-

was under the Virgin's

guidance that he worked and would rescue them from their despair. For

if

Mary was the garden and the

Ludolfus had

said,

sun, the fountain and the earth, as

she was also herself the tower, the castle into which

Christ entered, and the water that flowed past the castle was a fountain

of

in

tears

from the world.

How

could one be present

some

interpretations, could see himself as a

the Virgin's

womb, but

at

find.

And

symbol of Christ within

Ricci was not cloistered; he ran around from

day to day and snatched what 77

such mysteries? The cloistered monk,

moments of contemplation he could

yet in the constant active service

out

in the world, to

which

Ricci was pledged, lay a kind of answer. Ignatius of Loyola seems to

have seen and seized on one aspect of order, with a subtle insight. In the

first

Spiritual Exercises, after the exercitant

him

nation, Ignatius led

Nativity.

He

lieved, seated

This

on an

by Joseph and

is

day of the second week of the

had

fully reflected

the history of the mystery.

ass, set

maid,

a

child, and, as

on the

Incar-

is

who was a

leading an ox.

lehem. Consider

and over

whether big or First Point.

its

hills.

Observe

little;

it

be that

piously be-

They

going

are

imposed on those

its

to

lands.

way from Nazareth

It will

to Beth-

breadth; whether level, or through val-

also the place or cave

whether high or low; and

where Christ

how

it is

is

born;

arranged.

.

.

.

This will consist in seeing the persons, namely, our Lady,

Joseph, the maid, and the Child Jesus after His birth.

myself a poor

will

may be

mental representation of the place.

consist here in seeing in imagination the

length,

Here

out from Nazareth. She was accompanied

to pay the tribute that Caesar

Second Prelude. This

St.

in his

wrote:

First Prelude.

leys

all

into the second contemplation, that of the

our Lady, about nine months with

Bethlehem

of

service, for the sake

little

unworthy

slave,

and

259

as

though

I

present,

make look upon will

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO them, contemplate them, and serve them ble

homage and

who

in Ignatius's version

tendance to help the Virgin on her is

maid.

79

is

possi-

always in

at-

her labor, and after her

travels, in

two

one male and one

retainers,

seems to have been Ignatius's idea to have

it

all

not found in the gospels. In various apocryphal gospels

there are often several relatives or

male, but

needs with

in their

reverence.

This single maidservant,

son's birth,

RICCI

fe-

one

just the

In the 1570s several Jesuits objected to the maid's being there,

claiming she was not scriptural and that her presence offended against their sense of the Virgin's poverty at the

time of Christ's birth. They

who

could gain strength for this position from Chrysostom, that

no servant could have been

present,

insisted

and from Ludolfus,

pointed to the Virgin's loneliness and shame

who

attended only by her

as,

husband Joseph, she was forced "to wander among the men, seeking someplace to

and finding none." General Claudio Acquaviva, how-

rest

ever, insisted that the

natius's

own hands

maid must

stay;

she had been put there with Ig-

to help the fathers meditate

with

maximum

she was central to the passage, and she must not be moved.

piety,

Through

the maid's eyes, intimately but without impropriety, Ricci and his

lows could be present in

memory and

and beautiful moments

in the liturgy

New

Just before the

who was fell

Ricci's only

seriously

ment. Thus

ill

Year

festival

in

person

of their church.

of 1591, Father Antonio Almeida,

Western companion

in the

Shaozhou mission, for medical treat-

Chinese began to celebrate their most important hol-

iday of the year, Ricci

brothers to keep

most mysterious

at the

and had to be escorted back to Macao

as the

fel-

was

left in

the city with only one or

him company. He was depressed

at the

two Chinese

"coldness" of

the local Chinese toward both himself and his religion, and the depression

grew worse

shimmered

as the festivities

in the blaze

reached their climax and the city

of light from the thousands of lanterns hung in

the houses, streets, and temples.

When

cities all

over the world were

normally in darkness after nightfall, such ceremonies took on extra

260

sig-

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE changing the balance between night and day. Ricci

nificance, literally

wrote

how

every household in China took pride in

peak of the

crammed with tomers.

him

81

and

festival,

how

Montaigne had seen the

and with eager cus-

their wares

Rome when

effect in

wax

"as if twelve thousand torches passed and the

the street."

82

lanterns at the

advance the markets were

for days in

hawking

lantern-sellers

its

it

seemed

candles

Gregory Martin was caught up even more vividly

Roman

splendor of the

Maundy Thursday, he laymen marched

filled

in the

There was nothing more superb than

lights.

when

wrote,

to

the assembled sodalities of religious

in their liveries to St. Peter's, each carrying a great dec-

orated crucifix in place of their usual standard and bearing aloft lanterns of glass or translucent

horn and long wax candles so that

for the

space of three hours as the procession passed the streets were as "full of lightes as

were the firmament besett with great

it

them walked the

flagellants,

bloody weals. In

St. Peter's itself

heads covered and backs bared to

a

show

the'

the form of a great cross shone out,

formed entirely of tiny glittering lamps of glass, gleaming

Moved by

Among

starres."

sudden impulse that night

in 1591, Ricci

8

like pearls.

took the

oil

painting of the Virgin Mary which he had received from the Philippines not long before and placed

it

zhou church. Then he brought out lanterns of

all

shapes and

the light, and he

sizes,

hung them

large

throw

stones.

The

as Ricci ran

first

lights

retreated back to the tility

the lights

out to

church

Shao-

reflect

around the walls and placed them on lights

began to shine

in curiosity,

shone forth

who

clothes off the backs of Ricci's servants,

They shone

little

the candles he could find and

all

As these

crowd of Chinese gathered,

finally to

the altar in the

and anything of glass that would

all

the altar flanking the picture.

upon

and then to

as the

must have continued

jeer,

and

crowd ripped the

tried to chase

try to rescue the servants.

in the face

forth, a

them away.

And

as

he

of the crowd's unwavering hosto shine,

all

around the Virgin

Mary's picture, in their small corner of the nighttime city of Shaozhou, until the

lamp

oil

and the candles were

had extinguished them, one by one.

261

all

burned out, or until Ricci

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

RICCI

For the fourth image to be placed in the reception palace, Ricci chooses the

He

hao.

memory

Chinese ideograph for goodness, pronounced

down the center to yield two meaning "woman" and one with the

divides the ideograph vertically

separate ideographs,

meaning

To

of his

hall

one with the

"child."

create the

image of goodness that he

two elements into in her arms.

a

composite figure of

He makes

it

clear that she

her youth, and describing her hair as

is

seeks,

he combines these

a

maidservant holding a child

a

maidservant by emphasizing

being

still

two

in the

tufted top-

knots that are the mark of young servants in Chinese households. notes that she

He

is

playing with the child she holds.

takes the servant girl with the child in her

He

85

arms and places her

in

the last vacant corner of the reception hall, the one in the southwest.

Opposite her are the two warriors locked

from her

is

profit waits

the

woman who

above

is

his harvest

in

combat; diagonally across

a huihui; to her left, the peasant

who

is

of grain.

For the fourth of his pictures that he will place in Cheng Dayue's ink garden, Ricci again chooses a is

a print

made by

woman

with

a child in her arms.

the Jesuit fathers in Japan of the Virgin

This one

Mary and

the Christ Child. This Japanese print was taken from a rendering origi-

made by Wierix of

nally

cathedral of Seville. in her right left

a

The Virgin holds

hand she holds

hand and

painting hanging in a side chapel of the the Child with her

a rose. Christ holds a

in his lap a goldfinch, its

Three angels hold

whose halo For

all

a

hand, and

bunch of grapes

in his

wings outstretched; these

the symbols of his passion and death. His right hand ing.

left

is

are

raised in bless-

crown above the cowled head of the Virgin,

bears the inscription, in Latin, "Hail Mary, full of grace."

the other pictures Ricci has written a text, but he does not

262

do

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE

263

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

264

RICCI

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE so for this one.

Above

two words, Tien Chu,

the picture he writes just

meaning "Lord of Heaven."

The

inscription

below the

picture,

records that the image was painted in

nand

III

which he has the

artist

copy,

commemoration of King

Ferdi-

of Castile's capture of Seville from the Moors, so

it

thus repre-

sents the culmination of the great series of battles fought against the

of course,

forces of Islam in thirteenth-century Spain. Since those days, Seville has

become the

city that stands for the

fame and wealth of the

Spanish empire overseas, the unloading point for the floods of silver

New

bullion pouring in from the

of the picture mentions that

World.

A

note

at the

bottom

was made

this particular version

in

right

Japan

1597, and for any Catholic in the Far East that will recall the

in

twenty-six Christians

wrath

—were

who

— on the

Nagasaki in that

crucified outside

Cheng Dayue's

do

artisans

orders of General Hideyoshi in his year.

commendable job

a

woodblock from the Japanese

original. It

orders that they place the bird

on

must

surely be

it is

on instructions from

Latin words engraved full

But

upon the

Ricci's

memory, when

presumably by

a slip

new

cannot be

and the grapes together can lead to

eration of deeper mysteries. rather than

on

Christ's lap, a bird that

seen in the Japanese version; in conversation, as in rectly interpreted, the bird

in cutting a

cor-

a consid-

of the

chisel,

Ricci, that a misprint appears in the

Virgin's halo.

The

original "Hail Mary,

of grace," Ave Maria Gratia Plena, emerges in Ricci's picture

Ave Maria Gratia Lena. Plena the other hand, entices. If Ricci

is

a

is

an adjective meaning "full"; Lena, on

feminine noun that means

does notice the

as

slip,

265

he

a

woman who

lets it stand.

allures or

NINE

INSIDE THE PALACE

He

stands

on the threshold of the Memory

broidered shoes.

The

Palace, in his

foot that he injured

em-

when jumping

from the window, so long ago, pulses with pain. In front of him, as far as the

mind can

travel, stretch

the gleaming

walls and colonnades, the porticoes and great carved doors, behind

which

are stored the

images born of his reading, his experience, and his

faith.

He

sees the

carved

wood

eunuch to

Ma

Tang, suffused with anger, grasp the cross of

which the bleeding Christ

is

nailed.

He

hears the

shouts of warning and the howling of the wind as the boat keels over, flinging both

He

him and Joao Barrados

smells the incense that curls

reverently

Juyung.

upon

He

ers in their

a

pagan

tastes the

altar

into the water of the River Gan.

up around in

his triptych as

the luxurious garden

homely food prepared

for

country dwelling near Zhaoqing.

cheek on cheek

as the

him by

He

feels

he places

it

temple of

the poor farmthe touch of

dying Francesco de Petris throws his arms around

his neck.

266

INSIDE THE PALACE

He

has

not sure

gone

how

easy

scensus averni,"

whom ad

it

be to return, should he choose

will

The words

he chanted

lines "sed revocare

and

is

to. "Facilis de-

is

gradum

superasque evadere

from book 6 of the Aeneid, and he

are Virgil's,

condenses slightly since he verses

terrain

he writes to Giulio Fuligatti, his school friend with

once he learned the

auras. "

unknown

he expected into

farther than

and quoting from memory the

in a hurry,

as a child.

The way downward

easy from Avernus.

is

Black Dis's door stands open night and day.

But

to retrace

There

is

your steps to heaven's

the trouble, there

the warning spoken by the

It is

sion to

go down

to the

is

Cumaean

underworld

the

air,

toil.

Sybil as

in search

Aeneas seeks permis-

of his dead

father.

In his pictures, sharply carved, the apostle Peter flounders in the

Emmaus,

waves, the two disciples pause at

the

men

of

Sodom tumble

to the ground. In the reception hall the images hold their places: the

grappling warriors, the huihui

woman,

the farmer

"It often happens," he writes, "that those

unable to grasp the point

at

who

is

name.

his

live at a later

time are

which the great undertakings or actions of

this

world had their origin.

And

this

phenomenon, could

no other answer than

find

things (including those that their

who

I,

come

constantly seeking the reason for

at last to

this,

namely that

triumph mightily)

all

are at

beginnings so small and faint in outline that one cannot easily

convince oneself that from them will grow matters of great moment."

He

stands

on the threshold,

purple silk trimmed with blue.

him wait two women, each

a heavy,

bearded man, in his robe of

The Memory

Palace

is

silent.

cradling a child in her arms.

Behind

One woman

wears a long embroidered dress of extraordinary beauty. Her hair and shoulders are covered by a flowing shawl. She holds a rose.

wears the simple garb of a servant tufts to

girl,

mark her youth and lowly

and her hair

station.

267

is

The other

gathered in two

THE MEMORY PALACE OF MATTEO

"Though friend

still

a

young man," he

Gian Pietro

MafTei, his

and chronicler of Christendom's expansion, "I have already

taken on the

The two

trait

of the

elderly,

children watch him.

blessing; the other reaches

confusedly,

He

writes to

RICCI

comes

a

who are always One raises his

out his arms to

murmur

play.

praising time past.""

small right hand in

Through

the quiet

of sound from the streets of Peking.

closes the door.

268

air,

ABBREVIATIONS

DMB:

Dictionary of Ming Biography. L. Carrington

Goodrich and Chaoying

Fang, eds. 2 vols. Columbia University Press, 1976.

Monumenta Missionum Societatis Jesu, Missiones Orientates, vol. 10 (1575-1577), Rome, 1968; vol. 11 (1577-1580), Rome, 1970; vol. 12 (1580-1583), Rome, 1972. Doc

Ind.:

Documenta

FR: Fonti

Ricciane.

Indica.

Joseph Wicki,

S.J.,

ed.

M. D'Elia, S.J., ed. Storia [The annotated version of Ricci's vols. Rome, 1942-1949. Pasquale

Cristianesimo in Cina.

of the Historia.] OS:

The

letters

ed. Vol. 2,

Le

3

of Matteo Ricci, in Opere

Storiche. Pietro

Lettere dalla China. Macerata, 1913.

269

dell'lntroduzione del

original manuscript

Tacchi Venturi,

S.J.,

NOTES

ONE

BUILDING THE PALACE 1.

Rkci,Jifa, pp. 20-21.

The only

surviving versions of this Jifa, Ricci's

Treatise on Mnemonic Arts, list Ricci as author, Zhu Dinghan as collator, Vagnoni (Gao Yizhi, Pfister no. 26) and Sambiasi (Bi Fangji, Pfister

Zhu

no. 40) as editors. (For locations, see Fonti Ricciane, 1/376 n. 6.)

Dinghan,

a Christian convert

and native of Shanxi province, wrote the

Gao" was the main transmitter of Ricci's work on memory. I assume this Gao to be Gao Yizhi, the name Vagnoni adopted after his return to China in 1624 when he settled in the same Shanxi town where Zhu Dinghan was living. Vagnoni

only extant preface, in which he says "Mr.

had taught rhetoric for

became

it

to Shanxi

Turin

after his novitiate

Chinese-language scholar.

a brilliant

copy of Ricci's text rying

five years in

when

in

He

Nanjing and then

and introducing

it

to

would guess

that

Vagnoni

but added the lengthy

From

it

in

Macao,

Zhu Dinghan sometime

car-

after

life

that

the condition of the current text one

left Ricci's basic

series

later

probably obtained a

revised

1624. (See Pfister, pp. 85 and 89, for the details of Vagnoni's

support such a contention.)

and

six-chapter form

of further exemplars

28-31 (reprint pp. 63-69). Vagnoni or

270

at the

Zhu may

unchanged

end of ch.

6,

pp.

well also have ex-

NOTES TO PAGES 1-3 panded the

lists

of examples running through chs. 4-6, since

Zhu

notes

was often rather unclear

in his explanations. As Vagnoni and Zhu were natural collaborators, fellow Jin jiang residents, though it is still hard to fix the dates exactly. Vagnoni died in 1640, but in his preface that Ricci

Zhu was

still

living a year later, as he

for 1641 (Jiangzhou zhi, 8/29). is

not

The

noted

is

role

of Sambiasi in editing the book

he did travel to Shanxi in 1628

clear;

an honorary licentiate

as

138) but was not

(Pfister, p.

The imprimatur was granted by Emmanuel Diaz the younger (Pfister, p. 31), who was made vice-provincial in 1623, dying in Hangzhou in 1659. in Jinjiang long, if at

2. 3.

Jifa, pp. 21-22.

This text

is

phrase. This ero's inal 4.

all.

De is

mjifa, pp. 17-18, with one ideograph illegible in the last is clearly Ricci's rendering of the famous passage from Cic-

Lyra Graeca, 2/501 The Cicero

Oratore, 2/86, also cited in

.

discussed by Frances Yates in her

orig-

Art of Memory, pp. 17-18.

Wolfgang Franke in the Dictionary of Ming Biography (hereafter cited as DMB),pp. 1137-44. More extended treatments are in George Dunne, GeneraThe main

outlines of Ricci's career are given in English by

Man

from the West; and George Harris, "The Mission of Matteo Ricci." The French biography in Pfistion

of Giants; Vincent Cronin, Wise pp. 22-42 (no. 9),

ter, Notices,

is still

Henri Bernard, Le Pere Matthieu

useful, as

"Matteo Ricci"

most extended S.J.,

Italian

illustrated

the extended survey by

Ricci et la Societe Chinoise de son temps.

recent Italian biographical sketch with versi's

is

good bibliography

is

in Dizionario Bio-Bibliografico dei Maceratesi; the

biography

is

Fernando Bortone's

P.

Matteo

Ricci,

with maps, photographs, and drawings. All of these

works draw massively on the great central source, as transcribed first

Ricci's

own

His tor ia,

by Tacchi Venturi and republished, with corrections,

by Pasquale d'Elia

as Fonti Ricciane, cited

here throughout as FR.

The

Trigault version of Ricci's Historia (translated by Louis Gallagher)

is

full

of Trigault's distortions, deletions, and additions to the original

and

is

not a reliable reflection of Ricci's

very heavily

grasp of the

Taiwan

is

Theologica)

own

views.

A

recent Chinese

zai

provided in the special issue of Shenxue lunji {Collectanea ,

Summer

which is entirely given over on Matteo Ricci's China mission.

no. 56,

lection of essays

Details

Madou

Zhongguo," unfortunately relies on this Trigault-Gallagher version but shows a thorough basic issues. A good survey of current Ricci scholarship in

essay by Lin Jinshui, "Li

5.

A

Aldo Ad-

1983,

on the composition of the

Friendship

271

to a col-

book (the Jiaoyou lun)

are

NOTES TO PAGES 3-5 given in Ricci's

letters,

edited by Tacchi Venturi under the

OS); see

Storiche, vol. 2 (hereafter cited as

to General

Claudio Acquaviva. In

sato" as the time of composition, ercise" (per esercitio). Since the

Nov.

Ricci's

clear evidence

later in

Opere

this letter Ricci refers to "I'anno pas-

and

says

book

is

he wrote the book "as an ex-

not mentioned

as finished in

1595, letter to Acquaviva (OS, p. 210),

4,

been completed

title

p. 226, letter of Oct. 13, 1596,

November

it

must have

or in December. Despite this rather

from the basic sources, the dates of composition have

been argued over with considerable bitterness by Pasquale

d'Elia, "Fur-

Fang Hao, "Li Madou Jiaoyou lun xinyan" and "Notes on Matteo Ricci's De Amicitia." Fang Hao's ther Notes," especially p. 359, and by

charges against d'Elia of linguistic incompetence ("Li lun'' p. 1854) are

more than matched,

if

Madou Jiaoyou

not exactly quashed, by

d'Elia's

countercharge of Fang's blatant plagiarism, in "Further Notes," pp. 373-77. 6.

ad insegnare

05, p. 211,

Nov.

locale" ("I

have begun to teach various people the

4,

1595:

"ad alcuni ho

cominciato

memory

la

memoria

place [sys-

tem]"). 7.

FR, \/yid. As Ricci writes in OS, 1596: "Per la memoria locale

un

precetti in

were 8.

is

.

libretto, che diedi

in fact three sons

There

.

is

.

p. 224, to

feci in

sua lingua

al vicere per

il

e lettera

13,

alcuni avisi e

suo figliuolo." (That there

stated by Ricci in FR, 1/363.)

biography of Lu Wangai

a

Acquaviva, on Oct.

in his fellow

Pinghu townsman

Guo

Tingxun's Benchao fensheng renwu kao, juan 45, pp. 32b-33b. Further details on his career and accomplishments are given in the Pinghu

l^/yi (reprint pp. 1431-32); ibid., 13/5 (reprint p. 1176) shows him as twenty-first in the second class in thejinshi exam of 1568.

xianzhi,

9.

For the children's exam successes, see the governor's son Lu Jian's jinshi degree of 1607 in Pinghu xianzhi, 13/7a (reprint

of the same generation in

clearly

45/75-85; also biographies in juan

ibid,

58.

p.

1179) and other Lus

and Jiaxing fuzhi,

On mnemonic

rhymes

lists

in

for alche-

mists, mechanics, ship pilots, and astronomers, see Joseph Needham, Science

and

Civilisation in China, vol. 5, pt. 4, p. 261; vol. 4, pt. 2, pp. 48,

528; vol. 4, pt.

masters

is

3, p.

583.

An

assemblage of famous Chinese

given below in ch.

Nanchang, Oct.

mnemonic

5.

13, 1596.

10.

OS, p. 224,

11.

OS, p. 235, to Lelio Passionei, Sept. 19, 1597.

12.

Monumenta Paedagogica, p. mended upro classe inferiori.

350,

where "Cypriani

272

rhetorica"

is

recom-

NOTES TO PAGES 5-11 13.

14.

De Arte Rhetorica, pp. 58-59. Compare Pliny, Natural History, bk. 7, sect. 24 (Loeb ed., Ricci's Jifa, p. 14. The Monumenta Paedagogica of 1586, Soarez,

Natural History

Pliny's

15.

Ad Herennium,

16.

Quintilian, Oratoria, 4/223.

show Jorge

The "impluvium" was

the water storage

Roman home. mnemonics

tradition three of the verbal

Dictionary of Mnemonics: p. 18, bones, no. I

350,

for the brilliant story by

have here elaborated in the visual terms

57, nerves.

p.

p. 221.

tank in the center of a I

563), with

an assigned book in the Jesuit school. (This

as

same passage of Pliny is the springboard Borges, "Funes the Memorious.")

17.

p.

common

to the Renaissance

that are given as examples in 21, cell division, no. 2; p.

1; p.

have made the Zulu and the French lady singular,

as

would

have been favored in Renaissance mnemonics. 18.

Stahl

and Johnson,

Capella, 2/7,

and

n.

18. Yates,

Art of Memory, pp.

63-65. 19.

Stahl

and Johnson,

2/156-57 (with minor changes) and

Capella,

p.

156

n. 13.

20. Smalley, English Friars, p. 114, citing Ridevall's

notata, oculis orbata,/

Aure

complete jingle "Mulier

mutilata, cornu ventilata,/ Vultu deformata, et

morbo vexata"; Yates, Art of Memory, pp. 105-6, has Smalley's use of Ridevall's passage. 21.

Ricci describes his

Zhizao

in

his preface

Dinghan, citing is

feats in OS, p.

number of ideographs

gives the Li

memory

to

Xu Guangqi

a brilliant gloss

155 and FR, 1/360 n.

in OS, p. 184.

