Running head: MATTEO RICCI 1
Matteo Ricci
Julia Clark
Ozarka College
Author's Note
This paper was prepared for World Civ 2, section 90, taught by Candace Jeffery.
Matteo Ricci was an Italian man who chose, against his family's wishes, to become a Jesuit priest. After graduating from the Jesuit school in Rome, he chose to go to China to continue his work, becoming a missionary. There is more to his works in China than just his Christian teachings, however. He also brought scientific and mathematical knowledge from the west to the Chinese, teaching subjects that ranged from astronomy to trigonometry. In addition to this, he also produced some of the first maps of China, giving the Chinese a better idea of the oceans and lands surrounding them, as well as giving people from different lands a view of China. According to a Fairfield University (2009), Ricci's success in China as both a missionary and a scholar was due to "his personal qualities, his complete adaptation to Chinese customs (choosing the attire of a Chinese scholar) and to his authoritative knowledge of the sciences" (p.
1).
As said in the previous paragraph, Matteo Ricci was Italian. He was born in 1552 to the family of Giovanni Battista. According to thinkingfaith.org (2010), the official online journal for British Jesuits, after graduating a Jesuit secondary school (equivalent to a high-school in America) his father enrolled Ricci in law school, hoping to give his son an excellent education and earn him a high station in society (p. 4). However, he dropped out of that school, and "in 1571 he entered the novitiate of the fairly new Society of Jesus, established in 1540, to begin his Jesuit formation", as thinkingfaith.org stated in their article (p. 4). After completing his studies in that school, he...