GIULIO ALENI. — Jesuit missionary and Sinologist, born in Brescia in 1582, entered the novitiate in Novellara in 1610. Having set out for the missions, he arrived in Macao at the end of 1600, observing eclipses in 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 *Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences*, VII, Paris 1729, pp. 705-706). In 1613 he succeeded in entering the Empire and worked there for over 35 years, first in the province of Shansi and, from 1625 onward, in that of Fukien, with an interruption in 1638 when he was exiled to Canton during the persecution stirred up over the decisions on Chinese rites. He died on 3 August 1649 at Fuchow (Fuzhou).
A. was, after Ricci, the most eminent of the Italian missionaries learned in Chinese studies and earned from Chinese scholars the nickname of “Confucius of the West.”
With the help of Christian literati, he composed many works in Chinese (detailed list in Streit). Those of a religious character were reprinted many times, even in our own day; the *Life of Jesus according to the Four Gospels*, with woodcut illustrations in Chinese style, is noteworthy for the history of indigenous Christian art. Among his scientific works, the *Cosmographical Description of All the Kingdoms of the Earth* is notable. He also wrote in Chinese the biographies of the first great Christians of China and that of Fr. Matteo Ricci; the latter was published in French translation in *Revue d'histoire des missions*, I (Paris 1924), pp. 52-70.