Chinese witnesses include

Ricci's Jiren shipian,

p.

and Zhu Though Zhu mention of him 102,

Ming

histories,

can be found in the Jiangzhou zhi (ed. of 1776), 8/29, where he

22.

second

He

in his preface to Ricci's Jifa.

not included in the indexes to the

as a senior licentiate,

1.

on

class (suigong)

is

listed

of 1641.

FR, l/377n., suggests Panigarola as Ricci's source; see the Panigarola manuscript, Macerata. Frances Yates, Art of Memory,

p.

241, cites a

Florence manuscript of 1595 on Panigarola's powers. 23.

Ricci, Jifa, p. 22.

24. Yates, 25.

Art of Memory, pp. 62 and

Ricci, Jifa, pp. 16-17, 22.

I

26.

translate the

Chinese word shi

as "reception

hall."

27-28.

26.

Ibid., pp.

27.

Ibid., p. 22; Quintilian, Oratoria,

Memory,

4/223; on Dolce, see Yates, Art of

p. 166.

273

NOTES TO PAGES 11-17 28. OS, pp.

260 and 283. For Nadal's work, see the discussion by Guibert, 204-7.

Jesuits, pp.

29.

Li

Ricci,

Madou

moyuan, juan

3,

baoxiang

ti

sec.

tu,

sec.

2,

p.

4;

Cheng Dayue,

Duyvendak, "Review of

2;

Chengshi

Pascjuale d'Elia," pp.

396-97. 30.

Agrippa,

32.

Sanford, p. 25 recto.

tr.

Art of Memory,

31. Yates,

Rabelais, Gargantua,

Bacon,

"Of

Cohen,

tr.

Thomas

discussion in 33.

p. 133.

ch. 14, pp. 70-72; see also the fruitful

Greene, Light in Troy,

p. 31.

Advancement of Learning Divine and Human," bk. 2, Selected Writings, p. 299- The positive role ascribed to mem-

the

sec. 15, 2, in

ory for the study of

new

science

is

elaborated by Paolo Rossi in Francis

Bacon, pp. 210-13. 34.

Monumenta first

35.

Paedagogica, edition of 1586, continues to

dismissals of Cicero's attribution as author

Art of Memory, pp. 132-33). Yates, Art of Memory, pp. 72-104, "solitudo" for "sollicitudo,"

on memory has been in Aristotle on

and

p.

especially p.

350.

list it, p.

came

in 1491

The

(Yates,

86 on the misreading of

101 on Giotto. Aristotle's original text

translated and carefully glossed by Richard Sorabji

Memory.

36. Guibert, Jesuits, pp. 167-68.

38.

As translated in Bodenstedt, Vita Christi, p. 121. Conway, Vita, pp. 38 and 127; Bodenstedt, Vita

39.

Cited in Conway, Vita,

37.

Christi, p. 50.

125.

p.

40. See the 1454 "Garden of Prayer" cited in Baxandall, Painting

and Expe-

rience in Fifteenth-Century Italy, p. 46.

41.

Ignatius of Loyola, Exercises, par. 47. In the following pages,

heed the injunction given by Guibert, Ignatius in terms of his color;

I

also note

Hugo

method

is

I

try to

in Jesuits, p. 167, that discussing

like defining a

locomotive by

its

Rahner's comments in Ignatius the Theologian,

pp. 181-83. 42.

Ignatius, Exercises, pars. 192, 201, 220. Rahner, Ignatius, p. 189, discusses

these locations as symbols. 43. Ignatius, Exercises, pars. 107, 108,

and 124-25.

44. Ibid., par. 50. 45. Ibid., pars. 56, 140-46.

For a counter-commentary on Ignatius and the

senses see Barthes, Sade, Fourier, Loyola, pp. 58-59. 46. Augustine, Confessions, p. 266. 47.

Rahner, Ignatius,

p. 158;

Wright, Counter-Reformation,

274

p. 16.

NOTES TO PAGES 17-21 48.

Rahner, Ignatius,

p. 159.

49. Ibid., pp. 161-62. 50.

Ibid., p. 191.

51.

Walker, Spiritual and Demonic Magic, magic; Thomas,

52.

OS, p. 223.

53.

Thomas,

54.

Ginzburg, Cheese and

55.

Ibid., pp. 13

56.

Thomas, and

36 and pp. 70-71 on Ficinan

p.

Decline of Magic, p. 33.

Decline of Magic, pp. 178-80.

and

the

Worms,

p. 56.

29.

Decline of Magic, pp. 75-77; examples cited

from

p. 14; ch. 8;

p. 536.

57.

Ginzburg, Cheese and the Worms,

58.

Ibid., pp.

83-84.

See ch.

below, on the sea and the talismans; FR, 2/121 on the

59.

3,

p. 105.

and the cross composed of "molti pezzi

Thomas, 60.

Decline of Magic, p. 31, notes the

the wax "Agnus Dei." Thomas, Decline of Magic,

61. Ibid., pp. 333

62.

relics

della Croce di Cristo benedetto.

ongoing

faith in the

power of

p. 247.

and 578.

Montaigne, Journal de Voyage,

p. 349.

comments on magic

63. Davis, Return of Martin Guerre, p. 37; see her other

and memory, pp. 60, 76, 102, 107. 6A. Hamlet, act 4, scene 5, lines 173-74; see the recipes in Grataroli,

moria, p. 58,

and

De Me-

in Ful wood's 1573 English translation at p. E5.

"Decadenza," pp. 166, 194, and 204 n. 400. 66. Yates, Art of Memory, quotation on p. 147; memory theater, 65. Paci,

millo as "Magus," p. 156. See also Walker, Spiritual

p. 136;

Ca-

and Demonic Magic,

pp. 141-43, on Camillo, and pp. 206 and 236 for Campanella and Pope

Urban VIII. Yates, Art of Memory,

chs.

11,

13,

Bruno's system. The coincidence of Bruno's heresy miller Menocchio, the

Worms,

mentioned above,

68.

human

noted

in

trial

Giordano

with that of the

Ginzburg, Cheese and

p. 127.

67. Hersey, Pythagorean Palaces, p. 84

the

is

14, details

on

"linee occulte," and pp. 96-105

on

figure.

Winn,

Unsuspected Eloquence, pp. 51, 58-59; Walker, Studies in Musical

Science,

pp.

1

and

2,

53; p.

67 for an analysis of the sexual images in

Kepler's Harmonice Mundi. 69.

Winn,

Unsuspected Eloquence, p. 167, and quotation

70. OS, pp. 27-28, letter to

on

pp. 178-79-

Martin de Fornari, Macao, Feb.

275

13, 1583.

For

NOTES TO PAGES 22-30 Acosta's 1590 view of Chinese ideographs as "ciphers designed to jog the

memory,"

Making of Europe,

see Lach, Asia in the

vol. 1, bk. 2, pp.

806-7. 71. Ricci,

Li Madou

ti

baoxiang

tu, sec. 2,

pp. lb-2. See also Laufer, "Chris-

tian Art in China," pp. 111-12; Duyvendak, "Review," pp. 394-95.

72. Quintilian, Oratoria, 73.

Ad Herennium,

74.

Ricci, Jifa, p. 22.

75.

Examples given

A/221 and 229.

p. 211;

in

Yates,

FR, 1/112

Art of Memory, n. 5

and 113

p. 23.

n. 6. Barthes, Sade, Fourier,

Loyola, p. 28, discusses the satiric obverse of this in the Sadian order of

the rosary,

where the old nuns

are arranged

by "decades."

TWO THE FIRST IMAGE: THE WARRIORS 1.

Ricci, Jifa, p. 16, for the image. L.

quotes the Tso-chuan interpretation

S. Yang, "Historical Notes," p. 24, on the components of wu being "to

stay" and "the spear." 2.

Ricci, Jifa, pp. 52-61.

3.

Ibid., pp.

4.

Paci,

5.

Paci,

The

23-28.

"Le Vicende," pp. 234-37. "Decadenza," pp. 204-7, especially the detailed

6.

Paci,

"Vicende,"

Ibid., pp.

Delumeau, Vie "G.

265

on

p.

p. 204.

in 1588.

The

205 nn. 404-7.

n. 642.

264-68.

7.

8.

a

p.

listed

403 on

and Costanza

Riccis killed were Francesco in 1547

peacekeeping attempts are

n.

economique, 1/40, 44, 94.

On

p.

105

Delumeau mentions Marche transport father, though the

Battista Ricci of Loretto" being in charge of the

routes after 1587. This

is

the same

name

as Ricci's

Loreto registration makes the identification unsure.

10.

"Vicende," pp. 238-39Ibid., pp. 249-50.

11.

Pastor, History of the Popes, 14/152-67; Paci, "Vicende," pp. 250-53.

12.

Paci,

13. 14.

Cambridge History of Islam, 1A/328; Paci, "Vicende," Paci, "Vicende," pp. 257-61.

15.

Robert Barret, The Theorike and Practike of Moderne Warns (London,

9.

Paci,

"Vicende,"

p. 231.

276

p. 253.

NOTES TO PAGES 30-36 1598), p. 75. This passage transcription, by J. R.

War"

Art of

in

New

is

Hale

with one or two small changes in

cited,

in his chapter

on "Armies, Navies and the

Cambridge Modern History, 3/194.

16.

Paci, "Vicende," pp. 256-57.

17.

See the excellent discussion by

R. Hale in

J.

New

Cambridge Modern

3/196-97.

History,

"Vicende,"

18.

Paci,

19.

Ricci and

Xu

p.

250

n. 500.

Guangqi, Jihe yuanben,

p.

3

(reprint pp. 1933-34); also

translated in d'Elia, "Presentazione," pp. 183-84,

and Moule, "Obliga-

tions," pp. 158-5920.

21.

The

passage appears both in KiccVsJiren shipian, p. 5b (reprint

and

his

New

Tianzhu

shiyi,

juan shang,

p.

126)

24 (reprint p. 423).

p.

Cambridge Modern History, 3/199-200; Essen, Alexandre Farnese,

4/55-62.

A

picture of the bridge

explosion in plate

4,

is

facing p. 60.

in plate 3, facing p. 22,

A

and of the

second ship, similarly prepared,

burned out harmlessly on the shore. 22. Paci,

"Vicende," pp. 259-61 on Maceratan troops; Gentili and Adversi,,

"Religione," 23.

p. 51,

on the wounding of Fra Ruggero.

See O'ConnelPs vivid account in Counter Reformation, pp. 195-203; and

"Vicende," pp. 259-61 for Maceratans in the battle. 24. Groto, Troffeo, preface on his tour of the fleet, Section A on the subPaci,

and

fleets

poems in

in

their

commanders, followed by

Don John's

Pompeo

a

120-page anthology of

honor. See also the Greek and

Roman

analogies

Arnolphini's loan. Austriaco Victori Dicatum (Bononiae:

Ioannis Rossii, 1572). 25.

See the fascinating example of such paintings reproduced in Sakamoto,

"Lepanto," plates 3-6; Sakamoto traces the original print back to a Cornelis

Cort engraving from

ticed a

Rome 26.

L.

a

Giulio

Romano

drawing. Montaigne no-

Lepanto victory painting hanging near the

St.

Sixtus chapel in

(Journal de Voyage, p. 226).

A. Florus, Epitome of

Roman

print); Ricci's three schoolboy

History, pp.

books

113-15 (correcting mis-

are given in FR, 2/5 5 3n.

27. Pastor, History of the Popes, 18/429-32.

433-34, 444.

28.

Ibid., pp.

29.

Schiitte,

30.

Ibid., p. 75,

31.

FR, 2/559,

Valignano's Mission, pp. 76-79, citing Valignano's letter of

1574.

and Brooks, King for Portugal, pp. 9-10.

n. 4.

277

NOTES TO PAGES 37-44 32.

Cambridge History of Islam, 2A/241-45; on heat and armor, see Bovill, Alcazar, pp. 106, 126.

33.

Bovill, Alcazar, pp. 101-2.

34.

Quoted

8-21, and 35.

Brooks, King for Portugal,

in

Couto, Decada Decima, bk.

Mappamondo, plate

37. Doc. Ind, 38.

On

Goa's

On

the battle see ibid., pp.

Documenta Indica (cited

ch. 16, p. 148;

1,

hereafter as Doc. Ind.), 11/698, 36. D'Elia,

p. 150.

Bovill, Alcazar, pp. 114-40.

on the ceremonies.

24; Giles,

"Chinese

World Map,"

379.

p.

11/673 and 698. size, see Sassetti, Lettere, p.

280; quotation

from Francis

Pasio,

letter of Oct. 28, 1578, Doc. Ind, 11/365.

39-

comment

Ricci's

Mappamondo, plate

in d'Elia,

20;

opium evidence from

Cesare Fedrici, Voyages, pp. 202-4; Hakluyt, Second Volume, 40.

His

letter

of Nov.

25, 1580, to Accjuaviva, in OS, p. 20,

sympathy. The other in Chinese, d'Elia,

letter^ are neutral

Mappamondo, plate

p.

241.

shows some

or cool. See also his

comments

19.

41. Biographical details in Schiitte, Valignano's Mission, pp. 30-35, especially nn.

106 and 122;

39

p.

n.

167 on stature;

p.

42

n. 187,

and

p.

121

on India walk. and

42. Ibid., pp. 44 43.

52.

Ibid., p. 61, citing letter

of Nov.

16, 1573.

44. Ibid., pp. 104-8. 45. Ibid., pp. 117, 120, 155. 46.

Ibid., p. 131.

47.

Quotations

48.

Ibid, pp. 296-97, 308.

49- Ibid, pp.

ibid., pp.

272-73, 279.

286-87 for Valignano's report;

p.

288 and

n.

61 for Acqua-

viva's response. 50.

Noted

51.

05",

52.

On

p.

in d'Elia,

Mappamondo,

48, Zhaoqing,

letter

plate 16.

of Sept.

13, 1584, to

Giambattista Roman.

these works, see Boxer, South China in the Sixteenth Century, pp.

lvi-lvii

Pereira

and

and da Cruz

century, see

da Cruz on

lxiii-lxv; for

in the

hair, ibid, pp.

context of sources on

Donald Lach, Asia

in the

138 and 146.

On

China in the sixteenth

Making of Europe,

vol.

1,

bk.

2,

pp.

747-50. 53.

Bernard, Les rope, vol. 1,

lies Philippines,

bk.

2,

pp. 48-50; Lach, Asia in the

Making of Eu-

p. 746; Elison, Deus Destroyed, pp. 114-15; Johannes

Beckmann, China im

Blickfeld, pp. 52-65.

The key

letters

by Alfonso

Sanchez and Giuseppe de Acosta are printed in OS, pp. 425 and 450.

278

NOTES TO PAGES 44-50 Other materials tianity,

John Young, Confucianism and

are discussed in

pp. 141-42

Chris-

n. 122.

54.

FR, 1/70.

55.

FR, 1/65 and 68. By now, Ricci has

moved beyond

the interpretations

offered by Pereira and da Cruz, discussed above. 56.

FR, 1/343.

57.

FR, 2/21.

58.

FR, 1/19.

59-

FR, 1/28.

60. FR, 1/74.

1/104 and 67.

61. FR,

Zhaoqing fuzhi, 22/32b and 33b (reprint pp. 3330 and 3332). 63. So Kwan-wai, Japanese Piracy, ch. 5. 62.

64.

Huang, "Military Expenditure,"

p. 49;

"Hu

DMB,

Tsung-hsien," in

p.

633; Fitzpatrick, "Local Interests," p. 24. 65.

66.

Huang, "Military Expenditures,"

pp. 53-55;

tana Economic History, pp. 384-88.

DMB,

Huang,

1387, pp. 168-74,

and

compare

Cipolla, ed., Fon-

p.

1114, "P'ang Shang-p'eng."

illustration

from Qi's handbooks. Mil-

Chi-kuang," pp. 110-11. 67. Quoted in Millinger, "Ch'i Chi-kuang," linger, "Ch'i

p. 104.

68. Schutte, Valignano's Mission, p. 286. 69-

As

in

FR, 1/67 and 104; Ricci's companion Ruggieri used the same

402 (appendix

parallel, OS, p.

3).

70. FR, 1/100. For Pereira's and da Cruz's descriptions, see Boxer, South

China, pp. 18-19, 178-7971. FR, 1/101. 72.

FR, 1/205-6, 243.

73. FR,

mourned

1/289-93. Ricci

the original Francesco Martines in his

letter to MafTei

of Dec.

1,

1581; see OS, p. 24.

74.

Ricci's detailed

account

is

in FR,

75.

In a lengthy note in FR, 1/292 d'Elia discusses a Jesuit catalogue entry

of 1593 (or very

born

late

2/374-79-

1592) stating Martines was then twenty-five,

i.e.,

in 1568.

76. Ludolfus, Vita Christi, ed. Bolard, p. 638, right top, following the trans-

lation

by H.

J.

Coleridge,

p.

190.

On

the entire flagellation,

see

Coleridge's rich translation, pp. 188-97, and Ludolfus's haunting details

of cold and nakedness, pp. 255-56. 77.

A

particularly

good

description

is

in a Ruggieri letter

OS, p. 415.

279

of Feb.

7,

1583,

NOTES TO PAGES 51-55

DMB,

78. See

pp. 728-33 under Konishi Yukinaga. Jesuit complicity in

these Japanese military plans

discussed by Elison, Deus Destroyed, pp.

is

112-13.

2/10-11.

79- FR,

Manila

80. Ricci reflection in FR, 2/373-74; Schurz,

DMB, "Kao 81.

The

Galleon, pp. 85-93;

Ts'ai," p. 583.

outlines of these three other religious orders' early days in China

are well sketched cially pp.

Aux

by Henri Bernard in his

59-71, 103-14.

The China

Fortes de la Chine, espe-

experiences of the

Dominican Gas-

par da Cruz and the Augustinian Martin de Rada are translated in

Charles Boxer, ed., South China in the Sixteenth Century, pt. liot gives a

good summary of Franciscan experiences

cains en Chine,

and

also points

and Wijngaert on the same followers at

is

in his

Tianzhu

out shortcomings

2.

Paul Pel-

in his Les Francis-

in the

work of Bernard

topic. Ricci's praise for St. Francis

shiyi, p.

and

his

541. For examples of Ricci's concern

Franciscan tactics, see FR, 1/179, 232, 2/269- D'Elia cites an even

stronger warning by Valignano to Ricci about other orders' "herror y zelo desordenado" in FR, 1/187, n. 8. 82. FR, 2/572-iy,

Cooper, "Mechanics of the Macao-Nagasaki Silk Trade,"

p. 431.

83. FR, 2/373. 84. FR, 2/388. 85. Furber, Rival Empires of Trade, pp. 33-35.

On

Coen's ruthless methods,

see pp. 44-45. 86. See Schilling,

ground

to the

letti,

My

other

textiles.

"Marty rerberichtes,"

martyrdoms

p.

107; for the disputatious back-

see Elison,

Deus Destroyed, pp. 132-40. Car-

upon landing in Nagasaki he "went immediately to see the spectacle." Boxer, "Macao as Religious and Commercial Entrepot," p. 69, mentions the martyrdom on silks and

87. Stele, cited

88.

On

Voyage,

says

that

by Cooper, "Mechanics,"

p.

424.

savage riots between Japanese Christian

crewmen and Portuguese

Macao during 1608, see Boxer, Fidalgos, pp. 53-54. 89. FR, 1/324. 90. FR, 2/370.

91.

I.e.,

in 1601; see Boxer, Fidalgos, p. 49.

92. FR, 2/370, 93.

"un puoco di muro

OS, p. 374, letter of

Aug.

et

un modo di fortezza."

23, 1608.

94. Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises,

tr.

Puhl, par. 327.

280

in

NOTES TO PAGES 55-63 95.

Ibid., par. 325.

96. FR, 1/172-73. 97. FR, 1/203. 98. FR, 1/246-47.

99. Aquinas, ed. Bourke, p. 259.

100. Phrases

from OS, pp.

On

101. OS, p. 161.

102.

Quoted

in

67, 70, 90, 234, 279-

de Sande, see

Conway, Vita

Pfister, Notices, p. 44.

Christi, pp.

103. Maffei, L'histoire des Indes, preface, p. lavishly in OS, p. 24, letter Storia del Collegio

104. 2 Cor. 11:26,

echoed

105. Shaozhou fuzhi,

print p. 481)

Romano,

of Dec.

1,

61 and 96. 3.

Ricci praises this "proemio"

On

1581.

Maffei, see Villoslada,

Ueducation,

and Dainville,

p. 335,

p.

129.

in OS, p. 107.

ll/52b (reprint

242) on drought, and 24/36b

p.

on the magician (Yao) named

106. FR, 1/320-22. OS, p. 108, letter to

(re-

Li.

Acquaviva of Nov.

15, 1592, gives

extra details. 107.

Foot pain and treatment consultations can be reconstructed from

marks

in FR, 1/321

re-

and 323.

THREE

THE FIRST PICTURE: THE APOSTLE IN THE WAVES 1.

Matt. 14:23-33.

2.

Ricci discusses this Bible translation, and his refusal, in a letter of

Acquaviva's assistant, Alvarez,

12, 1605, to 3.

Ricci,

Li

Madou

ti

baoxiang

tu,

pp.

05", p.

l-3b;

May

283.

Cheng Dayue,

Chengshi

pp. 36-38b. For other translations, see Laufer, "Christian Art," pp. 107-8 as amended by Duyvendak, "Review," pp.

moyuan, juan

6, sec.

2,

389-91. 4.

OS, p. 284.

5.

Nadal, Evangelicae Historiae Imagines, no. 44.

commissioned by the Jesuits

in

The

illustrations

Europe with the express purpose of en-

hancing the value of Nadal's famous work Anotationes in Evangelia for missionaries

Nadal's

own

had been

and

priests in their

et

Meditationes

work of conversion.

theological reflections were orthodox, learned, and clear,

but they lacked that sense of excitement or immediacy that would

fix

them

for

in the

memory. So senior members of the Jesuit order worked 281

NOTES TO PAGES 63-67 work published by

years to have an illustrated version of Nadal's

great printer Plantin,

worked

—though

whose

—were

never idle

presses

than they had been in the days

in the 1580s

ing the polyglot Bible.

the

when he was

less

print-

The Jesuits endured many humiliations and

in-

amounts of cash to get as many of the biblical scenes as engraved from their own drawings by the formidable Wierix

vested large possible

brothers; besides being regarded as the best engravers in Europe, the

three Wierixes were also well tiably

known

to be drunkards, lechers,

and

insa-

greedy for money. True to their reputation they steadily pushed

up between 1586 and 1587, though when the work it was a triumph. (The protracted and fascinating was negotiations between the Jesuits and Plantin can be read in Plantin, the price per page

finished in 1593

Correspondance, vol. 8, letters 1160, 1182, 1188, 1193, 1194.)

edition of Nadal had 150 folio pictures following the

The

whole

full

life

of

from Nativity through the Passion to Resurrection, identifying

Christ,

scenes within scenes by

were then glossed

means of

the pictures, which

letters inserted in

notes below. Each picture was also keyed to

in

Nadal's lengthy commentaries, which were designed to help in sermons or in exegesis.

on Diaz agreement;

6.

OS, p. 260,

7.

