ALENI, GIULIO. - Jesuit missionary and sinologist, b. at Brescia in 1582, entered the novitiate of Novellara in 1610. Having set out for the missions, he reached Macao at the end of 1600, observing eclipses at Goa and Macao (his letter on the subject to G. A. Magini in Favaro, Carteggio inedito di Ticone Brahe... con Magini, Bologna 1886, p. 349; other observations of the lunar eclipse, Goa 1612, in the Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences, VII, Paris 1729, pp. 705-706). In 1613 he succeeded in penetrating into the Empire and worked there for more than 35 years, in the province of Shansi and, from 1625 onward, in that of Fokien, with an interruption in 1638 when he was exiled to Canton during the persecution raised over the decisions on the Chinese rites. He died on 3 Aug. 1649 at Fuchow (Fuceu).
A. was, after Ricci, the most eminent of the Italian missionaries learned in China and earned from Chinese men of letters the nickname of "Confucius of the West."
With the help of Christian men of letters, he composed many works in Chinese (a detailed list in Streit). Those of a religious character had many reprintings, down to our own days; the Life of Jesus according to the four Gospels, with wood engravings in Chinese style, is interesting for the history of indigenous Christian art. Among the scientific works, the Cosmographical Description of All the Kingdoms of the Earth is notable. A. also wrote in Chinese the biographies of the first great Christians of China and that of Fr. Matteo Ricci; this last was published in French translation in Revue d'histoire des missions, 1 (Paris 1924), pp. 52-70.
Bibliography5 works
Edmondo Lamalle