Matteo Ricci and the Ming Dynasty
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Matteo Ricci's 16th-century mission to Ming Dynasty China, an important early encounter between east and west.
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life of Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit priest who in the 16th century led a Christian mission to China. An accomplished scholar, Ricci travelled extensively and came into contact with senior officials of the Ming Dynasty administration. His story is one of the most important encounters between Renaissance Europe and a China which was still virtually closed to outsiders.
With
Mary Laven
Reader in Early Modern History at the University of Cambridge
Craig Clunas
Professor of the History of Art at the University of Oxford
and
Anne Gerritsen
Reader in History at the University of Warwick
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Last on
LINKS AND FURTHER READING
Mary Laven at the University of Cambridge
Craig Clunas at the University of Oxford
Anne Gerritsen at the University of Warwick
The 1602 Ricci Map - University of Minnesota Libraries
De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu - Beyond Ricci
Matteo Ricci - Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity
The Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History - University of San Francisco
READING LIST:
Liam Matthew Brockey, Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724 (Harvard University Press, 2007)
C. R. Boxer (ed.), South China in the Sixteenth Century (first published 1953; Orchid Press, 2006)
Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (Profile Books, 2008)
Timothy Brook, Confusions of Pleasure:Commerce and Culture in Ming China (University of California Press, 1998)
Craig Clunas, Empire of Great Brightness: Visual and Material Cultures of Ming China1368-1644 (Reaktion Books, 2007)
Amin Jaffer and Anna Jackson (eds), Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe, 1500-1800 (V&A Publications, 2004)
Mary Laven, Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Encounter with the East (Faber & Faber, 2011)
John W. O’Malley, The First Jesuits (Harvard University Press, 1995)
R. Po-chia Hsia, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552-1610 (Oxford University Press, 2010)
Jonathan D. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, (Faber & Faber, 1985)
John E. Wills Jr (ed.), China and Maritime Europe, 1500-1800:Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, and Missions (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
Credits
| Role | Contributor |
|---|---|
| Presenter | Melvyn Bragg |
| Interviewed Guest | Mary Laven |
| Interviewed Guest | Craig Clunas |
| Interviewed Guest | Anne Gerritsen |
| Producer | Simon Tillotson |
Broadcasts
- Thu 16 Apr 201509:00BBC Radio 4
- Thu 16 Apr 201521:30BBC Radio 4 FM
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