For the placement of

new

OS, p. 283, requests

this in the full

copies of Nadal.

sequence of prints, see Mauquoy-

Hendrickx, Estampes, pp. 17 and 20-21. The prints are taken from originals by Martin de Vos. Two states of the original print, one by Visscher

(51.501.1765:20)

and

one

by

(53.601.18:43) are in the Metropolitan

ond was the one adapted by 8.

Ricci,

Eduardus

Museum

ab

in

New

and the stigmata

See d'Elia, Mappamondo, passim, or outline

map

Hoeswincfkel]

in

York. The

are boldly visible.

FR, vol.

2, frontis-

H. Parry, Age of Reconnaissance, p. 139, suggests King John Portugal was the first to change the cape's name.

piece. J.

9.

Gomes

de Brito, Tragic History (1389-1622),

10.

Ibid., pp. 3-5.

11.

As well

as

and James

Gomes

tr.

Boxer,

My

p. 1

Voyage, pp. 102-4.

12.

Carletti,

13.

FR, l/290n.

14.

OS, p. 125, letter of

15.

OS, p. 113, letter of Dec. 10, 1593.

16.

OS, pp. 218

17.

OS, p. 268, letter of

Nov.

15, 1594, to

and 230.

May

10, 1605.

282

Fabio de Fabi.

II

of

and map.

de Brito, above, see Parry, Age of Reconnaissance, and Empire, pp. 49-51.

Duffy, Shipwreck

sec-

pt. 1,

NOTES TO PAGES 67-74 218

suggests Matteo's father died in 1604.

18.

Tacchi Venturi

19.

See examples in

20.

Gomes

21.

Ibid., pp. 15-17; Sassetti, Lettere, p. 280;

in OS, p.

n. 1,

Gomes

de Brito, Tragic History (1389-1622), pp. 9-10. Duffy, Shipwreck and Empire, pp. 62-63, 73-74. de Brito, Tragic History (1589-1622), pp. 20-21.

corroborates the worst details 22.

Gomes 191

his

de Brito, Tragic History (1589-1622):

for

rudder on

rotten

(1559-1565), 23.

on

Mocquet, Voyages, pp. 220-21 1609 journey to Goa.

p. 31, for

the

John the ropes around stern. St.

p.

116 for

wood

rot; p.

Tragic History

Baptist;

FR, 1/238.

24. Doc. Ind., 11/312.

25. Doc. Ind.,

11/306 and 336, accounts by Spinola and Pasio.

26. Kerr, General History, 7/456-60, for Captain

Downton's account of

such resistance; and Boxer, Fidalgos, pp. 59-62. 27. Parry,

Age of Reconnaissance,

ch. 11, "Atlantic

Fidalgos, pp. 50-51; Schurz,

Manila

original loot as 2 million pesos

Trade and Piracy"; Boxer,

Galleon, pp. 306-8, gives

and on

313 the London

p.

St.

sale

Ana

of the

loot remaining as 500,000 crowns. Hakluyt, Third Volume, p. 816, says

the main loot was "an hundreth and 22 thousand pezos of golde." Spate, in Spanish Lake, 28.

Gomes

downplays the haul.

de Brito, Tragic History (1589-1622), pp. 11-13; Duffy, Ship-

wreck, pp. 70-74. 29.

Aquinas, ed. Bourke,

30.

Stevens, "Voyage," p. 467; for a later view of Stevens in

31.

Gomes

32.

Ibid.,

p. 70.

Goa,

see Pyrard,

Voyage, 2/269-70.

de Brito, Tragic History (1559-1565), pp. 4-6, 59-60. pp. 61-67.

33.

Ibid., pp.

68-72.

34.

Ibid., pp. 8-9.

35.

Ricci,

36.

D'Elia,

Tianzhu

shiyi, p.

Mappamondo,

383; ibid.,

tr.

Lancashire, p.

4.

plates 3-4.

37. Doc. Ind., 11/343. Ricci

mentions Mozambique only

fleetingly, in OS, p.

67. 38.

Ricci,

Tianzhu

mouth of 39. Cervantes,

shiyi, p.

425; French

tr.,

p.

193.

These words

are in the

the "Chinese scholar."

Don

40. Ibid., p. 658.

I

Quixote,

am

tr.

Cohen,

pt. 2, ch. 29, p. 659.

indebted to Ian Spence for this reference.

41. Fitch, "Journey," p. 472; Hakluyt, Second Volume, pp. 250-65.

vivid account of

Goa

jails,

see Pyrard, Voyages, 2/18-22.

283

For

a

NOTES TO PAGES 74-78 42. Shakespeare, Macbeth, act

1,

scene

19-29.

3, lines

43. See interlocking of the wrecks of the

Sdojodo and the Sao Bento (Duffy,

Shipwreck, pp. 26-27) with Maffei's narrative {L'histoire, bk. 4, ch.

266-68): and on the details of carrack bk. 12, ch.

life

3,

pp.

from Lisbon to Goa, Maffei,

pp. 119-20 with Pasio's instructions, Doc. Ind., 11/366.

2,

Maffei had the strength for the task, initially doubted by Procurator Sabinus, Doc. Ind., 11/625-26.

10/17, 21 and 709-13; and 11/353 for 1576 tragic voyage.

44. Doc. Ind.,

Couto, Decada Decima, bk.

though

ch.

1,

16,

147 for the commanders,

p.

of the sailings between 1577 and 1579 are garbled; Doc.

his dates

11/160-62, for Jesuit ship assignments.

Ind.,

45. Duffy, Shipwreck, p. 52. 46. Doc. Ind., 11/310-11. 47.

Good

Jesus in Doc. Ind.,

sought out by

sailors

dock

48. Lisbon 1578

49. Doc. Ind., 11/305; n. 2

on church;

lowing

11/305; supplies, 11/342;

St.

Gregory, 11/338,

wishing to hear the lap of the waves in calm

seas.

life in

Brooks, King for Portugal, pp. 14-15, l60n.

Gomes

de Brito, Tragic History (1389-1623),

Stevens, "Voyage," p. 463,

on

p.

30

a similar send-off the fol-

year.

11/161, 375; FR, 2/560, plate 22.

50. Doc. Ind, 51.

Doc. Ind, 11/307.

52.

Ibid.,

11/308-10.

53.

Ibid.,

11/351 on gambling and books. Wicki, "The Spanish Language,"

p.

16, gives

an analysis of sixteenth-century light shipboard reading.

54. Doc. Ind, 11/358.

11/308-9; Stevens, "Voyage,"

466, has parallel

55.

Ibid.,

56.

Doc. Ind.,

11/310, 351-52.

science"

discussed in Guiben, Jesuits, pp. 94-95, 190-93.

is

57.

Doc. Ind, 11/351.

58.

Ibid.,

The

p.

tales.

Jesuit use of "examinations of con-

11/311.

59.

Ibid.,

11/318.

60.

Ibid.,

11/347.

61.

Ibid.,

11/351.

62.

Ibid.,

11/313.

63. Ibid., 11/342. 64. Doc. Ind.,

sions and

11/337

11/354 for Pasio; 11/339 relics;

in calm;

11/316 storm 11/338

reliquaries;

services, Natal;

saints' heads.

The

GoodJesus show graphically the kind of 284

11/312 on storm conver-

11/316 open confessions;

details

of the voyage of the

real crisis that

Ricci was spared.

NOTES TO PAGES 78-81 begun the journey in fine style, moving ahead of her two the Cape Verde Islands, and speeding down to the Cape of Good Hope before a favorable breeze. Off the southern tip of Africa, however, she ran into massive seas and contrary winds and, unbe-

The

ship had

sister ships off

knownst

was blown backward during two successive nights

to the pilot,

of storm. Trusting totally to the ship's compass, the pilot turned confi-

when

dently north

the weather cleared, and held that course

—up what he thought was the

sight of land

long run to Mozambique.

He

was

east coast

heading back up the west

in fact

coast of Africa, in the direction of Portugal, and continued to

nine days, covering a

full

queries of his passengers, after

— out of

of Africa for the

do so

for

eight hundred miles, despite the anxious

who were

sure something was wrong.

At

last,

angry and protracted debates, with passengers and crew alike ex-

hausted and soaked, and with provisions and water in short supply, the pilot finally

changed

once again (Doc.

his course

and

sailed for the

Cape of Good Hope

11/313, 345, "cosa che mai accadate," adds Spinola

Ind.,

rounding

in heartfelt irritation),

it

this

time without incident. But

it

was not surprising that when told that because of the lateness of the year they

would now have

Mozambique, the

restock food and water in

the

GoodJesus

was by

now

seized their

to run directly for

weapons and

Goa without

soldiers

and

briefly threatened

pausing to

sailors

aboard

mutiny. There

a feeling, as Father Nicholas Spinola discreetly phrased

for his fellow passengers, "that the pilot

was not

it

really very intelligent"

(Doc. Ind, 11/317). 65. Doc. Ind, 11/352.

66. Ibid, 11/341, 352-53. 61. See descriptions in Boxer,

"Mozambique

Island," pp. 10-15,

and Doc.

Ind, 11/341, 346. 68. Doc. Ind., 11/376.

69- Ibid, 11/350. 70.

Ibid, 11/349.

71. OS, 27 for his

"grave

"light sickness." lacca 72. FR, 73.

June

1/178

illness."

Here and

14 to July

FR, 1/163

in FR,

2/562

n.

n. 1

9 Pasio notices he had a

d'Elia

shows he was

in

Ma-

3.

n. 3.

OS, p. 219, letter of Oct. 13, 1596, referring to "I'anno passato."

1A. FR, 2/11. 75. FR, 2/15-16. Trigault (tr. Gallagher, p. 304) calls the triptych a crucifix,

changing the implications of the scene 285

as

he so often does.

NOTES TO PAGES 82-89 76.

This version

from

is

see ibid., p. 119 n.

1

a letter

for

of Oct. 28, 1595, to Costa, in OS,

p. 182;

biography on Costa. FR, 1/355-56 has a pol-

ished version. 77. Acts 78.

79-

Ignatian echo caught by d'Elia in FR, 1/356 n.

9:6.

FR, 1/356

n. 3; for

OS, p. 48; see also

Zhong's

see FR,

life,

1/290

1.

n. 1.

examples of Chinese involvement

in So, Japanese Pi-

71-73.

racy, pp.

80. FR, 1/19-20.

For the Western belief that half of China lived on the

may be

water, see Plancius, Universal/

Map,

p.

echoing Gaspar de Cruz again,

as

in Boxer, South China, pp. 111-14.

tr.

256

recto. Ricci

partly

81. FR, 1/348. 82.

See the remarkable details in FR, 1/228

83. OS, p. 68, letter

2/110 on

Ma

of Nov. 24, 1585, and

n.

or Ricci in FR, 1/280.

3,

ibid., p.

66

n. 1;

FR, 1/92; FR,

Tang's boat.

84. FR, 2/19, 102. 85.

Ibid, 2/20.

86. Hoshi, "Transportation," p.

87.

A

fine

summary of Wanli's

5.

reign

is

given by Ray

88. FR, 2/21. Hoshi, "Transportation," p. 6 for

Huang

more on

in 1587.

private trading, p.

27 on eunuch abuses. 89- FR, 2/31

on boat, 2/34 on wheelbarrow.

90.

Delumeau, Vie economique

91.

Zhaoqing fuzhi, 22/34a (reprint

et sociale

p.

de Rome, 2/530-35, 605-6.

3333).

92. FR, 2/18. 93. Gujin tushu jicheng, ce 498.

(bowu

section, juan 106, p. 36b).

94. Ibid, p. 35b. 95.

Ibid,

96. Ricci

ce

498 (bowu section, juan 103,

comments on

this Bible in

p. 21).

05", p. 6, letter

of Jan.

18, 1580.

97. See Trigault's observations inserted in FR, 2/229-31.

98. Voet, Golden Compasses, vol. 2, esp. pp. 37-46; Roover, "Business

nization," pp. 237-39; Rooses, Plantin, pp.

one of these luxury copies 99- FR, 100.

2/279 and

Rome: Journal

p.

n. 1.

two

letters to Alvarez, OS, p.

388 (Feb. 17, 1609) on the Bible

FR, 2/282; and OS,

p. 298.

103. FR, 1/245-46. 104.

120-33. Montaigne saw de Voyage, p. 223.

OS, p. 282.

101. See Ricci's

102.

in

Orga-

Quotations

in OS, pp.

364 and 344.

286

as

282 (May

12, 1605),

"un puoco bagnata."

and OS,

NOTES TO PAGES 89"97 mace or sapeque"

105. FR, 2/111, taking "three

or

Albert Chan, Glory and Fall,

one qian

for 106.

equivalent to three qian

following price equivalents given in FR, 2/46

giulii,

n. 2.

as

in

1

The

May

with Board of 1

War

and followed

Gu Baogu

in "Li Madou di zhongwen zhushu," p. 241, known facts. But I have been unable definitely man among known Guangxi officials.

with the this

and 2/211

10, 1605.

identification of this Scielou

President Shi Xing, suggested by d'Elia in FR, 1/339 n.

by

n. 5

88 mentions children being sold

594 in Shandong province.

OS, p. 274, letter of

107. FR, 1/338-39.

p.

does not

fit

to identify

108. FR, 1/341. 109- Scene

and journey

in

FR, 1/343-44, also OS,

p.

103 on Nanxiong.

110. FR, 1/344.

On

111.

Barradas, see Ricci's

112. OS, 132, letter letter

of Nov.

two passages

in OS, pp. 128

and

of Aug. 29, 1595, to Edoardo de Sande 4,

in

194.

Macao; also

1595, to Acquaviva, OS, 193-94.

113. FR, 1/345.

114. OS, p. 193,

Nov.

4,

1595.

FOUR

THE SECOND IMAGE: THE HUIHUI 1.

Rkci,Jifa,

2.

FR, vol. Ricci's

3.

1,

p. 17.

plate 9 facing p.

194 gives the

Ten Commandments

in

Chinese version: Exod. 20:2.

on the book Tianzhujiao yao. The long n. 2 291) by d'Elia is a fine essay on the methodology and

FR, 2/289 and nn.

(extending to

p.

1

and

2

composition of Ricci's work. 4.

Ricci discusses the term in FR, 1/113; Gen. 32:32.

5.

On

Zhaoqing's

size, see

Bernard,

Aux portes,

p. 196.

On

early

map,

see

FR, 1/208-9, and notes. 6.

D'Elia,

Mappamondo,

plates 19

and

20; Giles,

7.

D'Elia,

Mappamondo,

plates 23

and

24; Giles,

mentions "twenty-four

"World Map," "World Map,"

p.

378.

p.

377,

states" only, perhaps reflecting an earlier state

of

the map. 8.

D'Elia,

Mappamondo,

plates 19

and

20. Ricci's

map, Chinese reactions to

it,

and the various editions are meticulously studied by William

in

"Kao

Li

Madou." Kenneth Ch'en, "A 287

Hung

Possible Source," also gives in-

NOTES TO PAGES 97-104 on

valuable information

Ricci's

Chinese sources for the map's Asian

re-

Rome

in

gions. 9.

See Gregory Martin's account of the preachers he heard at

Roma Sanaa, pp. 71-74. Also Culley and McNaspy, The roots from which this preaching grew have been

1577 and 1578 in

"Music,"

p. 222.

analyzed in O'Malley, Praise and Blame in Renaissance Rome.

Roma

10.

Martin,

11.

Martin,

12.

Montaigne, Journal de Voyage en

manus; Delumeau, Vie economique,

p. 240,

Roma

on confessors and Baptista Ro1/217 on range of languages.

Sancta, pp. 68-69, 169,

Sancta, p. 175.

on open

pp. 223-24; Martin,

Italie,

Roma

Sancta,

days.

13. Ignatius of Loyola, Constitutions, ed. George Ganss, p. 68; for an exam-

ple of Acquaviva's "active" policy in Constantinople, see Pirri, "Sultan

Yahya," especially pp. 65-66 on the Mancinelli mission.

Roma

14.

Martin,

15.

OS, p. 214.

16.

On

Sancta, p. 170.

Disputations, see Ignatius, Constitutions, pp. 194-95 (par. 378),

Martin,

Roma

Sancta, p. 164.

On

formation of the genre, Ganss,

and

St. Ig-

natius' Idea of a Jesuit University, pp. 255-60. 17.

Martin,

Roma

Sancta, pp. 103, 116.

teen miles from

Greek. Martin, 18. 19-

Rome,

all

At

monastery, only four-

St. Basil's

the services were chanted and conducted in

p. 152.

Ramon Lull, pp. 2, 6, 20; quotation p. 49. Le livre du Gentil, pp. 210-11; Hillgarth, Ramon

Hillgarth, Lull,

Lull, p. 24, sug-

gests Lull "implicitly recognizes here the necessary role of grace."

21.

La

du Bouddhisme, pp. 35-38. Boccaccio, Decameron, tr. McWilliam, pp. 86-89, quotation

20. Lubac,

story

is

rencontre

discussed by

Ginzburg

and

in Cheese

22.

See quotations in Ginzburg, Cheese

23.

Ibid., pp. 30, 77, 101, 107.

and

24. Hillgarth, Lull, pp. 280-87; ibid., p.

the

the

Worms,

p. 88.

The

p. 49.

Worms, pp. 9-10, 51, 62.

294 for Lull and alchemy; Lubac,

Rencontre, p. 63. 25.

Dime and Winius,

Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, pp. 323-34,

rough estimates of population made by Boxer, Portuguese 26.

Society,

Costa, Christianisation of the

exception to the guild 27. Costa's

me from

ibid., p.

331 n. 37.

pp. 12-13.

Goa

Islands, pp. 25,

rule, see ibid., pp.

30-32, 59, 96-97; for an

162-63-

words, from his erudite but apologist Christianisation,

pp. 120-22.

288

p. 59; also

NOTES TO PAGES 104-110 28.

Doc.

11/360-61; on the choristers, see Culley and McNaspy,

Ind.,

"Music," pp. 241-42. 29. Costa, Christianisation, pp. 14

and

15.

11/365; Costa, Christianisation,

30. Doc. Ind.,

of Jan. 30, 1580) and

11 (letter

31.

05", p.

32.

Correia-Afonso,

"More about Akbar,"

p. 85.

p.

4 (Jan. 18, 1580).

p. 58;

Renick, "Akbar's First Em-

bassy," pp. 35, 43. 33.

OS, pp. 4-6, letter of Jan. 18, 1580.

Mughal

34. Correia-Afonso, Letters from the 35.

Ibid., pp.

77 and 78

n.

minor changes);

13 (with

Akbar's alleged addiction to the 36.

05", p.

25 (Dec.

40, 43-45,

Court, pp. 58, 83, 110, 115 n. 6.

opium

see also p. 53 n. 16 for

infusion "post."

1581). See also Renick, "Akbar's First Embassy," pp.

1,

on Akbar's motives, including

his scrutiny

38.

Quoted in Correia-Afonso, "More about Akbar," OS, pp. 19-20, letter of Nov. 25, 1581.

39.

Brooks, King for Portugal, pp. 39-40 and 170

37.

on the "second Purim"

p. 47,

in

memory of

King for Portugal, pp. 25-31; Roelker, for the French ineptness

40. Brooks, tr.

41. Paci, 42.

On

43.

Main

"La Decadenza,"

Ancona,

174

p.

n.

n. 14;

of Goa's defenses.

pp. 60

and

61.

Yerushalmi, Zakhor,

Sebastian's death.

Estoile, Paris of Henry of Navarre,

in this war.

136 and

p.

176

n. 153.

Roth, House of Nasi, pp. Jews 135-39, 149- Also Azevedo, Historia, pp. 364-65; Martin, Roma Sancta, p. 129; Pastor, History of the Popes, 14/274-75. in

see especially Cecil

details in Martin,

Roma

Sancta, pp. 77-82, 126, 205.

ceremonies in Journal de Voyage,

also described these

Montaigne

p. 234; Pastor, His-

Popes, 14/272-74, discusses Jewish responses to the economic imposed on them, and names some other converts. pressures

tory

of the

44. Martin,

45.

Roma

Sancta, pp. 82-83, 96.

Delumeau, Vie Martin,

46. Martin, 47. Baiao,

Roma Roma

A

economique, 1/502-7 details these

Sancta, p. 76,

on the clothing market.

Sancta, p. 241; Pastor, History of the Popes, 14/274-75.

lnquisic,ao

230-31 on Cochin; 48.

economic experiments.

Azevedo, Historia,

1/263 on Dias. Azevedo, Historia, pp. 364 on Ancona.

de Goa,

p.

p. 230.

49. Baiao, Inquisicao, 1/36. 50.

Baiao, Inquisicao, 1/41 and 45,

on white and black Jews; Azevedo,

51.

pp. 230-31 on conversions and lure of Cochin. Baiao, lnquisiqao, 1/185-87, 265.

52.

Ibid., 2/55, letter

toria,

of Nov. 25, 1578.

289

His-

NOTES TO PAGES 111-115 53.

Nov.

OS, p. 20, Ricci's letter of

1580. Azevedo, Historia, p. 232.

25,

Pyrard de Laval, Voyage, 2/94-95, gives examples of Inquisition excesses in 54.

Goa around

1608.

Hanson, Economy and Society, pp. 76-79, is good on procedures and budgets; see also Baiao, Inquisicao, 1/272 on budget; and 1/187-88 on Fonseca's elaborate procedures. as

"demonic theater"

is

Fashioning, p. 77; A.

An

intriguing discussion of the Inquisition

given by Stephen Greenblatt in Renaissance

D. Wright, The Counter-Reformation,

cusses the "learned obsession with the 55.

Costa, Christianisation,

56.

Schiitte, Valignano's Mission, pp.

741, p. 57.

demonic"

Self-

43, dis-

p.

in this period.

197.

p.

60 and 67; Dehergne,

Repertoire, no.

239 on Edoardo de Sande's Jewish grandmother.

Summary of early

texts in

Brown, Indian

Christians, ch. 2,

and Mathew

and Thomas, Indian Churches, pp. 5-21. Ricci's thoughts are 58.

Brown, Indian

59.

This was Mar Joseph; see Brown, Indian Christians,

in OS, p. 8.

Christians, pp. 12-13, 15.

60. OS, p. 8, Ricci to Goes, Jan. 18, 1580. For his illness

p. 22.

and the grim

the deaths of priests and teenage students see Doc. Ind., 11/699.

of

list

On

the

Simon-Abraham controversy and the Vaipikkotta seminary, see Brown, Indian Christians, pp. 22-26 and Mathew and Thomas, Indian Churches, pp. 27-29. Wright, The Counter-Reformation, pp. 140-41, discusses the institutional forms that

were developed to handle the Malabar Chris-

tians.

from Duarte Barbosa, Description of the Coasts of East Africa (bk. pp. 600-601), in Brown, Indian Christians, p. 283.

61. Cited

62.

2,

05", p. 9.

63. OS, p. 20, letter to

Acquaviva of Nov.

25, 1581.

64. Costa, Christianisation, p. 198, believes this ibid.,

pp. 195-97

was done with "no rigour":

on Jesuit arguments against the

Inquisition.

65. OS, pp. 8-9.

66. FR, 1/167 n. 3 topics, see

and 1/192

below

chs.

