Matteo Ricci

This entry marks the tomb and historical legacy of Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), who embodies the beginning of the modern Catholic mission to China. Ricci arrived in Macau in 1582 and spent decades working his way to the Ming court in Beijing as a Mandarin-speaking scholar. He translated Euclid into Chinese, produced the first world map printed in China with Chinese labels, and developed an accommodationist dialogue with Confucians that is still cited as a model for cross-cultural mission. His 1610 burial in the Zhalan Cemetery in Beijing's Xicheng district was an exception personally granted by the Wanli Emperor. The tomb now sits inside the campus of the Beijing Administrative College and access is restricted, but Catholic pilgrims and historians of China still come to stand at one of the rare Ming-era sites bearing a bilingual European-Chinese inscription.