67. OS, p. 72, letter of

n. 3 for

6 and

Nov.

Buddhist dress of Ricci.

On

the other

8.

24, 1585.

68. FR, 1/124-25, 1/336-37. 69. OS, p. 104, letter

of Nov.

15, 1592.

I

translate "invention!" as "devices"

here. 70. OS, pp. 136-37, letter

of Aug. 29, 1595;

I

render "roxa escura" as "pur-

ple" here, in light of the fact that Ricci always used the Italian purple, "paonazza,"

when he

word

for

repeated this description (with variations)

290

NOTES TO PAGES 115-120 later, in

and FR, 1/358, where Ricci

p. 16,

Young, East-West Synthesis, judiciously cuts the more flamboyant

OS, pp. 173, 183, 199-200; see also

details.

71.

As described by Gregory Martin, Roman

72. OS, pp. 48-49, letter 73.

Ibid., p. 57, letter

74. FR,

1/128.

On

Giambattista Roman.

13, 1584, to

of Oct. 20, 1585.

the earlier traditions concerning

and Termagant,

Matter of Araby, FR, 1/118 and 120.

see Metlitzki,

comments

75. See his

of Sept.

Sancta, p. 128.

in

76. FR, 1/132; the best introduction to late

Ming

Muhammad,

Apollo,

p. 209.

syncretism

is

Judith Berl-

ing, Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-en. 11.

Boxer, South China in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 36-38, 219-21.

78. OS, p. 48, Sept. 13, 1584: "no se como." 79- OS, p. 380; FR, 1/24.

80. FR, 2/27. 81. FR, 2/47.

82. FR, 1/149. 83. FR, 1/110-11.

On

"Muslim History,"

later

Ming Muslim

rebellions, see Barbara Pillsbury,

pp. 19-20; Morris Rossabi,

Asian Revolts," passim; Albert Chan, Glory and 84. Israeli,

Muslims

in China, p. 29; Thiersant,

"Muslim and Central Fall, pp.

118-19.

Mahometisme, 1/53, on min-

aret suppression.

85.

On

early Arabic-Chinese transcriptions, see Forke, "Islamitisches Trak-

tat," a

On

remarkable piece of scholarly decipherment and reconstruction.

the early

Muslims

Qing Muslim work by

in China, pp. 145-47,

the prolific Liu Zhi, see

Israeli,

and Thiersant, Mahometisme, l/^A-bS.

The same volume of Thiersant gives a lengthy translation of Liu Zhi and Yusuf Mazhu. An important statement by Emperor Yongzheng on Islam

is

in Thiersant, 1/55-56. Liu Zhi's life

basic eighteenth-century Chinese

of

Muhammad, showing

a

view of Islam, has been translated and

annotated by Isaac Mason, Arabian Prophet (Shanghai, 1921). 86. OS, p. 290, letter

of July 26, 1605, to Acquaviva; OS,

87. FR,

1/336

88. FR,

1/112 and 114, 2/320.

p. 344;

FR, 2/320.

n. 1.

89. FR, 2/323; Ricci mentions this reticence also in OS,

p. 344.

90. FR, 2/141 n. 4. 91. OS, p. 290; ibid., p. lost.

289

The famous 718

refers to

an earlier

a.d. Nestorian stele

letter

on the same

was discovered only

fifteen years after Ricci's death. See the translation

291

topic,

now

in 1625,

and analysis

in Chi-

NOTES TO PAGES 120-127 (May

nese Repository 14

1845): 201-29. Henri Bernard,

La

decouverte de

up

to Ricci's

Dehergne and Leslie, Juifs de Chine, summarizes the sources on early Jewish history in China;

pp. 8-12,

Nestoriens Mongols, pp. 14-31, reviews their early history,

time. 92. FR, 2/323. 93. OS, p. 290; FR, 2/317-24.

216-18 has

94. FR, 1/112, 2/324; 95. FR,

ibid., pp.

a succinct bibliography.

344.

05", p.

2/324-25.

96. FR, 2/316-18.

97. Ricci discusses this conversation

(Valignano) in his

letter

of

and

May

his intention to ask the visitor

12, 1605, to Alvarez, 05", p. 281.

Va-

lignano died in Macao in January 1606. 98. FR, 2/179. 99-

To Acquaviva

on Nanchang

in OS, p. 360;

FR, 2/452.

literati,

100. FR, 2/141-42, 145.

101. FR, 2/130. 102.

24, letter

05*, p.

of Dec.

103. Maffei, L'Histoire,

1581.

1,

"Proemio,"

p. 3.

On

Maffei's earlier

Roma

Sancta, p. 245,

and Dainville, Geographie, pp. 122-26.

104. Maffei, L'Histoire, "Proemio," p.

105. OS, p. 24, letter of Dec.

as a

For his fame, Mar-

historian, see Correia-Afonso,y##// Letters, p. 113. tin,

problems

1.

1581.

1,

106. Acquaviva, Letters (29 Sept. 1383), pp. 47-48. 107. Acquaviva, Letters (19

May

1386),

p. 78.

108. Acquaviva, Letters (12 Jan. 1390), pp. 110-11, 113. 109. FR, 2/398-402,

FR, vol.

2,

2/393

n. 1.

D'Elia gives a detailed

map of his

route in

plate 20, facing p. 396. Bernard, Le Frere Bento de Goes, pp.

45-47. 110. See FR, 2/437,

where Gois

sells his

jade for 1,200 ducats, "only half

its

value." 111. FR, 2/434-38; Bernard,

Le Frere Bento de

"Muslim and Central Asian Revolts," tics

pp. 172-75,

and 391.

First

news of Gois's

Zhuangzi, Complete Works, zongshi" section.

114.

102-10; Rossabi,

on the Kashgar

poli-

of the time.

112. OS, p. 338, Mar. 6, 1608. Ricci also dwells

113.

Goes, pp.

Here

I

Gu

arrival in

p. 78,

Baogu, "Li

on Gois

China

is

in OS, pp.

347-50

OS, p. 327.

and standard Chinese editions, "Da

Madou

di

zhongwen,"

p. 248.

generally follow Zhuangzi, Complete Works, as translated by

292

NOTES TO PAGES 127-135 Watson, but rephrase and use

Ricci's "paradoxical" for

Watson's

"sin-

gular man."

FIVE

THE SECOND PICTURE: THE ROAD TO EMMAUS 1.

Aquinas, Catena Aurea, pp. 772-79. Ludolfus of Saxony had seen in the three major focuses for contemplation:

story

Christ's kindness

and

friendship in seeking to grasp the reason for the disciples' sadness; his

humility in speaking to these disciples "of lower grade"; his goodness in explaining, so patiently, the

Vitajesu also, in

716).

Christi, p.

meaning of what they had seen (Ludolfus, story of Emmaus was to be reflected on,

The

the Spiritual Exercises, in the fourth week, as the fifth

among

thirteen mysteries of Christ's apparition to various persons

the

on earth

(Ignatius, Exercises, nos. 226 and 303). 2.

Li Madou

Ricci,

moyuan, juan 3.

ti

6, pt. 2, pp.

tu,

pp.

tian

Museum

file,

53.601.18:44).

Castellani,

state

of Art in

4-5b;

Cheng Dayue,

Chengshi

38b-4l; Duyvendak, "Review," pp. 391-92.

Nadal, Evangelicae Historiae Imagines,

copy of the original

4.

baoxiang

14 1, for the unused image.

fig.

A

of Ricci's print can be seen in the Metropol-

New York

(Prints, Netherlands,

Martin de Vos

"La Tipografia del Collegio Romano," pp. 12-13, taking

scudi as equivalent to ducats. 5.

Robert Palmer, "Martial,"

some 6.

On

is

an excellent

summary and

and has

analysis,

startlingly explicit translations.

the general

strategy,

see

Dainville,

Veducation

des Jesuites,

181-84. For the cut Martial and Horace in the curriculum, see

menta Paedagogica, 1586, Castellani,

structions,

"Martial," p. 913.

On

p. 435.

On

pp.

Monu-

Frusius's following of Ignatius's in-

"Tipografia,"

pp.

11

and

15,

and

Palmer,

Frusius as musician, and friend of Ignatius, see

Culley and McNaspy, "Music and the Early Jesuits," p. 218. 7.

Castellani, "Tipografia," pp. 11, 14-16.

8.

Ganss, Saint Ignatius' Idea of a Jesuit University, pp. 296-301, and 326-27

on

Ignatius's initial statement; Pachtler, Ratio Studiorum, pp. 192-97 for

1566 9.

details,

Ganss,

St.

including

p.

195 on

Ad Herennium.

Ignatius' Idea of a Jesuit University, pp. 44-51, 60. Ibid., p. 304

for instructions

on Latin conversation. 293

NOTES TO PAGES 135-141 304-5; Ledesma's instructions in

Monumenta

Paedagogica,

10.

Ibid.,

11.

OS, p. 235,

12.

Romberch, Longestorium Artificiose Memorie, pp. 22-26, 36, 49-51. Grataroli, De Memoria Reparanda, pp. 78-82. Thorndike, History of Magic, 5/600-16, has a fine brief biography of Grataroli. These images

pp.

1386, p. 361; Schwickerath,y##// Education, pp. 493-97.

13.

Nanchang,

Sept. 9, 1597.

much for Grataroli's 1573 English translator, William Fulwho toned them down for his Castel of Memorie (London: Wilwood, liam How, 1573), filling the pot with water and leaving the anatomical were too

parts unspecified. Grataroli's work, albeit in bowdlerized form,

circulating in

England

seventeenth century

in the late

students. Cf. Marius d' Assigny, The

among

was

still

university

Art of Memory (London, 1699),

especially pp. 72-74. 14.

OS, p. 27.

15.

OS, p. 28

and FR, 1/36-37. Ricci's example of the word

in Chinese,

for heaven, tian

had already been mentioned by Gaspar de Cruz

count: see Boxer, South China,

in his ac-

p. 162.

28.

16.

05", p.

17.

For his stages in learning Chinese, see September 1584 in OS, tober 1584, OS, p. 60;

November

la lingua"; 1592, OS, p. 91;

1585,

December

05", p.

p. 49;

Oc-

65, "giaparlo correntemente

1593, OS, pp. 117-18; October

1594, OS, p. 122. 18.

155-56. For de Sande, see

OS, pp.

no. 741

Repertoire,

Christian," St.

i.e.,

mentions

his

He

of Jewish origin.

Pfister, Notices,

no. 11; Dehergne, a

"New

Ricci

on the

L 'education

morale,

grandmother having been traveled to

Goa with

Louis.

19. OS, p. 211.

20.

OS, pp. 235-36.

21.

OS, pp. 239-40.

22.

Ricci, Jifa, p. 18.

23.

Bortone,

24.

Schwickerath, Jesuit Education,

P.

Matteo

pp. 132-33, 139;

Ricci,

pp. 35-40.

Monumenta

p. 494;

Schimberg,

Paedagogica, 1386, p. 351; Dainville, L'edu-

cation desjesuites, pp. 168-71. See also Dainville, ibid., pp.

Jesuit "humanisme de culture

mano, ch. 25. Zanta,

La

et

187-88 on the

de formation," and Villoslada, Collegio Ro-

5.

renaissance

du

sto'icisme,

26. Letter to Costa, OS, p. 336,

Mar.

pp. 12-14, 126-27, 203-5.

6, 1608. Ricci, Jiren shipian, pp.

294

187-88

NOTES TO PAGES on Aesop, and be found 14.

p.

131 for Epictetus.

Planudes

in

Though

le

Grand, La

14 1-145

The Aesop

sections Ricci used can

vie d'Esope,

preface and chs. 13 and

have seen only the Rouen edition of 1765,

I

assume the

I

order was the same in the editions of Ricci's day. For circulation of the

Aesop passage by ch.

a

Ming

scholar, see

Zhang Xuan's Xiyuan

pp. 39b-40b; Zhang's biography

15,

is

in

DMB,

p.

wenjian

lu,

79 (Chang

Hsiian). 27.

Ricci, Jiaoyou lun, passim,

The

pp. 454, 463-65.

and

d'Elia, "II trattato sull'

Amicizia," esp.

which would thus be a later importation; this hypothby comparing Ricci's paraphrases with the original Beitang edition of the 1590 Paris version

d'Elia thinks Ricci used esis

seems reinforced

Resende version 28.

as printed in d'Elia's "Trattato."

Epictetus, ed. Oldfather, vol.

2,

on pp. 479-537.

prints the Encheiridion

In an elegant piece of scholarship the Encheiridion has been collated

with Ricci's version of Ershiwu yan by Christopher Spalatin in his

"Matteo 29.

D'Elia,

Use of Epictetus' Encheiridion."

Ricci's

"Musica

translation.

I

ings in these

am

with an

e canti," gives the Chinese version

grateful to

Thomas Greene

songs from Horace

Petrarch, "Ascent of Mt.

(i.e.,

for pointing

Odes, n,

4 and 18,

Ventoux"; and from Seneca,

Italian

out borrow-

III,

24);

from

Epistolae Morales,

93. 30.

For the place and significance of Clavius's 1574 ed. in the context of Euclid bibliography, see Heath, Thirteen Books, 1/105; on the negative attacks

on

science teaching, see Dainville, L'education des Jesuites, pp.

324-25. 31.

Monumenta

Paedagogica, 1386, p. 476. For beginnings of Galileo friend-

ship, see Phillips, loslada, Collegio 32.

Monumenta

"Correspondence of Father Clavius,"

p. 195; also Vil-

Romano, pp. 194-99, 335.

Paedagogica, 1386, p. 472.

33. Ibid., pp. 471, 478. Clavius's colleague Torres outlined a similar curricu-

lum, phased somewhat

differently. Ibid., p. 477.

34.

FR, 1/207-8, and OS,

35.

FR, 1/I67n.

36.

Ricci and

37.

As paraphrased by Vincent Smith,

Xu

p. 13.

Guangqi, Jihe yuanben, preface, pp. 4-5 (reprint pp.

1935-37).

p. 6.

38.

Ibid., pp.

43-44.

295

St.

Thomas on

the Object

of Geometry,

NOTES TO PAGES 145-150 39.

40.

Thomas Aquinas, ed. Bourke, Dainville, La Geographie, pp.

pp. 40, 278-79.

Thorndike, History of Magic,

37, 39, 42;

6/46.

Thorndike, History of Magic, 6/73-7'4. 42. See the Chinese discussion of these sightings 41.

nomical records," 43.

Xu

Ricci and

Guangqi, Jihe yuanben,

Moule, "Obligations," 44.

Xu

Ricci and

Xu

and

Ricci

Ho

and Ang, "Astro-

preface, p. 5a (reprint, p. 1937);

p. 162.

Guangqi, Jihe yuanben,

Moule, "Obligations," 45.

in

p. 77.

p. 154; d'Elia,

preface, p. la (reprint, p. 1929);

"Presentazione," pp. 177-78.

Guangqi, Jihe yuanben,

preface,

p.

2

(reprint,

pp.

1931-32); Moule, "Obligations," pp. 155-57; d'Elia, "Presentazione," pp. 179-81. 46. Ricci

on Clavius and Piccolomini,

Ch'en,

"A

05", p.

72.

For his use of Ortelius, see

Possible Source," p. 179. See examples of tables in Clavius,

Astrolabium, pp. 572-79 for sun in zodiac, and the "tabula sinuum," pp. 195-227. 47. Clavius, Astrolabium, p. 43

shows the kind of detailed help with

tools,

carpentry, and construction of instruments offered by Clavius. For other

good examples of working drawings, see Clavius's Fabrica et Usus Inad Horologiorum Descriptionem (Rome, 1586), pp. 7-12. This book, about eight inches by five, two inches thick with metal

strument i 48.

binding

clasps,

683 pp. long, was both portable and

thanks after the book's arrival are in OS,

practical. Ricci's

p. 241, letter to Clavius

of Dec.

25, 1597, referring to previous year's events. Dainville, Geographie des

humanistes, p. 40

A

on

praise for the astrolabe.

(recto) and

B

49.

Dee,

50.

Ibid.,

51.

For Plancius, see Heawood, "Relationships of the Ricci Maps" and

Preface,

A

iii

Plancius,

ii

iii

(recto).

(recto).

Universal/

Map,

tr.

Blundevile; for

Ch'en, "Possible Source," pp. 182-90. circulation, see OS, p.

51 and

FR

On

Ma

Duanlin, Kenneth

the map's early reception and

1/207-10. Emperor and map, FR,

2/472-74. 52. OS, pp. 241-42, to Clavius, 53.

FR, 1/368-69;

DMB,

Nanchang, Dec.

25, 1597.

pp. 1139-40; see the specific praise for a passage

in Jiao Hong, Dan yuan ji, 48/9b, dating from 1603 (my thanks to Cheng Pei-kai for this reference). For Jiao Hong (Chiao Hung) see Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, pp. 145-46.

from the Friendship

54.

See passages in d'Elia, "II trattato

sull'

296

Amicizia," items 1-3,

5

and

9.

NOTES TO PAGES 150-154 55.

For the passages, see

item 24; for Ignatius and Erasmus see Guibert, Jesuits, pp. 163-66

Ibid.,

and

item

item 28; Martial, item 47; Plutarch, item 67.

15; Cicero,

56.

d'Elia's identification in "II trattato": Seneca,

Gu

36.

n.

Baogu, "Li Madou,"

quoted Montaigne: Gu's evidence

p.

243, suggests that Ricci also

for this fascinating observation

is

frail.

57.

Yuan xue ji, 3/39. On Zou (Tsou Yuan-piao), see DMB, pp. 1312-14; on Guo (Kuo Cheng-yu), DMB, pp. 768-70. I identify Guo as the intermediary on the basis of

Zou Yuanbiao, "Da Xiguo

evidence in FR, 2/43 58.

Li

Madou,"

in

n. 1.

Cary Baynes, pp. 4, 370-71. The subproblems of Ricci's "accommodation" of Christian values to the

Richard Wilhelm, The tle

I Ching,

tr.

Confucian ones are well described by Bettray, methode, pt.

5,

Confucianism

in his

Akkommodations-

and by Harris, "The Mission of Matteo Ricci." Young,

and

Christianity, pp. 59, 73, 94,

126-28 emphasizes the fun-

damental but often neglected point that Christianity did the

most

basic

in fact threaten

Confucian values. The forthcoming volume by Paul

Rule on Christian attitudes toward Confucius, based on tation for the Australian National University, will

his 1972 disser-

examine

this inter-

relationship in even greater depth. 59.

FR, 1/298, 2/342. For the attractive powers of this

zhou

in

Shao-

first draft, at

1589 and 1590, see FR, 2/55.

Joseph Ku, "Hsu Kuang-ch'i," pp. 90-93. For the place work by Ricci and Xu in the general history of Chinese mathe-

60. FR, 2/357-58;

of

this

matics, see Joseph

Needham,

Science

and

Civilisation in China, 3/52, 110,

446-51. 61. FR, 2/476-77.

Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, p. 199; FR, 1/296 63. Eminent Chinese, p. 452; FR, 2/168 n. 3. 62.

64.

tails

65.

Ku, "Hsu Kuang-ch'i,"

pp.

Monika Ubelhor, "Hsu Kuang-ch'i," 15:2/217-30

has

Eminent 35-36;

On

Chinese,

316; Joseph

p.

on Xu's family and upbringing. background see the massively

this

Science

and

detailed accounts in

25-27, full de-

Needham,

Civilisation in China: chemistry, vol. 5, pts. 2-5, sec. 33; car-

tography, vol.

3, sec.

66. Ricci, Jihe yuanben,

translation by 67. D'Elia,

n. 1.

22;

Xu

geometry,

vol. 3, sec. 19.

preface, p. lb (reprint p. 1922), following the

Moule, "Obligations,"

Mappamondo,

plates 11

and

pp. 368, 371.

297

p. 152.

12; Giles,

"Chinese World Map,"

NOTES TO PAGES 154-158 68. FR, 2/283.

69-

Examples from FR: ink 1/25

n. 5;

sticks 1/34;

Chinese paper 1/25; Western paper

binding 1/283, 1/196.

70. FR, 2/11, 46, 112. 71.

FR, 2/44-46.

72.

This was the Tianzhu tive in style

discarded by the Jesuits as too primi

shilu, later

and content, discussed

in

FR, 1/31 and 197.

73. FR, 1/31. 74. FR, 1/38, 2/314.

3b (reprint

75.

Ricci, Jifa, p.

16.

There were some exceptions

memory thus

we

briefly in

the case of Chinese military feats

in

249]), while all

ce

77.

Wei Renpu

in

remembered the names of the gentheir expenses and their wages

Zhu Huan

[ts'e] 606, p.

35a,

and

8802 [ch.

Songshi, p.

Three Kingdoms period remembered

in the

the soldiers in his area but even the

and children (Gujin tushu [ch. 56]

that

soldiers at every garrison,

(Gujin tushu jicheng,

not only

which show

find early Chinese records

and

discusses Chinese

FR, l/lS'b.

the period of the Five Dynasties erals

He

14) for examples.

p.

jicheng,

names of

their wives

606/32b, and Sanguozhi, 1314-17

).

Pliny, Natural

History, pp. 563-65. Soarez,

De Arte

Rhetorica, p. 59, has

Mithradates and Cyrus but not Cineas. 78.

Seneca, Controversiae, pp. 3 and

79-

These Chinese examples can be found

on Theodectes;

Pliny,

Natural

Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 4/243,

5;

on Charmadas.

History, p. 565, in the

Gujin tushu jicheng, in

ce

(ts'e) 606, pp. 32b, 34a, 34b, 35b.

Pliny,

Natural

History, p. 565; Gujin tushu jicheng, ce 606, p. 34a.

81. Pliny,

Natural

History, p. 563,

80.

31, p.

on Themistocles. Su Song 36a and Sibucongkan,

ed.,

on is

Scipio; Cicero,

De

Senectute, pp.

discussed in Gujin tushu jicheng,

Sanchao mingchen yanxiang

lu, ch.

29 and ce

606,

11, pp.

268-69. 82. Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 4/225; Gujin tushu jicheng, ce 606, p. 35a.

83- Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 4/233;

and Gujin tushu jicheng,

ce

606, p.

32b. 84.

Xu's remark

is

in

FR, 2/253. Ricci, Ershiwu yan,

Epictetus, Encheiridion, no. stituted the 85. Ricci,

word "love"

Ershiwu yan,

3, p.

for the

p. 335, no. 6,

following

487. In his Chinese version Ricci sub-

word

"kiss."

p. 338, no. 10, reversing order and specifying "son or

daughter"; Epictetus, no. 11, p. 491.

298

NOTES TO PAGES 158-165 86. Ricci, ibid., p. 345, no. 19, reversing order

and closing only with the

son's death; Epictetus, no. 14, p. 493.

Tianzhu

87. Ricci,

shiyi, p.

426;

tr.

Lettres edifiantes, p. 194.

88.

Tianzhu

shiyi, p.

428;

tr.

Lettres edifiantes, pp. 195-96.

89.

Tianzhu

shiyi, p.

561;

tr.

Lettres edifiantes, pp. 319-20.

90. FR, 1/76. 91. OS, p. 56, Oct. 20, 1585, to Acquaviva.

Also OS,

p. 63.

92. FR, 1/314-16, with "Giuseppe" in Nanxiong. 93. FR, 2/76-79. 94. FR, 2/161.

95.

Shen Defu,

in

Wanli yehubian,

p. 785,

saying Ricci "yindan shenjian."

96. FR, 2/537. 97.

and death

Illness

burned 2/546.

in FR, 2/538-42. Letters

Marian training with Leunis, see

Villaret, Congregations, pp.

"Le generalat,"

his devotional works, Guibert,

On

Coton's

92-93; on

p. 90.

six

THE THIRD IMAGE: PROFIT AND HARVEST 1.

Ming

Ricci, Jifa, p. 5a (reprint p. 17). For a late

motive," see Brook, "Merchant Network," 2.

Ricci,

Li Madou

ti

baoxiang

p.

analysis of this "profit

186.

on the transmittal letter and the picture "Man from Europe" pictures of

tu;

of Peter he writes "Ri," whereas on the

Emmaus and Sodom

he writes "Ly."

I

hope

this

is

one more step

forward to solving the baffling code that seems built into Ricci's signature

form on these paintings. The attempt

tors, is

in

DMB,

p. 215,

by the

ingenious but not conclusive, since elsewhere in his writings

Ricci used a quite different transcription for Deus, as in Tianzhu

1/3 (reprint 3.

p.

381)

—namely

shiyi,

Dou-si.

Azevedo, Historia, pp. 131-32, using cruzados as the currency. Gomes de Brito, The Tragic History of the Sea, 1389-1622, tr. Charles Boxer, p. 55, suggests ducats all

4.

edi-

and cruzados and

reals

can be equated at this time,

being roughly equal to four English shillings.

Essen, Farnese, 3/222-24.

New

Cambridge Modern History, 3/198-200.

William of Orange was assassinated on July

10, 1584, before

he saw the

truth of his warning proven. 5.

FR, 2/518-20, this being an account by Trigault.

The expulsion order

does not seem to have been carried out with any rigor,

299

if at all.

NOTES TO PAGES 166-173 6.

Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises,

Puhl,

tr.

sec. 93.

153-55.

7.

Ibid., sees. 150,

8.

Montaigne, Journal de Voyage,

9.

A

p. 256.

town of Macerata showing

detailed plan of the

locations of

all

main

buildings and walls in the late sixteenth century, designed by Libero Paci and Ceresani Giuliano,

ing 10.

is

in Storia di Macerata, vol. 5, plate 5, fac-

p. 312.

Florence data are sparse: see FR,

Bortone, P. Matteo

1/ciii;

Ricci,

pp.

35-36. 11.

Nanchang

OS: Nanxiong, p. 103; Ganzhou, p. 192; (see quote)

and 202; same

12.

OS, p. 28, to Fornari.

13.

FR, 2/553n.

St.

twice

size,

pp. 175

235.

size, p.

Andrew's and the residence

are illustrated in Bortone, p.

27. 14.

OS, p. 217, Oct. 12, 1596.

15.

OS, pp. 390-91, letter of Feb. 17, 1609, to

16.

O'Connell, Counter-Reformation, pp. 272-74, and Villoslada, 148-54, discuss the building boom. Martin, Roma Sancta,

Giovanni Alvarez. Storia, pp. p.

58, de-

scribes the Gesu. 17.

Martin,

Roma

18.

Angelo

Pientini,

19.

On

Paul's church

St.

Sancta, pp. 86-88.

Le Pie Narrationi,

cited

and the painting,

by Martin, Roma Sancta, see Doc. Ind.,

11/358 and nn.

112, 113, 114; Schiitte, Valignano's Mission, p. 113. Services

Doc. Ind., 11/359, and Culley and 20. Doc. Ind,

McNaspy, "Music,"

11/349-51.

Jan. 18, 1580; Doc. Ind., 11/358.

OS, p.

22.

Doc. Ind., 11/329, letter of Petrus Parra, Goa, Oct. 28, 1578.

23.

Doc. Ind., 11/319-20, Nicholas Spinola, Oct. 26, 1578.

Nov.

30, 1578, Doc. Ind., pp. 364-65.

24.

Pasio letter of

25.

Costa, Christianisation, p. 34.

26.

Schiitte, Valignano's Mission, pp. 236-37, n. 196.

27.

and choir,

p. 243.

21.

5,

p. 231.

Linschoten,

Report,

were Fitch,

a jeweler

p.

517. The other three named William Leedes

travelers

with

Storie

(or "William Bets of

Leeds"), and John Newbery. See Fitch, Letters, p. 514; Newbery, Letters, p. 512.

28.

Linschoten, Report, p. 520.

29.

On

the

Macao community,

see Boxer, Portuguese Society, pp. 12-13, 43;

Pyrard, Voyage, 2/172-73; Fok,

"Macao Formula,"

pp. 144-47.

30. Boxer, "Macao as Entrepot," pp. 65-66; FR, 1/152 for Ricci's

300

summary

NOTES TO PAGES 173-177 of the population; Fok, "Macao Formula," pp. 72-94 on Chinese attitudes to the community; Ptak, "The Demography of Old Macao." 31.

Church

in Boxer, Fidalgos, p. 39; Ricci's house, OS, p. 402,

Ruggieri to Mercurian, Macao, Nov. Ricci 32.

is

in OS, p. 398, letter

of Nov.

On

silver ratios see the detailed

and

his table

"Gold and dalgos,

on

p. 82.

The 60

in Atwell,

percent figure

Silver," p. 254. Detailed survey

account of the Goa-China trade 33.

1580.

account

and the same author's Great

Iwao, "Japanese Trade,"

p. 2.

3,

1581. Ruggieri's request for

12, 8,

appendix

Ship.

is

"Bullion Flows,"

suggested by Kobata in

of the trade

An

is

in Boxer, Fi-

early seventeenth-century

given by Pyrard, Voyage, 2/174-77.

is

For a contemporary Chinese merchant's

account of the Southeast China trade and foreign participation therein,

"Merchant Network," pp. 202, 205-6. A Chinese economy at this time, and the effect of silver, see Brook,

Pei-kai,

"Reason and Imagination,"

ch.

fine survey

of the

given by

Cheng

is

1.

34.

Cooper, "Mechanics,"

35.

Ibid., pp.

425-26, 430, 432.

Overview

in Spate, Spanish Lake, pp. 151-57; Iwao, "Japanese Trade," p.

36.

7,

on Hideyoshi;

p. 428.

Elison,

Deus

Destroyed, pp.

94-98 on the donation of

Nagasaki; Boxer, Fidalgos, pp. 30-38 on details of regular trade. 37.

Boxer, Great Ship, pp. 37-38; Boxer, Fidalgos, pp. 30-31; Schtitte, Valignano's Mission, pp. 212

38.

and 218

n. 130.

Schiitte, Valignano's Mission, pp. 184-85, 314,

rendering the 133-pound

"piculs" as "bales" here, and converting scudi to ducats. Cooper, chanics," p. 428. There

is

some inconsistency

in

"Me-

Valignano's figures.

Further details are in Elison, Deus Destroyed, pp. 101-5. 39.

Cushner, "Merchants,"

p. 366, discusses

the views of Navarro and

Mo-

lina.

Cushner, "Merchants," pp. 360, 364. 41. Schiitte, Valignano's Mission, p. 185 40.

Commercial

n.

388; Takase,

Activities," pp. 20-22; Boxer,

"Unauthorized

"Macao," pp. 71-72,

dis-

middlemen who worked with the Jesuits. Frois, Tratado, pp. 17-18. The idea of isolating China from any knowledge of Protestant Europe had not yet become entirely fanciful when Ricci first reached Macao in 1582, and this party of young Japanese princes were conducted for all their travels in Europe through areas cusses the skilled

42.

controlled by the Spaniards or by the Papacy and

its

Italian allies,

were probably barely aware of the extent of the Protestant (See the detailed accounts given in Lach, Asia in the

301

and

territories.

Making of Europe,

NOTES TO PAGES 177-182 vol. 1, bk. 2, pp.

the Spanish

when

688-706.) But after 1588,

Armada and

Philip

the English defeated

great general the prince of

II's

Parma

at Antwerp for a successon Dutch Protestant power in Amsterdam, the idea of a Spanish-Portuguese dominance of the world's seaways in the name of

proved unable to use his stunning victory ful assault

doomed.

the Catholic faith was 43. Boxer, Fidalgos, 44. FR,

p. 40, citing dues figures of 50,000 ducats.

1/178 and 178

1589 was

45. FR, 1/cx-cxi; OS, pp. 55-56;

whom

several

a peak,

with eighteen converts of

were women.

More

46. FR, 1/314-18, 2/94.

precise

analytical index in FR, 3/80,

47.

Ruggieri to Mercurian.

n. 3; OS, p. 396,

numbers can be plotted through the

under "Battesimi," broken

down by

area.

Peking area figures of converts, FR, 2/356; 1605 locations of priests in China, FR, 2/268 n. 3, and 2/276 n. 6. On Peking wealthy converts (and

with the poor), see FR, 2/160, 310, 354.

lesser success

48. FR, 2/337.

49. FR, 2/270.

1603, 50. 51.

The

on Valignano's

OS (appendix OS (appendix Nov.

exact date of this high point of optimism was probably last visit to

2), p. 398, letter

Macao.

of Nov.

8,

3), pp. 402, 404, 406, letter

12, 1581.

On

1580.

of Ruggieri to Mercurian,

the Jesuit gift strategy as a whole, see Bettray,

Ak-

komodationsmethode, pp. 25-32. 52.

The Chinese horological background is meticulously spelled out in Needham, Science and Civilisation, vol. 4, pt. 2, pp. 435-546. On European background, see Domenico Sella, "European Industries 15001700," pp. 382-84, printed in Cipolla, ed., Fontana Economic History, and

David Landes, Revolution

in Time, pp.

with Needham, see Landes,

ibid., ch. 1.

53.

OS (appendix

54.

FR, 1/161-64. OS (appendix 6),

55.

FR, 1/166

56.

FR, 1/167-68, 176-79.

57.

FR, 1/184-88, 192; OS,

his

67-97. For Landes's disagreements

6), p. 419, postscript to letter of Feb.

woes and the

p. 415,

7,

1583.

where Ruggieri elaborates on

spectacles.

n. 4.

p. 432.

The 250

"taels" the Jesuits spent

would

have been rather more than 250 ducats, though precise conversion ures are hard to

fix.

though FR, l/^l

FR, 2/535

n. 5,

n. 4,

equates one

tael

fig-

with one cruzado,

suggests that 450 taels were equivalent to 800

scudi. Schiitte, Valignano's Mission, p. 314, suggests that 20,000 taels in

302

NOTES TO PAGES 182-187 Japan were equivalent to 30,000 that in

Goa

The

scudi.

about twenty-five scudi (see his Voyages, 58.

traveler Jean

Mocquet found

early in the seventeenth century, twelve to fifteen taels

Details from

OS,

420,

pp.

p.

were

342).

and 431-32 (Cabral

letter);

FR,

1/264,

278-79; Takase, "Unauthorized Trade," p. 20, mentions similar Jesuit

concerns in Japan. See also Elison, Deus Destroyed,

real-estate

p. 102, for

Valignano's worries over the rocketing expenses in Japan. 59.

FR, 1/285-86, and 286

60. FR,

n. 4; OS, p. 461,

where the price

is

given in pesos.

1/374 and 378.

61. FR, 2/448, 465-66. 62.

Nanjing house, FR, 2/83-84,

63. FR, 64.

93; Peking, FR, 2/352.

2/30 and 93.

Nanjing, FR, 2/346; Peking, FR, 2/355-56. Similar types of tax evasion are discussed in Geiss, "Peking," p. 74.

65. FR,

1/178 nn. 4 and

1/201.

6;

66. FR, 1/201-5. 67. FR, 1/190.

Macao, Jan. 25, 1584, OS, pp. 419-20; also Boxer, Fidalgos, pp. 41-42 and Great Ship, pp. 45-46. But the Jesuits' "main support" Gaspar Viegas left for India that same year, see OS, pp.

68. Ruggieri

to Acquaviva,

431-33, Francis Cabral to Valignano, Macao, Dec.

5,

1584; Cabral uses

the spelling "Villegas." 69- FR, 1/230-31,

and Ricci

letter

of Oct. 20, 1585 to Acquaviva asking for

more of the same, OS, p. 60. Landes, Revolution in Time, pp. 87-88, has on sixteenth-century miniaturization; on p. 99 he notes the

fine detail

intriguing use of fine clocks as "tribute" to Islam. 70.

Ricci's explanation

is

in

The full background of Chinese Needham, Science and Civilisation,

FR, 1/104-7.

alchemical experimentation

is

in

vol. 5.

71. FR, 1/240; the great dramatist

Tang Xianzu was

believed Ricci was an alchemist, in 1592. See

Xianzu he

Li

Madou,"

his observations 72. FR,

2/390

73. D'Elia,

who

also

one of those

Xu

Shuofang, "Tang

pp. 274, 277-78. Carletti, Voyage, p. 146, gives

on mercury purchases

at this time.

n. 6.

Mappamondo,

plates 9

and

10;

Brading and Cross, "Colonial

Sil-

ver Mining," pp. 553-54; Spate, Spanish Lake, pp. 186-94. 74.

The

patterns of mercury trade are outlined in Cipolla, ed., Fontana Eco-

nomic History,

p. 395;

Brading and Cross, "Colonial Silver Mining," pp.

303

NOTES TO PAGES 187-189 many

562-64. Fernand Braudcl, in Wheels of Commerce, gives

323 and 386 on the

facets to the trade; e.g., pp.

failed

intriguing

Hochstetter

at-

up an early-sixteenth-century mercury cartel; pp. 326-27 on Huancavelica and the Fugger control over Almaden; p. 174 on the Seville-Idria connections; pp. 169 and 406 have a late-seventeenth-century trader mentioning 300 percent profit obtained by shipping Chinese tempt to

set

quicksilver to

New

Spain; while p. 379 mentions the Greppi family's

bulk buying of mercury

account of his huge mercury seizure 1/455. Brading and Cross, op.

tory,

of mercury to

Captain White's

in the eighteenth century.

given in Kerr, General His-

is

cit., p.

555 give the precise ratios

production; see also Spate, Spanish Lake, pp.

silver

189-92. 75. OS, pp.

245-46, and 245

1/2H-18 76. FR,

n.

5,

letter

of Aug.

1599 to Costa; FR,

14,

has Ricci's view of tensions.

1/240 corroborated independently by

DMB,

pp. 318, 905. See also

Fok, "Macao Formula," pp. 93-95, though ambergris

is

there defined as

a "spice."

77. FR, 1/216-17;

Chan, "Chinese-Philippine Relations," pp.

78.

FR, 1/240-41.

79-

Zhaoqing fuzhi, 22/78a (reprint

52, 62.

3421).

p.

80. FR, 1/313.

81. Letter in

184, dated Oct. 28, 1595.

05", p.

FR, l/359n, 375; OS,

Nanchang

stories detailed in

p. 175.

82. FR, 2/29.

83. OS, p. 382, letter

84.

of Feb.

Shen Defu, Wanli yehubian,

85. FR, 1/225, 163

n. 7 for

cussed in Bernard,

n. 4.

p. 785.

such Chinese requests. The Franciscan

Aux

workmanship can be seen of Artes de Mexico,

and FR, 2/490

15, 1609,

Fortes,

129.

p.

in great detail

n. 137, afio 17,

Examples of and variety

gift

is

dis-

this astonishing

in the special issue

"Tesoros de Mexico

—Arte Plumario

y de Mosaico," especially the essay "Comentarios sobre el arte plumario durante la colonia" by Marita Martinez del Rio de Redo. (My thanks to

Diana Balmori

for this reference.)

from destitution

in

Goa by

The

traveler

Mocquet

a fortunate profitable sale

also escaped

of feathers

Voy-

ages, p. 287.

86. For this "struzzo vivo" see OS, p. 449, letter of 87. FR, 1/216

New 6,500

n. 1; d'Elia,

Mappamondo,

plates 5

Nov.

and 6

8,

1586.

in Brazil, 7

and 8

in

Spain, and 15 and 16 in Borneo. Chan, "Peking," p. 135 mentions taels'

worth of

feathers given by

304

Peking merchants to the court.

NOTES TO PAGES 189-196 88. FR, 1/266-67.

89. FR, 1/227.

OS, pp. 59

The background and 444,

letter

Ming,

trade in the late

to the mission side of the deal

is

given in

by Ricci to Almeida; on the Zhejiang

see

Brook, "Merchant Network,"

silk

p. 199.

and food, OS, pp. 413 and 416, letter of Feb. 7, 1583; Ricci's incense and oil, FR, 1/195; loans from Macao Chinese, OS, p.

90. Ruggieri's alms

420, letter of Jan. 25, 1584.

and 259,

91. FR, 1/74

lit.

"scudi."

army commander,

92. Triptych, FR, 2/16;

OS, p. 56;

Cochin embassy,

OS,

FR, 2/48.

p. 57; furniture,

93. Junks, FR, 1/341; with troops, FR, 1/346; picnic, FR, 1/302; sedan chairs,

94.

FR, 1/345, 2/15, 2/426.

Dinner

tips,

payment

FR, 1/370; travel

FR, 2/100 and 2/104; advance

gifts,

for trip, FR, 2/101.

95. FR, 1/224, 258. 96. FR, 1/334, 2/92.

97. Boxer,

"Macao,"

65 on

p.

slaves;

negro" and his other "negra

FR, 1/246 on Ricci's "cafro assai

dell' India.

"

Use of

slaves

discussed in

is

Bettray, Akkomodationsmethode, pp. 148-50. 98. Ricci's analysis in FR, 1/262. 99. FR, 1/262; So, Piracy, p. 57,

mentions blacks

as pirates at this time.

100. OS, p. 287, Ricci to Acquaviva, Peking, July 26, 1605.

101.

Zhang

Xie, Dongxi yangkao, 5/6 (reprint p. 183).

tuguese (Fo-lang-ji) here, but

is

also

Zhang

refers to Por-

drawing material from what

he's

heard of Manila. 102. FR, 1/181, 187, 189. 103. FR, 1/264. 104. FR,

1/216

n. 1.

105. FR, 1/248 n. 106. FR, 2/91

107.

1,

Peking

arrival,

124

1.

n.

and 2/7

n. 3.

n. 2.

2/123; details on these gifts are in FR, 2/114, 123 n.

The missing organ

is

mentioned

in FR, 2/90.

5,

Shen Defu

gives a Chinese contemporary's view of the gifts in his Wanli yehubian, p. 784.

108. FR, 2/139-40.

109. FR, 2/151, 153, 156. 110. Presents

and prism

in 1602, FR, 2/154; early prisms,

FR, 1/346 and

2/37; value merely eight baiocchi, FR, 1/255, 2/142. For a meticulous

study of baiocchi.-duczt exchange rates

305

—they

in fact

stood

at

around

NOTES TO PAGES 196-205 1567-73

115:1 in

—

Delumeau, Vie economique

see

et sociale

de Rome,

2/660-65. 111. OS, p. 386. 112.

246, letter of

05", p.

113. OS, p. 338, letter

Aug.

of Mar.

14, 1599. 6, 1608.

and McNaspy, "Music," pp. 217-26.

114. Culley

115. In display, FR,

1/268; in ceremonies, 2/70; hard harmonies, 1/130;

four parts and keyboard, 1/32.

instrument

116. FR, 2/132. Ricci calls the a

"mankordio"

Dehergne,

in 2/39.

"gravicembalo" in FR, 2/29, and

a

Repertoire, no.

607

193) shows

(p.

Pantoja was born in 1571, and was in Nanjing during March to

of 1600. For Cattaneo, see Dehergne, no. 158 and used Cattaneo's great musical

help

skills to

him

May

Pfister, no. 15. Ricci

analyze Chinese tonal

patterns in speech, FR, 2/32-33. 117. FR, 2/134-35.

118. Ricci,

Xiqin quyi bazhang, pp. 284-85;

d'Elia,

137-38. Chinese interest in Ricci's musical see

Yin

Falu, "Li

Madou yu Ouzhou

ders in Yinyue Yanjiu 1982,

"Musica e

work

is

strong

canti," pp. at present:

jiaohui yinyue," and the rejoin-

4/70 and

119. Ricci summarizes his Chinese friends'

105.

comments

in

FR, 2/134-35.

SEVEN

THE THIRD PICTURE: THE MEN OF SODOM 1.

See listings of the cycle in Verbeek and Veldman, Hollstein's Dutch Flemish Etchings, vol. 16,

Franken, L'oeuvre grave, 2.

Ricci,

zhuan 3.

Li

Madou

ti

6, pt. 2, pp.

"De

Passe (Continued)," pp. 6 and

p. 4, nos.

baoxiang

tu,

7;

and and

18-21.

pp. 6-8;

Cheng Dayue,

Chengshi moyuan,

41-43; Duyvendak, "Review," pp. 393-94.

Pastor, History of the Popes, 14/414-16;

lampoon example on

p.

Duruy, Carafa, pp. 304-5 and

408 (appendix 95); O'Connell, Counter-Refor-

mation, p. 83. 4.

Pastor, History of the Popes,

14/152-67 on the war;

p.

233 on perpetual

Lent. 5.

Ibid.,

14/265 and 272-75 on Jews and land; pp. 238-39, 266-68 on

punishing sensuality. 6.

Ibid.,

14/214-26; du Bellay, Les

Regrets,

306

poem

no. 103; Ancel, "La dis-

NOTES TO PAGES 205-209 grace," 24/238-44; other homosexuality charges

made by

of Lorraine are given in Duruy, Carafa, pp. 296-97

the cardinal

Death account

n. 4.

in Ancel, "La disgrace," 26/216-17. 7.

Quotation from Isaiah D.

13:19, 19:14.

Romans omy in the

P.

39:7.

See also Isaiah

Walker, Ancient Theology,

1:6,

p. 8,

1:9,

3:9,

3:16,

10:6,

builds from Paul's

1:22-27 to develop the chilling arguments for the role of sod-

8.

chain of punishments.

"La Decadenza,"

Paci,

an amusing 9.

10.

Ibid., p.

Martin,

p.

204

174

Martin,

402 and

206

p.

has

n. 410. Ibid., p. 145,

on Maceratan immorality.

n. 139.

Roma Sanaa,

pp. 49, 132, 189.

11. Delumeau, Vie economique 12.

n.

fifteenth-century popular song

Roma Sanaa,

et sociale,

1/404-8.

pp. 85 and 185;

on

Ignatius's concern, see Tacchi

Venturi, Storia delta Compagnia, 1/390. 13.

Delumeau, Vie economique

14.

Martin,

15.

Montaigne, Journal de

Roma

et sociale,

1/416-27.

Sancta, pp. 145-46. voyage, pp. 234-35. In ibid., p. 348,

Montaigne

compares the prostitutes of Florence to those of Venice and Rome. 16.

Gomez,

See graphic descriptions in Duarte 186;

and Boxer,

Discursos, pp. 130-31, 156,

Fidalgos, pp. 227-29.

125-27.

17.

Sassetti, Lettere, pp.

18.

Mocquet, Voyages, pp. 285, 307, 343, 351, gives cumulative details on the intriguing example of a Chinese former slave woman married to an Indian Christian doctor.

19-

Goa

details in Pyrard, Voyage,

2/102-4 (for

a slightly later period),

and

on Macao figures, Boxer, "Macao," pp. 65-67, and Ptak, "Demography of Old Macao," p. 30; FR, 2/433, shows Father Gois arriving in Xuzhou with two boy slaves he bought en Costa, Christianisation, p. 24;

route.

On

runaway

FR, 1/262 and ch.

20.

FR, 1/246.

21.

FR, 1/204, for the help given Ricci by "un put to Indiano que sapeva parlare meglio

slaves, see

que lui unpuoco la lingua

cinese";

5,

and FR, 1/246,

above.

"/ cinese

hanno

grande paura." 22.

FR, 1/99;

23.

On

I

assume by

prices, see

"altri christiani"

Pantoja in FR, 1/99

n.

1

he meant the Portuguese.

and Mocquet, Voyages,

the figures in taels were twelve and fifteen.

"loan Pay"

in

224-25. Boxer,

Mocquet, Voyages, loc. cit., gives

p.

333,

On

342

slaves as secretaries, see

and Boxer,

the fine (in cruzados).

307

p.

Fidalgos,

pp.

NOTES TO PAGES 209-215 24.

FR, 1/98-99. Maffei, L'Histoire,

253, echoes these criticisms.

p.

FR, 1/17; porcelain, 1/22; connoisseurship, 1/91; printing, 1/31.

25. Crops,

1/39-40, 118-19.

26.

Quotation, FR, 1/120; also

27.

FR, 1/56 and 60.

28.

by Charles Hucker, The Censorial System of Ming China. FR, 1/108-9, the "indecent behavior" being "sconcie."

29.

Ibid., 1/281.

30.

Ibid., 1/282.

31.

Ricci's

32.

OS, p. 70.

On

comments

the

ibid.,

Ming

censorate in general, see the fine study

in ibid., 1/93, 110, quotation 1/101.

33. FR, 1/59 and 79, 1/101-2.

2/144.

34.

Ibid.,

35.

Letter of Aug. 23, 1608, to Fabio de Fabi, OS, p. 372; FR, 1/23 and 2/20,

transposing scudi to ducats. eleven, see 36.

On

gold-to-silver

Delumeau, Vie economique

et sociale,

exchange

of one to

rate

2/665-66.

Construction finely described in Ray Huang, 1587, pp. 125-28, and 246 nn. The tomb, the Ting (Ding) Ling, is described by Ann Paludan as

tomb

no. 10 in her

Press, 1981).

This

in the context

is

work The the

first

Imperial

study that

Ming Tombs (Yale

lets

University

us see Wanli's construction

of the tomb architecture of his ancestors and descend-

ants.

37.

FR, 2/174

38.

Ibid.,

39.

Ibid.

n. 4.

2/131.

40. Ibid., 2/541, 41. FR,

and conclusion of

2/471-72 on

map and

amazement

Ricci's

ch. 5, above.

visits;

2/126-28 on the clock

42. Ibid., 1/100, calling then "gente plebeia."

A

43.

which

to

judicious view of the real

extent of eunuch political power at this time

Hucker

case,

cost 1,300 ducats.

in Censorial System of

Ming

is

given by Charles

Ching, pp. 44-45.

Feng Bao, FR, 2/65, though Ricci is sarcastic about the visit; warning on Ma Tang, 2/109; acrobatics, 2/112, which Ricci found 'garbata." Albert Chan, "Peking at the Time of the Wanli Emperor," p. 136, gives f

further examples of such acrobatics. 44.

DMB,

p.

331 and references under

Wang

Ying-chiao; Yuan, "Urban

Riots," pp. 287-92; FR, 2/81-82 on the fake "mines" under houses, and 2/107 on Linqing. 45. FR, 2/93.

308

NOTES TO PAGES 216-221 46.

DMB,

Cheng

210 on

p.

(Zhenke) of the Shen

Kuei-fei,

and pp.

family. Ricci's harsh

comments

Tang Xianzu's possible connections with Shuofang in "Tang Xianzu he Li Madou"; was not

mutual

a

May

12,

on Chen-k'o

are in FR, 2/190.

Ricci are explored by clearly in this case

Xu

Zhenke

friend.

by Tacchi Venturi, corrected

47. Letter in OS, p. 259, dated February 1605

to

142-43

1605 by d'Elia. Background to the massacre in

DMB,

p. 583.

48. FR, 2/30.

on Buddhist Babylon; 1/98 on

49. Ibid., 1/125 50.

Ibid., 1/76, 79,

"Peking,"

51. Geiss,

52. 53.

"gente effeminata."

drunkenness discussed 1/101. p. 185.

41 and 191.

Ibid., pp.

Xu (Hsu Kuang-ch'i) On the winter retreats

is

quoted

in Geiss,

"Peking," pp. 175 and 177.

of straw for beggars, see Chan, "Peking

Time of the Wanli Emperor,"

at the

pp. 141-42, and Geiss, "Peking," p. 172.

Galeote Pereira (Boxer, South China, p. 31) expressed his surprise at the absence of beggars in South China. Martin de Rada (ibid.,

many 54.

later, especially

FR, 2/25 on

294) saw

the blind.

and modes of

Chan, "Peking,"

see

veils,

veil

among

p.

p.

travel; for

124,

dust storms and the residents'

and Geiss, "Peking," pp. 33-34,

45-48. 55.

FR, 1/98-99, converting scudi to ducats; see FR, 2/111 n. 2 for the boy costing three mace.

56.

Compare

57.

da Cruz in Boxer, South China, pp. 150, 152. Accounts summarized in Chan, "Peking,"

these passages in FR, 1/98 with the cuts in Trigault,

lagher, p. 86.

On women

(Boxer, South China, titutes in the south,

who 58.

p.

tr.

Gal-

sold as children into prostitution, see Gaspar

122) noted that blind

p.

14 1. Gaspar da Cruz

women

were often pros-

being dressed and made up by companion "nurses"

shared their immoral earnings.

FR, 1/241; in

ibid.,

1/242

n. 6, d'Elia

adds other rare sources on this

case.

59-

2/381-82.

Ibid.,

60. Prints 61.

and

Ibid., 1/33;

girls

plays, ibid.,

2/234-35.

Chan, "Peking,"

from popularity

p. 128,

at this time.

62. FR, 1/98.

63. Cited

by d'Elia in FR, 1/98

n. 3.

309

notes these boys ousting sing-song

NOTES TO PAGES 221-226 64. Boxer, South China in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 16-17. 65.

Ibid., p. 223.

66.

Ibid., pp.

225-27.

The

67. Aquinas, ed. Bourke, pp. 220-22, quotation at p. 222. cies

of Aquinas's use of "natural" in

John Boswell,

Christianity,

Social

this

inconsisten-

context are pointed out in

and Homosexuality,

Tolerance,

pp.

319-26. 68. Daniel, Islam

and

1/98) and appendix sexuality, p.

132, 144 (for parallel to Ricci in FR,

the West, pp. E.

Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance,

281 and pp. 367-69 on the

and Homo-

kingdom of Jerusalem's laws and

the stories of violations. 69.

Luther, Letters of Spiritual Counsel,

70. Canisius,

Ane

tr.

Tappert,

p. 76.

Cathechisme, ch. 149, spelling modernized; Luther, Letters,

p. 236, an interpretation

found

also in Luther's Lectures on the Epistle to

the Hebrews, ch. 13, v. 2 or his Lectures on

Romans, ch. 12,

97-101 discusses the dominance

Christianity, pp.

in

v. 13;

many

Boswell,

early

com-

mentaries of the idea of hospitality. 71.

Paci, n.

"La Decadenza,"

p. 195,

on Macerata; Boswell,

Christianity, p.

279

32 for an early statement of this view by Jacques de Vitry; see also

remarks by Pyrard, in his Voyage, 1/195 and 307 on sodomy in the Maldives.

72.

Quotation from Spinola, abandoned, Doc.

73.

Ind.,

Quotations from

Carletti,

are the descriptions 74. 75.

Baiao,

Inquisic,ao,

letter

of Oct. 26, 1578, Doc.

Ind.,

11/320; rules

10/282.

My

Voyage, pp. 209 and 212. Equally graphic

by the French merchant Pyrard, Voyage, 2/112-13.

1/43-45. Costa, Christianisation,

p. 195.

Joseph-Marie Cros, Saint Francois, 2/12. See similar passages in Boxer, Christian Century in Japan, pp. 35

and

66;

and Elison, Deus

Destroyed, p.

35.

76. Cros, Saint Francois,

2/13 on abortions, 2/100 on public charges.

77. Cited in Schutte, Valignano's Mission, p. 257.

78. Ibid., pp.

279 and 284 on median position,

p.

350 on sleeping

son, Deus Destroyed, p. 41, gives Valignano's views

on sodomy

rules. Eli-

in a con-

text of his moral views. 79. Cited in Schutte, Valignano's Mission, p. 245.

80. Fedrici, Voyages

and

Travels, pp. 210-11.

81. Jacobs, Treatise (attributed to

amples are given in Lach, Asia

Antonio Galvao), pp. 119-21. Other in the

310

Making of Europe,

vol.

1,

ex-

pt. 2, pp.

NOTES TO PAGES 226-231 553-54, including a statement by Linschoten of the same tenor (n. 301). 82.

Xie Zhaozhe, see

DMB,

Wu

za zu, 8/4b-5 (reprint

Relations," p. 71, led

Xie Zhaozhe, son

209); for Xie's biography,

pp. 546-50 under Hsieh Chao-che.

can be found in his Qingyi

83.

p.

Wu

this passage

me

juan

lu,

11.

1, p.

The remarks by Tao Gu

Chan, "Chinese-Philippine

to these passages.

za zu, juan

on transvestism

is

some

the 1795 edition; for

8, p. 2 in

rea-

cut from the 1959 Peking reprint.

231, and p. 481 n. 515.

84.

Montaigne, Journal de Voyage,

85.

Shen Defu, Bizhou zhai yutan, pp. 3lb-32. Again,

p.

I

was led to

this pas-

sage by Albert Chan's "Chinese- Philippine Relations," p. 71. 86.

On

this

Ming

"Hanlin feng,"

are pictured in ibid., vol. 87.

Zhang

Robert van Gulik, Erotic Colour Prints of the 3, plates 4 and 19. Lesbian lovers

see

1/211-12, 222, and vol.

Period,

1,

plates 4

and

17,

and

at p. 147.

Xie, Dongxi yangkao, 12/11 (1962 reprint p. 537); Chan, "Chi-

nese-Philippine Relations," p. 71. Spate, Spanish Lake, p. 159, puts the

sodomy of

Henri Bernard,

88. FR, 1/204. rates

the "Sangleys" in contemporary context.

and 1/155

89. FR, 1/155

90. FR, vol.

Aux

in his

on the Chinese view

Portes de la Chine, p. 101, elabo-

that the Jesuits were "seducteurs d'enfants."

Bernard,

n. 6;

Aux

Portes, pp.

100-1.

plate 9, facing p. 194, gives a reproduction of this Chinese

1,

text of the

— the

Ten Commandments

sixth runs "moxing yin, xie, wei

dengshi.

in

91.

I.e.,

92.

Tianzhu

1

Cor. 7:32-33; 2 Tim.

2:3;

Epictetus, Discourses, bk.

3,

ch. 22, pp.

155-59. shiyi,

pp. 361-66.

edifiantes,

93.

Tianzhu

pp. 608-14 (quotations from pp. 612 and 613); Lettres

shiyi, p.

615; the French version, p. 366,

is

judiciously

bowd-

lerized.

94.

Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises,

tr.

95.

Claudio Acquaviva, Letters

1383),

1586), p. 82; 96. Acquaviva,

(Aug.

14,

and

Letters

Directory,

1601),

tr.

{Sept.

(Aug.

1,

29,

Puhl,

sec.

p.

58, pt. 5; sec. 60.

69; Letters

(May

19,

1594), p. 130.

Longridge, pp.

277-79; Acquaviva, Letters

p. 48.

97. See FR, 1/315 and 2/490.

98. Acquaviva, Directory, pp. 304-5. 99- Ricci's

words from the

first

paragraph on Sodom, Li

tu, p. 7.

311

Madou

ti

baoxiang

NOTES TO PAGES 233-236

EIGHT

THE FOURTH IMAGE: THE FOURTH PICTURE 1.

quoted portions.

OS, p. 245 for

comments

in OS, p. 119 n.

1.

gave the correct spelling in an 2.

Beissel,

homage

4.

Costa's

life,

earlier letter, 05", p. 122.

tr.

Puhl, no. 103.

Montaigne, Journal de Voyage, pp. 258-60. Beissel, Verehrung Marias, p. 483, quoting of 1574, and

ibid., p.

484

some

n. 2, for

Adam von early

on him made by

whom

he met there on his own visit. Mary discussed in Gentili and Adversi, "La 43 (bibliography in n. 105). On the names and locations

the cure of Michel Marteau,

Miracle and church of Religione," p.

Einsiedeln's visit

Macerata works. Mon-

taigne, Journal de Voyage, p. 261, discusses the effect

5.

Tacchi Venturi's

see

Verehrung Marias, pp. 424-28, 435-37. A poem by Tasso in to the shrine is in ibid., pp. 440-42. Ignatius of Loyola, Spir-

itual Exercises, 3.

On

Ricci here wrote "Nicola Bencivenni" but

St.

of the other twenty churches, see Storia di Macerata,

vol. 5, plate 5 fac-

XVI." The background to Marian devotion in Macerata can be seen in the same volume, pp. 247-93, in the two essays by Mons. Elio Gallegati, "Note sulla Devop. 312, "Macerata alia fine del secolo

ing

zione Mariana nel Basso Medioevo."

of early religious

art in

Macerata

is

A

valuable survey of the holdings

the Maceratan Tourist Board publi-

cation Pittura nel Maceratese dal Duecento al Tardo Gotico (Macerata;

Ente Provinciale per

il

Turismo, 1971).

6.

Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, no. 63, the triple colloquy.

7.

Cited from Charles Conway, Vita

8.

He

mentions her

versi, 9-

in OS, pp.

Christi, p. 13

99 and

On

115.

(with minor changes).

the other children, see Ad-

"Ricci," pp. 357-58.

OS, pp. 96, 113, 122, 218, 278, 374. to his father of

May

An

exception

10, 1605, after Ricci

is

the poignant letter

heard he had not died, OS,

p.

268.

Nov.

10.

OS, p. 97, letter to his father of

1.1.

Tacchi Venturi, Storia della Compagnia di Gesu, 2/15 (siege), 16-17

12, 1592.

(medical treatment), 21 (vision). 12.

Ignatius writing and visit to

sister, ibid.,

being in bed are mentioned in his OS, p. 97.

On

pp. 22-24. Ricci's Masses after

letter to his father

of Nov.

12, 1592,

the medical treatment in Macao, and the limp, see ER,

312

NOTES TO PAGES 236-242 1/321-23. Michel de Montaigne, Oeuvres Completes, bk. extraordinary essay

13.

on the lame, "Des Boyteux." This

3,

ch. 11, has the

essay

the focus

is

of a remarkable chapter in Natalie Davis, Return of Martin Guerre. Inferno, I, lines 28-30, quoted in John Freccero, "Dante's Firm Foot,"

p.

on causes of

250, and analyzed in ibid., pp. 252-55. FR, 1/321 and 323

recurrent pain. 14.

This

is

but

a small selection

from the long

list

in Martin,

Roma

Sancta,

pp. 29-38. 15.

Ibid., pp.

16.

Ricci's

39-40, spelling modernized;

own

relics,

FR, 2/121 and 116

p. 48. n. 7; gifts to

others and Luke Li's

painting, FR, 2/481-82 and 1/261.

18.

"Les premieres origines," pp. 28-37, 44-49. Gentili and Adversi, "La Religione," p. 43.

19.

Miller, "Marianischen

17. Villaret,

Kongregationen,"

p. 253;

FR, 2/552

Ganss,

n. 3;

"Christian Life Communities," p. 48. 20.

Examples from Martin, Roma

21. Miller, tions,

Sancta, pp. 206-9.

"Marianischen Kongregationen,"

p. 257; Villaret, Les

Congrega-

pp. 41-45.

22. Doc. Ind., 11/368; Villaret, Congregations, pp.

"Premieres origines,"

p.

35.

lists

Villaret,

For other groups in Bengal, see Correia-

Afonso, "Akbar and the Jesuits,"

Caspar de Cruz

43 and 478, and

p. 62.

In Boxer, South China, p. 53,

the achievements of other religious orders in

spreading the cult of the Virgin. 23.

FR, 1/160, 166; Margiotti, "Congregazioni," 18/256.

24. Hicks,

"English College,"

p. 25;

Mullan and Beringer,

Sodality, doc. 5;

Ganss, "Christian Life Communities," pp. 46-47. 25.

Mullan and Beringer,

Sodality, p.

26 and doc.

9,

passim.

It is in

doc.

7, a

letter of June 16, 1587, that Acquaviva refers to the reason for the ban on women being "por no ser esto conforme a la edificacion. " This is an illu-

minating confirmation of Ranke's stern judgment that Acquaviva was "a

man who

concealed a profound inflexibility under an aspect of great

mildness and great suavity of manner" {History of the Popes, 26. FR, 2/482; Margiotti, "Congregazioni," pp. 132-33. 27.

Xu

in FR, 2/361; Li, FR,

2/544 nn.

1

and

p.

198).

3.

rumors, Hicks, "English College," pp. 3-4; subgroups, Villaret, Les Congregations, pp. 417-19.

28. Early

29.

FR, 1/328-30;

Pfister, p. 45.

vember 1593 (not 1594,

For the true date of

as Ricci

Ibid., p. 328, Ricci says Petris

Petris's

death

as

wrote), see d'Elia in FR, 1/328

came 313

to the college as a

"boy"

Non.

1.

(fanciullo),

NOTES TO PAGES 242-249 which makes been 30.

possible he was there before 1577,

it

when he would have

fifteen.

Ignatius of Loyola, Exercitia Spiritualia, pp. 62-64, especially n. 17.

On

Acquaviva, Villaret, Les Congregations, pp. 78-7931. 32.

Guibtn, Jesuits, pp. 137 and 37. For Ricci and his pictures, see FR, 1/188, 189, 193, and plates 14 and 15 facing 2/126 and 128. Notice Ranke's remark on Acquaviva that "the

young clung 33.

to

him with ardour"

{History of the Popes, p. 198).

Acquaviva, Letters (19 May, 1386), pp. 94-95, with slight punctuation changes.

34.

Mozambique, Gomes, Tragic History of pp. 186, 271; Akbar, OS, p.

5;

the Sea,

FR, 1/153 nn.

1

and

1389-1622, 5

tr.

Boxer,

on Macao churches.

35.

Wang

36.

Xie Zhaozhe,

37.

on confusion, FR, 1/194. See ibid., 1/194 n. 2 on Zhang Geng (Chang Keng, Eminent Chinese, p. 99) and FR, 2/85n. on Nanjing. OS, p. 60, letter of Oct. 20, 1585. To keep perspective on this, see the

38.

Pan's request, FR, 1/188 n. 2 and 1/193.

Wu

za zu,

p.

120.

Ricci

discussion of the absence of pictures of the Passion or Crucifixion even in the Sistine chapel at this time, 39.

O'Malley, Praise and Blame,

p.

140.

Painting in FR, 1/232, 2/4, 2/29; recopied, 2/330.

40. FR,

Ma

2/110 on

Tang; FR, 2/123

n. 5

on

gifts,

2/125 on empress.

41. FR, 2/115, reading "fattaccio" for Ricci's "fatticio." 42.

2/116, 118.

Ibid.,

43. Medallions, FR,

hidden, 2/455.

1/302; prints, FR, 2/461, 512; church roof, l/200n.;

A good

discussion of the role of the cross at this time

is

in Bettray, Akkomodationsmethode, pp. 365-82.

44. Search for painters, OS, pp. 159, 254; Cattaneo

on

254;

altars,

FR,

2/330; converts'

own

Madonna, FR, 2/247,

images, 2/339; exorcism,

2/335. 45.

2/349.

Ibid.,

2/105 n. 6. The painter was Emmanuel Pereira (FR, 2/9 Macao Chinese born 1575, then a novice in Nanjing.

46. Ibid.,

47. FR, 2/333-34; 48. FR,

50.

Repertoire, p. 257.

1/318 and 319.

49- Forty ducats

man

Dehergne,

n. 7), a

(lit.

scudi), FR, 2/349-50; furnace in

home, 2/480; old

of 78, 2/248.

"Battle prizes," FR, 2/94; paintings, OS, p. 63 and FR, 2/330; painter's

whole books;

collection, 2/261; Li,

FR, 1/69

n. 2

Qu, FR, 2/342 and and 2/261. 314

OS, p. 269, "tre cassoni" of

NOTES TO PAGES 249-255 51.

FR, 2/345. Trigault,

tr.

Gallagher,

p.

470, changes the sense of this pas-

sage and downplays Qu's invocation of the Virgin. 52.

FR, 2/341 and 342.

53.

On

Buddhist works see Yii Chiin-fang, Renewal of Buddhism in China, and Geiss, "Peking," p. 40. On Luke Li's devotion to Buddha see FR,

members

2/481; the Christian. 54.

Burnings

tried to sue

him

for graft

when he

left to

become

a

.

in FR, 2/243,

Wanli yehu

muddles with Virgin 2/398

n. 3.

Shen Defu,

in

noted Ricci's tenacious anti-Buddhism, though

bian, p. 785,

praising his fairness in debate. 55.

On

Xavier, Cros, Saint Francois, 2/28;

on

Ricci, OS, p.

55,

and FR,

1/314-15, 357. 56.

Ricci's diet, FR,

2/535

n. 1;

on

pigs, Ricci,

Tianzhu

shiyi,

pp. 510, 514;

273-75. His anti-Buddhist arguments are sum-

Lettres Edifiantes, pp.

marized in Bettray, Akkomodationsmethode, pp. 256-66. 57. Sanzijing, sentences 13

58.

Basic

argument

and 14

in the standard editions.

Tianzhu

in Ricci,

shiyi,

pp. 492-93, Lettres Edifiantes, pp.

255-56; lower orders as Pythagoreans, OS, to

Acquaviva; infanticide argument, FR,

Tianzhu

"Tianzhu 59.

p. 57, letter

Ricci,

and

shiyi

its

prefaces

are

1/99.

of Oct. 20, 1585,

Variant editions of

examined by Fang Hao

in

his

shiyi zhi gaicuan."

Tianzhu

shiyi,

pp. 495-507; Lettres Edifiantes, pp. 258-70.

60. Ricci, Jiren shipian, ch. 6.

"Buddhist Reaction," pp. 83-85 (using the spelling Yii Shun-hsi): the original letters are in Ricci, Bianxue yidu, pp. 637-50.

61. Lancashire,

(Buddhism, though two millennia old by prevalent in China only since the 62.

Quotations

in OS, p. 360.

fifth

this time,

had been widely

century a.d.).

For Ricci's other, briefer mentions of similar

criticisms, see OS, pp. 277, 345.

63.

As quoted shire,

in Yii, Renewal, pp.

"Buddhist Reaction,"

88-89; on the earlier

letter, see

Lanca-

Hong

at this

p. 86.

64. FR, 2/180-81. 65. FR, 2/75-79,

66. FR,

2/66-68

and Sanhuai biography, 2/75 for

first

n. 5.

meetings; Li was staying with Jiao

The pioneer work on the poems and the Li-Ricci relationship was Otto Franke's"Li Tschi und Matteo Ricci": see pp. 14-17 for his analytime.

sis

poem; the poem appears in Li Zhi's Fennow an immense body of new scholarship on Li

and translation of the

shu, p. 247.

Zhi, which

There I

is

will not

first

attempt to recapitulate here;

315

a

good short

biogra-

NOTES TO PAGES 255-259 phy cal

DMB,

in

is

schools of the time are discussed by

ume

Self

and

dominant philosophi-

pp. 807-18. Li's relations to the

T. de Bary in his edited vol-

Ming Thought (Columbia

in

Society

W.

University Press,

1970), pp. 188-225, and his broader place in the economic and political

spectrum

is

Cheng Pei-kai, an unnamed friend is in

explored in

67. Li's letter to

translated passage 68. FR, 2/104-5. Li's

is

from

DMB,

p.

35.

The as

"Those who discuss the Three Teachings cannot discuss them

Li wrote,

Hung

Xu fenshu,

Li Zhi's

p. 1140.

extreme syncretism may have drawn him to Ricci,

with a narrow mind" (Berling, 69-

"Reality and Imagination."

Ming-shui,

Syncretic Religion, p. 53).

"Yuan Hung-tao,"

pp. 214-16, gives a fine introduc-

tion to this intellectual circle. 70. FR, 2/106. 71.

As

translated in

72.

FR, 2/184-86.

73.

DMB,

74.

Ricci

DMB,

p. 814.

p. 444.

makes the claim

in Jiren shipian,

1/9 (reprint

appearance of the same passage, compare Tianzhu

p.

133).

shiyi, p.

On

earlier

422 with Jiren

shipian, reprint pp. 125-26.

75.

Compare Ricci, Jiren shipian, pp. 125-26 with Tianzhu shiyi, pp. 422-23. The only change is that the "nine foot" man of the latter is changed to the "seven foot"

The

man

in the former. Lettres, pp.

189-90

place of this passage in the content of the True

is

quite faithful.

Meaning

as a

body

of doctrine can be explored via John Young, Confucianism and Christianity,

pp. 28-39; see also the detailed exegesis by

Hu),

"Jianjie tianzhu shiyi," pp. 255-66. Peter

shire

are

Tianzhu 16.

currently

theme

English

(Peter

and Douglas Lanca-

translation

of the entire

shiyi.

Conway, Vita a

preparing an

Hu

Hu Guozhen

in

Christi, pp.

83 and 90; on the power of the Incarnation

as

Renaissance theology, see O'Malley, Praise and Blame, pp.

140-42. 77.

Conway, Vita

Christi, p.

83 on the monks. The

fact that Ricci

had

little

time for contemplation was accepted and understood by his teachers,

who

felt

that

though some contemplation was good, too much time

contemplation was not necessary they put

"Para

it,

in the Jesuit's

"Vita mixta, tanto nobilior

la historia

Fabio de Fabi, to

de

la

busy

est et utilior."

life

of action;

for as

See Iparraguirre,

oracion," pp. 83 and 124. Ibid., p. 88, shows that

whom

Ricci often wrote from China, wrote a 200-page

316

NOTES TO PAGES 259-262 manuscript on prayer and contemplation. quaviva's thoughts 78.

affection

Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises,

comments

Barthes 79.

on the "pure cleverly

on

Ibid., pp.

tr.

94-95, presents Ac-

and peace of the soul." Puhl, p.

52,

111-14.

nos.

this passage in Sack, Fourier, Loyola, p. 64.

Ignatius of Loyola, Exercitia Spiritualia (Madrid, 1919), annotated ed., pp.

65-66

for parallel textual examples.

gospels, see

New

On

the pseudo-Matthew infancy

Testament Apocrypha, ed. Wilson and Schneemelcher,

1/406-8. 80.

Ignatius, Exercitia Spiritualia (Madrid, 1919), [Further notes

lems in the directory] 1,

ch. 9), quotes

ence, p.

Ludolfus, Vita, ed. Bolard,

n. 17.

on probp.

39 (pt.

Chrysostum. For other criticisms of "apocryphal mat-

midwives

ter, like

p.

109

at the

Nativity" see Baxandall, Painting and Experi-

43.

81. FR, 1/87. 82.

Montaigne, Journal de Voyage,

83. Martin,

Roma

p. 237.

Sancta, pp. 90-91.

84. Ricci describes the incident in FR, ibid.,

and Dehergne,

gifts, see

1/305.

Repertoire, p. 8;

On

Almeida's absence, see

on wax and lamp

oil as crucial

FR, 1/195, 2/482.

85. Ricci, Jifa, p. 5 (reprint p. 17).

Li Madou

The identification of the Sevillian original for the Wierix print was made by Berthold Laufer in 1910, and published in his "Christian Art in China," pp. 110-11, but a number of baffling problems remain. The print seems clearly identifiable, via its

86. Ricci,

ti

baoxiang

caption, to Wierix n. 546

tu, p.

on

p.

6b.

98 of Louis Alvin, Catalogue raisonne de Antoine Wierix (Brussels, 1866); but

I'oeuvre des trois freres Jean, Jerome et

the Riccian and Japanese versions are only partially similar to that

Wierix print (reproduced

in

Mauquoy-Hendrickx, Les Estampes de

Wierix, 1/114) or to the Seville original (reproduced in C. R. Post,

A

History of Spanish Painting [Harvard University Press, 1930], 3/298).

Nagayama Tokihiko, Taigwai shiryo, confirms

the Nagasaki origins, and

the difference from the China version, as does Nishimura Tei in his detailed article

"Nihon

yasokai": but neither scholar can provide the con-

necting link in the chain of transmission. difficult,

book

the copy of

library (of

libraries) is

Cheng Dayue's

which microfilms

To make

things

more

Chengshi moyuan in the Peking rare

are available in the

Harvard and Yale

missing the picture altogether, which has clearly been cut

out, as can be seen by the jagged page edge in ibid., juan 6 (xia), p.

317

NOTES TO PAGES 262-268 Mary picture should have been on the obverse of the Lot and Sodom picture, just as Emmaus is on the obverse of Peter in the waves (ibid., pp. 38a and b). That the Mary print should be there is shown by

43: the

the mu-lu to that juan (rather confusingly printed as juan 12

mu-lu page is

listed as

fore

I

where

a solitary tu (picture) first

in Ricci's

Li

Madou

ti

tu.

For an immensely detailed account of

of

without any wen (essay)

three picture-essay combinations. There-

have been restricted to the version printed

baoxiang 87.

itself)

following the

on the

this time, see

(1304-1650), 8

Huguette and

Seville's role in the overseas trade

Pierre

Chaunu,

Seville et

vols. (Paris, 1955), especially vol. 3,

"Le

I'Atlantique

trafic

de 1561

a

1595."

NINE

INSIDE THE PALACE OS, p. 214, letter of Oct. 12, 1596, quotation identified by Tacchi turi.

The

translation

is

Robert

Fitzgerald's,

Ven-

The Aeneid (Random House,

1983), p. 164.

FR, 1/5. These are the opening sentences of Ricci's

own

introduction to

his Historia.

OS, p. 26, letter of Dec.

1,

1581: "mas ja

em mansebo tenho a naturesa

velhos que sempre louvo o tempo pass ado." Mansebo, youth,

written mancebo in standard Portuguese.

318

dos

would now be

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INDEX

CHINESE NAMES, WITH THE OLDER WADE-GILES ROMANIZATION FORMS IN PARENTHESES

f ;t

Cao Yubian

Ts'ao Yu-pien) f>

Cheng Dayue

Ch'eng Ta-yiieh) $1

Dou-si

Deus)

fit

%

Feng Bao

Feng Pao)

;£?

Feng Qi

Feng Ch'i)

Feng Yingjing

Gao Cai Gong Daoli

Guo Zhengyu Huang Hui Huang Mingshao Jiao

Hong

%

Ts'ai)

Ifo

1&

:Jt *$ Feng Ying-ching)

Kao

*.

;.£>

Jji

Ty.

'£

K

Kung Tao-li) "ft. \^. i Kuo Cheng-yu) |p je

*£%

Huang Hui) #'f Huang Ming-Shao) -£ a^ Chiao Hung) J| ££ -jfc

i

Li

Dai

LiTai)^

Li

Yingshi

Li Ying-shih)

Li

Zhi

Li

Li

Zhizao

Li Chih-tsao)

Chih)

ti'

f 339

-£,(* sf

^ -£ <_

>"£

5-y

INDEX

Lu Jian

Lu Chien)

Lu Wangai

Lu Wan-kai)

Ma Tang

MaT'ang)

M.

P£

& # Mj *

**

H $ HL Ch'ii Ching-ch'un) | f 4

Qi Jiguang

Ch'i Chi-kuang)

Qu Jingchun Qu Rukuei

Ch'ii Ju-k'uei)

Or

J&

i%

Sanhuai

Sanhuai)

Shen Defu

Shen Te-fu)

Shen Jihuan

Shen Chi-huan)

Shen Yiguan

Shen I-kuan)

Shen Zhenke

Shen Chen-k'o)

?5t

1

°7

Sun Yuanhua

Sun Yuan-hua)

.}£

^

-Iti

Wang Honghui Wang Jilou Wang Kentang Wang Pan

Wang Hung-hui) 3E t Wang Chi-lou) JE .*$ Wang K'en-t'ang) je. Wang Fan) je. >f

Wu

Wu

Zhongming

-=.

>t

n

it ;fc

—

ilL

"|"

*g

*

J!

Chung-ming)

t

j£.

Xie Zhaozhe

Hsieh Chao-che)

Oft

¥"

Xu Guangqi Yu Chunxi

Hsu Kuang-ch'i)

^

hl

Zhao Kehuai

Chao K'o-huai)

Zhenke

Chen-k'o)

Zhong Mingren Zhu Dinghan Zhuhong Zhu Shilu Zou Yuanbiao

Chung Ming-jen)

Yu

Ch'un-hsi)

g

1

Chu-hung)

Chu

8

^

*j

# *f,

14

=7

=T

^

$

iff

£ *&

ist

*>L

Tsou Yiian-piao)

te

°.%

£f

4£

Shih-lu)

jj

)%

ChuTing-han)

$p

tL

i*

Aeneid (Virgil), 267

Abd-al-Malik, 37

Acapulco, 64, 177 Acquaviva, Claudio,

i

Africa, 18, 31, 33, 35-38, 65, 71, 79,

106

4, 17, 42, 99, 124,

250-52

161, 177, 180, 230, 231, 240, 242-44,

afterlife, 117,

260

Agrippa, Cornelius, 12 Ai Tian, 120-21

Adriatic Sea, 29, 30

340

INDEX Akbar, Muslim emperor, 86, 105-06 Albuquerque, Afonso de, 103, 173 Alcazarquivir, battle of, 33, 36-38, 106

Bacon, Francis, 12-13 banditry, 45, 46, 57

Barbosa, Pero, 71-72

Ming

alchemy, 17-21, 152; in late

Barradas, Joao, 91-92, 266

China, 185, 188; Ricci and, 185-88

Bassein, 41

beating procedures, Chinese, 48-49 beggary: Chinese, 218; Italian, 206-208

allegory, 5

Almeida, Antonio, 49, 260 Almeida, Luis de, 175-76 Alva, duke of, 28-29, 205 Alvarez, Emmanuel, 62, 170

Bei River, 88, 90

Bencivegni, Nicolo, 232 Bengal, 174

Berwouts, Roger, 170

ambergris, 187

Bible, 11, 214; in Christian

Analects, The, 138

ancient mnemonics, 5-6,

Emmaus episode, Sodom and Gomorrah epi-

121, 179; road to

22-23, 156, 157. See also Classical

Western texts; specific authors; works Ancona, 29, 30; Jews in, 108, 110, 205

128-32;

sode, 201-204, 221, 223; walking-on-

water episode, 59-64

Anes, Gonc,alo, 107

Annunciation, 78

Bijapur, 104, 173

Anthony of Padua, 77 Antonio, Don, 107

black slaves, 79, 208, 209

Antwerp, 87, 201; 1585 Spanish siege

Boccaccio, Giovanni, 102

Board of

appearance, religious, 114-16

Aquinas, Thomas, 14, 69-70, 99, 135; on mathematics, 144-45; mnemonic theory

The

of, 13, 16;

Spiritual Life, 55; Gentiles,

Perfection of

Summa

Against the

222

Brazil, 37, 65, 68, 71, 79,

Sages,

107

Bridget of Sweden, 14

Arabic, 103, 119, 134 architecture: Chinese, 212-13; 21,

Rites, 152, 195, 257

bookbinding, Chinese, 154 Book of Changes, 151 Book of the Gentile and the Three The (Lull), 101 Borgia, Francis, 170 Bramante, 233, 234

165

of, 33,

mnemonic

tradition, 14-16; Plantin, 86-89, 105,

8, 11, 14, 18,

Buddhism,

Western,

21, 85-86, 95, 102, 116, 210,

224, 249; Christian criticism of,

213

Aristophanes, 14

250-59; and Christianity, paralleled,

Aristotle, 13, 41, 143

114-15, 252; importance of appear-

Armenia, 119

ance

art:

in,

114-15; Ricci on, 216, 217,

250-59 Burma, 225

Chinese, 11, 210; Western, 11, 13,

34, 63, 131-32, 147, 171-73, 201,

245-47, 262

Arte Rhetorica, De (Soarez),

5

calendars, 144, 181

Art of Memory, The (Yates), 10

calligraphy, 9, 11, 154, 155, 210

Ascension, 63

canal travel, Chinese, 83-84

Assumption of the Virgin, 78

Canary Islands, 68 Canisius, Peter, 223 Canton, 43, 49, 118, 174, 178, 187

astrolabe, 73, 143, 148

astrology, 18, 19, 20

astronomy: Chinese, 146; Western, 21, 66, 142-43, 145-48

Capella, Martianus, 8

Augustine, 16

Carafa, Carlo, 205

Augustinian missionaries,

51, 52

Cape of Good Hope, Carafa,

autos-da-fe, 111

IV,

341

Gian Pope

19, 40, 64, 65,

Pietro, 40. See also Paul

70

INDEX Carletti, Francesco, 66,

223-24

Ciappardelli, Francesco, 27

Cicero, 6, 20, 100, 133, 140, 150, 156;

Carthage, 34 cartography,. Western, 64-65, 96, 148,

as possible

149, 153, 154

6,

Carvalhal, George, 170

Classical

Caspian Sea, 97

author of

Ad

Herennium,

13

Chinese

texts, 127, 138, 151;

Ricci's use of, 151, 255. See also spe-

Catechism (Canisius), 223 Catechumens, 108, 109

cific

authors; works

Classical

Cathay, 18

Western

texts: Jesuit publica-

tion of, 132-34; Jesuit training in,

Catholic Church: condemnation of ho-

mosexuality

in,

132-33, 140-42; Ricci's use

222-25, 228; corrup-

economic

tion in, 164, 204-205, 217;

of,

140-42, 150, 156, 158-59. See also cific

spe-

authors; works

attitudes, 164-70; political involve-

Clavius, Christopher, 142-44, 145, 146,

ments, 27-38, 40, 204-208; practices in Rome, 97-101. See also Papacy

clocks, 143, 214; in gift-giving rituals,

Catholicism,

3, 4;

148, 152, 159

magic and, 17-21;

180-81, 184, 185, 195

parallelism between Judaism, Islam,

clothing, religious, 114-16

and, 101, 116, 117-27

Cochin, 110; Christians, 111-13 coiffures, Chinese, 43 Coimbra, 70

Cattaneo, Lazzaro, 52, 197

European, 30

cavalry: Chinese, 45;

celibacy, 114

colleges, Jesuit, 3,

Ceylon, 39 character of Chinese people, 42-44,

Commentaries on the Gospels (Nadal), 11

34

company, 159-60

Charmadas, 156 chemistry, 153

Cheng Dayue,

11, 22, 59, 118, 128, 164,

201, 262. See also

"The Ink Garden"

Cheng He, 85 Chen Jian, 157 China, missionaries

role in

Chinese society,

compass, magnetic, 66 Confessions (Augustine), 16 Confucianism, 21, 95, 116; Ricci on, 116-17, 122, 210

in. See

sionaries in Far East; specific

cities

4,

155-60;

and Western mnemonics, compared, 156-60 Christianity, 96; and Buddhism, paralleled, 114-15, 252; condemnation of homosexuality in, 222-25, 228; Nestorian, 119-20; parallelism between Judaism, Islam and, 101, 116, 117-27. See also Catholic Church; Catholicism; Jesuit order

mnemonic

Confucius, 116, 127, 138

Jesuit mis-

Chinese mnemonic tradition,

tradition, 13-23;

and Chinese mnemonics, compared, 156-60; magic and, 17-21. See also specific

134, 140, 142, 143,

Colonna, Marcantonio, 35 Columbus, Christopher, 64 comets, 145, 146

47-48, 54, 209-31 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 29,

Christian

5,

145

authors; periods; works

Constantinople, 97 Constitutions (Ignatius of Loyola), 99, 134 conversion, 23; Jesuit methods in

China, 152-60, 213-14, 242-59 Copernicus, 65, 145

cosmography, 18 Costa, Girolamo, 81, 89, 126, 141, 188, 232, 236 Coton, Pierre, 161, 214 Council of Trent, 18, 55, 134, 176 Counter-Reformation Europe, 18-21; military developments in, 30-38. See also specific countries

Crucifixion, 14, 15, 23, 50, 246-47

342

INDEX Crusades, 29, 222

Epictetus, 141, 142, 157-58, 228

Cudner, Stephen, 170

Epigrams (Martial), 132-33

Cyprus, 34

equator, 72, 76

da Cruz, Gaspar, 44, 48, 117, 221

ethics, 5;

Erasmus, Desiderius, da Gama, Vasco, 64

Dante, da

Ricci

236-37

13,

Silva,

12,

of Geography, 31, 32, 142, 146 eunuchs, Chinese, 84, 214-17

Decameron (Boccaccio), 102 decimal system, 23 Dee, John, 148-49 de Pas, Crispin, the Elder, 201-204

examinations,

de Sande, Edoardo, 56, 115, 138, 139, 190 devil, 116 Dias, Henrique, 71 Dias, Jeronimo, 110

false trinity,

diseases, sailing, 67, 75

disputations, 100

jinshi, 4, 140, 152, 153,

160, 253

exchange

fasting,

ratios, 54«., 88, 174,

116

Fatehpur

Sikri, 105,

106

feather goods, 189

Feng Bao, 215 Feng Qi, 257-58 Femandes, Francisco, 71 Fernandez, Sebastian, 88

Dominican

Ferreira, Gaspar,

missionaries, 17, 44, 78

218

Buddhist, 250-52

Dolce, Ludovico, 11

87-88

Dongji (Buddhist monk), 86 Don John of Austria, 34, 35

Ferro, Battista, 187

dos Santos, Michele, 51, 52 dress, religious, 114-16

Fitch, Ralph,

Bellay,

of, 13;

Euclid, 143, 144, 145, 148, 152; Elements

Martin, 170

death, 18, 256-57

du

150

mnemonics as part on Chinese, 116-17

fire,

18, 19,

62

73-74 examples of, 56 floods, 85, 88-89 flight,

Joachim, 205

Florence, 9, 133, 239; Ricci and, 140,

167-68

earthquakes, 85, 221 East Indies, 40 ecclesiastical eclipses,

Florus, Lucius, 35

computation, 143, 144

economic

Fonseca, Antonio da, 71 Fonseca, Bartholemew de, 110

148 life,

16th century, 52, 66;

Catholic Church on, 164-70; in

China, 182, 212; Far East trade, 66, 173-78, 186-87, 189-90; gold -silver ratio, 54»., 174; Jesuit,

France, 19, 20, 103, 107, 161, 205; naval forces, 65,

68-69; religious wars,

28-29

166-70,

175-97; silver production and trade, 174, 186-88. See also

Formosa, 80, 177 Fornari, Martino de, 136

Franciscan missionaries, 44, 51, 52,

101-102

Trade

Francis of Assisi, 52

Egypt, 56 elements, four, 18, 19

friendship, Ricci on, 142, 150-51

Elements of Geometry (Euclid), 31, 32,

Frogs,

Elizabeth,

Queen of England,

Encheiridion

19

(Manual) (Epictetus),

142

England,

The (Aristophanes), 14

Frusius, Andreus, 133

142, 146

fugitive slaves, 191-92, 209

Fujian province, 216, 227 Fulgentius, 9

19, 20, 186;

naval forces, 65,

Fuligatti, Giulio, 56, 83, 100, 168, 212,

267

69

343

INDEX Hanlin Academy, Peking, 152, 153, 217 Hannibal, 34, 35, 36 hao (goodness), 262 harpsichord, 21, 142, 197-98

Fundamental Christian Teachings, (Ricci), 93 funerals, Chinese, 241

Galileo, 143

hearing, sense of, 15

Gansu province, 118 Ganzhou, 45, 46, 90-91, 168

heaven and

Gao

Cai,

Hebrew,

Sodom and Gomorrah

epi-

geography: Chinese, 153-54; Western, 147, 148, 149 geometry, 31, 145, 146, 148, 153 31,

Giambelli, Frederico, 33 gift-giving rituals, 179-81, 184, 185,

194-97

36, 38-40, 64, 65, 70, 71, 80, 173;

Inquisition, 93, 106, 110-11, 113; Jesuit churches, 170-73;

Jews, 110-11;

male homosexuality, 223-24; Muslim power, 103-105; slave trade, 208-209

hexagrams, 151-52

Gonqalves, John, 170 government, Chinese, 42, 181, 210-17; corruption in, 212, 215-17; examinations, 4, 140, 152, 153, 160, 253;

main areas of, 4 grammar, 5, 134 Grand Canal (China), 83-84 Grataroli, Guglielmo, 135-36 Greek language, 134, 137 Gregory XIII, Pope, 108, 144,

Histona (Ricci), 44, 49, 52, 56, 68, 81, 209, 211, 219, 241, 257 Histories,

of,

32,

39, 103

Huang Hui, 254 Huang Mingshao, 49-50 huihui (second memory image), 93-127 humane letters, 134 iconoclasm, 248 ideographs,

9, 21, 23, 24, 38, 93,

207, 233, 236; Constitutions, 99, 134; on homosexuality, 229-31; influence

on Jesuit

practices in

Rome, 133-34,

and Marian sodalities, 242-43, 259-60; on need for Jesuit 135, 140;

169, 177,

poverty, 166-67; Spiritual Exercises, 85,

250

15,

16-17, 50, 54-55, 77, 134, 166,

229, 230, 242,

28-29, 205

Images from

259-60

the Gospels

(Nadal), 62-63,

131

65 151

Incarnation, 245, 247, 259 India,

Han

33, 34

136-37, 144, 155, 227, 251, 262 Ignatius of Loyola, 14-17, 82, 150, 197,

gunnery: Chinese, 45-46, 47; European,

Guo Zhengyu,

57

homosexuality. See sodomy Horace, 133, 141, 142

province, 90, 167

Guanyin (Buddhist goddess),

1

Holy League, Homer, 141

240

'

50, 53, 175, 215,

265

Hortensius, 157

Goldwell, Thomas, 109 Gomes, Violante, 107

Guise, duke

13, 135

Hesiod, 141

Hormuz,

Goes, Emanuele de, 114 Gois, Benedetto de, 125-26 gold-silver ratio, 54»., 174

Guangdong

161, 214

historical theology, 135

Giotto, 13

Goa,

Herennium, Ad, 5-6,

Hideyoshi Toyotomi,

186

189, 190-91,

Henry IV, King of France, herbs, 20

sode, 201-204, 223

Germany,

iconography, 13

heliocentric theory, 145

216

Genesis, 11;

hell

121, 134

3,

36, 37, 39, 65, 251; Jesuit

in, 39-41, 104, 110-14, 122-23, 170-78, 209, 224; Jews perse-

missionaries

dynasty, 156

Hangzhou, 121

344

INDEX cuted

in,

110-11; Muslim power

101-106; Portuguese interests

65-92, 190-91; Virgin Mary in work of, 242-50, 259-61

in,

in,

38-41, 52-53, 103-104; travel hardships to, 65-82. See also

Jesuit order,

Goa

Indian Ocean, 79 Inferno (Dante), 13,

men of Sodom

11,

training for, 100-101, 134-35,

(first pic-

140-42; Virgin Mary in work

(third

(fourth picture), 262-65; road to

(second picture), 128-31 Inquisition, 17, 18, 87, 93, 102, 106-11, 164, 204, 205, 227; Goanese, 93, 106,

Jesus Christ, 56, 63, 237; crucifixion 14, 15, 23, 50, 246-47; road to

Emmaus

mnemonic

Islam, 96; in China, 95, 117-27; Euro-

pean views on, 102; and homosexuality, 222; parallelism between 117-27; power in 16th century India, 101-106. See also Muslims

and

acceptance of Islam, in,

108-10, 204, 205;

of,

Italy,

108-10, 204, 205; parallelism be-

tween Catholicism, Islam and, 101, 116, 117-27 Jiangxi province,

253 John, Gospel

204-208, 217, 223, 226-27; Turkish

Julius

II,

coastal attacks on, 29-30, 31, 33-34;

Julius

III,

politics,

95,

3, 4,

90

jinshi examinations, 152, 153, 160,

political corruption in,

war images and papal

Western

106-11, 164-65, 204, 205; in

Catholicism, Judaism and, 101, 116,

102-103; Jews

in

tradition, 11, 14-16, 50

Jews and Judaism, 96; in China, 120-22; European persecution

irony, 5

of,

63

Pope, 233 Pope, 99

27-28,

44, 204-208. See also Jesuit order; spe-

Kaifeng, 119, 120, 121 Kali (Hindu goddess), 112

cific cities

Kepler, Johannes, 21

Konishi Yukinaga, 51 Koran, 101, 103, 121, 222 Korea, 50, 51, 53, 80

Japan, 40, 41, 53, 65, 80; character of people, 42, 43, 47; homosexuality

in,

224-25; Jesuit missionaries in, 42-43, 50-51, 53, 124, 175-78; pirates,

language training, Jesuit, 101-103, 134-35

46-47, 53, 174; trade, 174-78, 187 Jerusalem, 15, 63, 128, 222 Jesuit College,

Rome,

3, 5,

134, 142, 143

Latin, 132; Jesuit training in, 134,

140-42

Jesuit missionaries in Far East: Chinese fear of,

48-58; conversion methodol-

Latin America, 65, 176, 186

ogies, 152-60, 213-14, 242-59; eco-

latitudes, 66, 148, 154

nomic concerns, 178-97;

Lepanto, battle

rituals,

gift-giving

of,

33-34, 35

Leunis, Jan, 239, 240

179-81, 184, 185, 190-91,

194-97; in Japan, 42-43, 50-51, 53, 124, 175-78; mail difficulties, 66-67,

libraries, //

Roman Jesuit, 98-99

(profit), 162

165; sexual issues, 220-31; trade in-

Linqing, 85, 215, 226

volvements, 175-78, 189-90; training

Lisbon, 36, 37, 38, 64, 65, 208 literacy, Chinese, 154

of,

100-101; travel hardships

of,

of,

episode, 128-32; walking-

on-water episode, 59-64;

110-11, 113

social

of,

238-50, 259-61

mother and child

Emmaus

Italy, 20, 97;

economic

tions of, 132-34; in

59-64; apostle in the waves picture), 201-204;

11, 40, 44, 49;

Rome, 97-101, 132-35, 140, 145, 168-70, 239-44;

236-37

"The Ink Garden" (Cheng Dayue), ture), 59-64;

5,

involvements, 166-70, 175-97; and mathematics, 142-49, 152; publica-

345

INDEX literati,

Chinese, 17, 64, 115, 116-17,

Martines, Francesco, 49-50, 51

Ma

122, 138-39, 220, 227; interest in

Western

sciences, 149, 152-54;

ory tradition

of, 4,

literature, See Classical

Classical thors;

Western

155-60 Chinese

mem-

texts;

Tang, 215, 245, 266 mathematics, Chinese, 146, 153, 154 mathematics, Western, 17, 31-32, 134, 140, 142; Aquinas on, 144-45; Chi-

texts; specific au-

nese interest in, 149, 152-54; Clavius on, 142-44, 145, 146, 148, 159; Jesuit training in, 142-48

works

Liu Xuan, 157 Li Yingshi,

Matthew, Gospel

Li Zhi,

meals, role in Chinese society, 159-60

Li

249 255-57

Madonna of

127; mother and child, 232-65; and harvest, 162-200; warriors, 24-58

(shrine), 233-34,

237, 239, 259 Lot, 201-204, 221

Ludolfus of Saxony,

14, 16, 50, 56, 235,

260 Lujiangdao, 156 Luke, Gospel of, 128-32 Luke Li, 238, 241, 250

59-64

medieval mnemonics, 8-9, 14-16, 18 memory images, 22-23; huihui, 93-

Zhizao, 152, 153, 154, 158, 241, 252

logic, 134

Loreto,

of,

profit 22,

Menocchio, 102-103 mercantile routes, 16th-century, 66

y

Lull,

Ramon,

Mercurian, Everard, 40, 41, 177 mercury, 185-88

metaphors,

5

metaphysics, 134

101, 103

metonymy,

Lupus the Capuchine, 97-98, 108 Luther, Martin, 99., 222-23 Lu Wangai, 4, 9

5

Mexico, 44, 66, 186 Michelangelo, 168 military forces: Chinese, 4, 43-48;

Macao,

3,

Western, 30-38

21, 42, 43, 51, 52, 53, 65, 66,

69, 80, 165, 240;

Ming Chinese

dis-

192-94; slavery, 208, 209;

like of,

trade, 173-78, 184,

189

Ming

3, 9,

3, 4,

47, 85

missionaries. See Jesuit missionaries in

Macbeth (Shakespeare), 73-74 Macerata,

dynasty,

Mirabilia Urbis Romae, 168 Far East

20, 132, 167, 232, 234,

239; Jews in, 108; war images and papal politics, 27-44, 205, 206

Madonna of

Loreto. See Loreto,

donna of MafTei, Gian

Pietro, 56, 74, 122-24,

Ma-

mnemonics: Ricci introduced to, 5-6, 9; Simonides as originator of, 2-3, 5. See also ancient mnemonics; Chinese memory tradition; medieval mnemonics; Renaissance mnemonics

268 magic, 17-21 mail difficulties, 66-67, 165

Malabar Christians, 111-13 Malacca, 41, 69, 80, 177, 178

Manila, 51, 64, 177, 187, 216, 227

Moluccas, 41, 65

Mongols, 23, 101, 118 monsoons, 65 Montaigne, 19, 99, 167, 208, 226, 234, 261 moral philosophy, Jesuit training 134, 140-42

in,

Martial, 141, 150; Epigrams, 132-33

moral system, Chinese, 210-12, 252 Morocco, 33, 36, 107 mother and child (fourth memory image), 232-65

Martin, Gregory, 98, 99, 109, 169, 206,

Mozambique,

map, world (Ricci), 64-65, 96-97, 148, 149

Marian

sodalities,

238-50

244

207, 261

346

69, 72, 77, 78, 79, 103,

INDEX Muhammad,

101, 118

and Holy League,

65;

music: Chinese, 197; Ricci and, 197200; Western, 21, 146, 147, 148

Muslims, 29-30, 34, 36-39, 47, 79; Chinese, 95, 117-27; as

power

33, 34; politi-

involvements, 27-38, 40, 204-208; practices of, 97-101, 204-208. See also Catholic Church;

cal

in 16th-

specific

century India, 101-106; trade, 117, 118. See also Islam

popes

Pasio, Francis, 78-79, 170, 171, 181

Passionei, Lelio, 135, 139

Paul, 82, 237

Nadal, Jeronimo,

Commentaries on

17;

the Gospels, 11; Images

from

the Gospels,

Paul IV, Pope, 28, 29, 40, 204, 227 Peking, 83, 87, 89, 117, 160, 179, 183, 188, 194-96, 241; palaces, 212-13,

62-63, 131

215; social and political corruption

Nagasaki, 53, 175, 176, 185, 265

Nanchang,

17, 80, 81, 138, 168, 179,

3,

in,

212-22, 226

Pereira, Galeote, 44, 48, 117, 221

188

The

Nanjing, 80-81, 160, 179, 183 Nanxiong, 90, 167-68

Perfection

Naples, 20, 28, 31, 205, 239

persecution of Jews, 106-11, 164-65,

Natural History (Pliny), natural

memory,

5,

of Spiritual (Aquinas), 55

204

156

12

Persia, 97, 117,

naval forces: Chinese, 45, 83-92; Euro-

pean, 33-34, 65-82

Peter, 237; walking-on-water episode

and, 59-64

Nestorian Christianity, 23, 95, 112, 119-20

Petris,

Francesco de, 57, 242, 266

Philip

II,

Spain, 29, 38, 87,

Philippines, 44, 51, 65, 174, 216,

69

227

Christians, 106, 107, 110, 111

Testament, Ni Heng, 156

North

King of

107, 191, 204, 213

Netherlands, 29, 31; naval forces, 54,

New New

174

Peru, 44, 79, 186, 187

neo-Stoicism, 141

65, 68,

Life,

56,

134, 196

pilots, sea,

69-73

piracy, Japanese, 46-47, 53, 174

Africa, 33, 36, 75;

and battle of

Alcazarquivir, 33, 36-38

Pius IV, Pope, 205, 207, 223 Pius V, Pope, 34, 35 planetary theory, 21, 143

occult, 17-21 the Vanitie

Plantin Bible, 86-89, 105, 121, 179

and Uncertain tie of Artes

Plato, 141, 143, 159; Republic,

Of and Sciences (Agrippa), 12 Old Testament, 121, 179 On Friendship (Ricci), 142, 150

politics,

Chinese, 210-17

opium,

politics,

Western: corruption

39,

Plutarch, 99, 142, 150

106 31,

in,

204-208, 217; papal involvement, 27-38, 40, 204-208

oratory, 5

Ottoman Empire, 29-30,

159

Pliny, 5, 156, 157

33-34

Ovid, 141, 205

Portugal, 18, 32, 64; and battle of Alcazarquivir, 33, 36-38, 106; Eastern

paintings. See

art,

Western

173-78, 193-94 (See also Goa; Macao); Jews persecuted by,

palaces, Chinese, 212-13, 215

Panigarola, Francesco, 9, 34

Pantoja, Diego, 197, 199, 213

Papacy, 16th century, 18; corruption 164, 204-205, 217; 1494

em-

pire of, 38-41, 52-54, 103-104, 112,

106-107, 110-11, 164-65; naval forces,

in,

zone ruling,

tion

347

65-82, 174-78; silver produc-

and

trade, 186, 187

INDEX printing: Chinese, 154-55, 210;

132-34 privateers, 68-69 profit and harvest (third image), 162-200

West-

66-67, 232, 235-36; hardships in China, 48-58; illnesses of, 58, 112,

ern,

techniques, 5-6, skills of,

prostitution: Chinese, 219, 220-22, 226; Italian,

9, 135;

135-42; in personal

tions, 149-60, 188-89,

206-208

rela-

194-200;

training and apprenticeships,

3, 4, 5,

100-101, 134-35, 140, 142, 143, 239; travel experiences, 65-92. Works:

Protestantism, 18, 42, 52, 145, 161

Punic Wars,

memory mnemonic

160-61, 236; introduced to

memory

34-35

Pythagoras, 251

biblical translations, 59-64, 130-32,

201-204; Fundamental Christian

Qi Jiguang, 47 Qinshi Huangdi, Emperor of China,

Teachings, 93; Historia, 44, 49, 52, 56,

Friendship, 142, 150;

153 of, 5-6, 11, 14,

Qu Jingchun, 152 Qu Rukuei, 49, 152,

Ten Discourses by

a Paradoxical Man, 127, 141, 252, 257; True Meaning of the Lord of

Quintilian, 100, 135, 141, 156; mne-

monic theory

On

68, 81, 209, 211, 219, 241, 257;

22-23

Heaven, 158-59, 196, 228, 251, 254, 153, 188, 230-31,

255, 257, 258; Twenty-five Sayings,

249-50

142;

world map, 64-65, 96-97, 148,

149 reason, 15-16, 134, 157

Ricci, Orazio, 56

reception hall, 26, 96, 162

river travel, Chinese, 83, 85,

reincarnation, 250-52

Rodriguez, Marcos, 170, 171-72 Roman Antiquities, 168 Roman Empire, 22, 34-35

religion, Chinese:

moral system

in,

210-12; Ricci on, 116-17, 122, 210, 216, 217, 250-59. See also

Buddhism;

Confucianism; Taoism religion, Western. See Bible; Catholic Church; Catholicism; Christianity; Je-

Romanus, Baptista, 98, 109, 134 Rome, 3, 5, 9, 87, 97; 1575 jubilee, 169-70; holy

relics

and places

in,

237-38; Jesuit order in, 97-101, 132-35, 140, 145, 168-70, 239-44;

suit order; Papacy; Protestantism

Renaissance mnemonics, 5-6, 8-10,

87-92

Jews

11,

in,

108-10, 204, 205; Marian so-

14-23, 135-36, 141; challenged in

dality in, 239-42; papal politics in,

Europe, 12-13; and Chinese mnemonics, compared, 156-60; magic

28, 35-36,

and religion in,

in,

17-21; mathematics

142-48, 152; moral philosophy

140-42. See also

specific

204-208; Ricci and,

3, 5,

134-35, 140, 142, 143, 168-70, 206, 237-42; social and political corrup-

in,

authors; works

tion in, 204-208, 217, 223, 226-27 Ruggieri, Michele, 49, 75, 93, 154, 173,

179-81, 184-85, 189-90, 220

Republic (Plato), 159

Resurrection, 128, 130 St.

Mary the Virgin, Macerata, 234

Giovanni Battista, 66-67 Matteo (Li Madou): appearance

St.

Paul,

114-16, 218-19; birth

Sanhuai, 254-55

rhetoric, Ricci, Ricci, of,

hood

5, 8,

13,

134

St. Peter's,

of, 3; child-

in Macerata, 27, 132-34, 167,

232, 234, 236; conversion methodology of, 152-60, 213-14, 242-59;

Goa, 170-71

Rome,

98, 168-69, 204, 261

Sansevino, Andrea, 233

Sanxi province, 221 scholars, Chinese, 154, 256, 257; interest

of, 160-61; European war memories, 27-38, 44; family of,

death

in

Western

memory

348

sciences, 149, 152-54;

tradition of, 4, 155-60

INDEX Scielou, 89-92, 140

149-60, 209-31; slaves, 208-10, 219.

sciences, Chinese, 146, 153, 154

See also literati,

Chinese

Western, 21, 140, 142-49, 152, 180; Chinese interest in, 149, 152-54.

Society of Jesus, 15, 82, 242. See also Jesuit missionaries, Jesuit order

See also specific sciences

sodomy: Chinese, 220-22, 226-31; Goanese, 223-24; Italian, 205, 206, 223, 226-27; Japanese, 224-25

sciences,

Scipio, Lucius, 35, 36, 157

65-82

sea travel, hardships of,

King of

Sebastian,

Song dynasty, 180

Portugal, 33, 36-38,

75, 78, 106-107, 164-65; Ricci's friendship with, 36, 38

Spain, 18, 32, 44, 46, 107, 194, 216-17, 265; 1585 siege of Antwerp, 33, 165; Jews persecuted by, 108; naval forces, 69, 265; as power in Southern Italy,

Sebastianismo, 107

Seneca, 99, 141, 142, 150, 156

28-29, 31, 204-205; silver production

senses, 15, 17

and

265

Seville, 64, 262,

trade, 186-87,

265

Sfera (Clavius), 148, 152

spice trade, 52

Shanxi province, 118 Shakespeare, William, 19-20, 73-74

Spiritual Exercises (Ignatius

Spinola, Nicholas, 68, 76

Shandong province, 226

229, 230, 242

Shaoxing, 226

Shaozhou,

53, 57-58, 90, 165, 179, 182,

146 James, 171-73

stars, 145,

242, 261

Storie,

Shen Defu, 188, 227 Shen Jihuan, 85-86 Shen Yiguan, 196

Summa

shipbuilding, European, 65, 67, 68

sundials, 148, 149

shipwrecks, 70-71, 91-92, 175-76,

Su Song, 157 Suzhou, 83, 215 syncretism, Ming, 117

Sui dynasty, 157

sight, 15

ment silver,

in,

174-77; Jesuit involve-

Tang Xianzu, 216 Tao Gu, 226

175-78, 189-90

16th century production and

trade, 174,

186-88

silver -gold

ratio, 54n.,

Simonides,

memory

Taoism, 22, 95, 116, 127, 210; and chemy, 185

174

techniques

of,

2-5

taste,

Sixtus V, Pope, 124, 168, 243 slaves, 79,

Against the Gentiles (Aquinas),

222

178 silk trade, 109,

of Loyola),

16-17, 50, 54-55, 77, 134, 166,

15,

ten,

images

of,

219

23

Ten Commandments,

219; fugitive, 191-92, 209

93, 228, 245

Ten Discourses by a Paradoxical

smell, sense of, 15

Soarez, Cypriano,

sense of, 15

taxes, Chinese, 183, 184, 211,

208-209; Chinese, 208-10,

5,

al-

Man

(Ricci), 127, 141, 252, 257

135

social corruption, 16th century Italian,

theological training, Western, 100-101,

204-208, 217, 223, 226-27 society, Chinese, 4, 209-31; beating pro-

Three Character

cedures, 48-49;

corruption

in,

company, 159-60; 212-22, 226-31; eu-

nuchs, 84, 214-17; gift-giving 179-81, 184, 185, 189, 190-91, 194-97; military, 47-48; moral

rituals,

134-35, 140

251

Timurid Empire, 118 tortures, Chinese, 48-50 touch, sense

sys-

Classic,

Tianjin, 45

of, 15

trade, 16th century, 44, 52; Japanese,

tem, 210-12, 252; Ricci on, 114-17,

174-78, 187; Jesuit involvement

349

in,

INDEX warriors

trade (continued)

175-78, 189-90; Jewish, 109; Macao, 173-78, 184, 189; mercantile routes, 66;

Muslim,

174-77;

117, 118; silk, 109,

silver, 174,

186-88; slave,

(first

memory

image), 22,

24-58, 162, 164

Wierix, Anthony, 63, 131-32, 262 will, 15-16

world

map

(Ricci), 64-65, 96-97, 148,

149 wu (war), 24

208; spice, 52

transmigration of souls, 250-52 travel, 190-91, 218; Chinese inland

waterway, 82-92; sea hardships,

Xavier, Francis, 178, 224, 250

65-92

Xiangshan county, 53, 165, 173 Xie Zhaozhe, 226, 244

trinity, false,

116

Xing Shao, 156

tropes, 5

(Ricci), 158-59, 196, 228, 251, 254,

Xixia kingdom, 95, 118, 120 Xixia woman (huihui), 95, 162, 164

255, 257, 258

Xu

True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven

Guangqi, 152, 153, 157, 158, 217,

218, 241, 247

Twenty-five Sayings (Ricci), 142

Xuzhou, 126 usury, 108, 109, 188

Valignano, Alessandro, 40-44, 47, 66, 115, 176-77, 181, 191, 225, 240

Yellow River, 85

267 devotion Chinese 233-65; Mary, Virgin 233-34, shrine to, Loreto 242-5$; to, Virgil, 99, 141; Aeneid,

237, 239, 259; role in Jesuit order,

238-50, 259-61

Walking-on-water image, 59-64 Wang Can, 157 Wang Pan, 154, 184, 244 Wanli, Emperor of China, 84, 122, 142, 149, 179, 189, 194, 212-17, 246;

tomb

of,

213 warfare, 16th century: Chinese, 43-48;

European developments, 30-38; Ricci's memories of, 27-38, 44

Yates, Frances, The Art of Memory,

10

Venice, 20, 33, 47, 133, 239 violence, Chinese, 48-50, 57-58

Ricci and, 161, 214, 217;

Yangzi River, 80, 83 yao (necessity), 93-95

Yuan

Yu

dynasty, 153

Chunxi, 252-53

Zhang Andao, 156 Zhang Xie, 193, 227 Zhao Kehuai, 81 Zhaoqing, 43, 46, 48, 85, 88, 96, 114, 138, 178-79, 181, 182, 187-88, 190,

193

Zhejiang province, 189, 226 Zhenke, 215-16 Zhong Mingren, 82 Zhuangzi (Taoist classic), 127 Zhuhong, 253-54 Zhu Shilu, 118 Zou Yuanbiao, 151

350

M

'A gripping portrait

of late-sixteenth-century cultural history in both the West and the East" —Natalie Zettton Davis, Mnceton

University,

author of The Return of Martin Guerre

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 has shifted away from conventional biographical techniques, and he relates his subject's life to several images that Ricci himself created four images derived from 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's 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 In 1577, the Jesuit priest

—

that of

Ming China.

"An extraordinary tour de

force, a

work of literature and

at the

same

time a remarkable wide-ranging use of historical sources. This is a kind of history that most people in the profession cannot begin to

—John King Fairbank, Harvard University

write."

"Resembles the portrait of an age, and it is perhaps as remarkable for its form as its content. ... It is organized about a series of visual presentations that create a richly layered and complex impression of Ricci's world ... an extraordinarily delicate achievement moving . . .

. . .

and strangely beautiful."

— Paul Robinson, Stanford

University,

The New York Times Book Review

Cover design by Neil Stuart Matteo Ricci by Emmanuel Pereira (bom Yuwen-h ui ), 1610. The Chinese and Roman calligraphy is Ricci's own.

Portrait of

A PENGUIN BOOK History

CAN.

$9.95

U.S.A.

$7.95

ISBN

D

m DD.flDTfl a