BUGLIO, LUDOVICO. - Jesuit missionary and renowned sinologist, b. at Mineo (Sicily) on 25 Jan. 1606, d. at Peking on 12 Oct. 1682. Having entered the Order in 1622, he embarked at Lisbon for the East in 1635, and arrived in 1637 at Macao, whence he penetrated the Chinese Empire, after devoting two years to the study of the language. He first preached in Kiangnan (1639), then founded new churches in Setchoan, and in 1642 received the assistance of Fr. Gabriele de Magalhaens. In 1643 Setchoan was invaded by the brigand Tchang Hieng-tchong, who wished to have the two missionaries in his service for mathematical work, with the title of mandarins; but they narrowly escaped soon becoming victims of his bloody whims. When Hieng-tchong was killed by Tartar troops, B. and Magalhaens were taken to Peking by the victors as prisoners of war (1648).
Fr. Giovanni Adamo Schall, highly influential at the court of the first Manchu emperor, succeeded in saving their lives, but not in obtaining their release. The event gave rise to conflicts among the missionaries and especially to a campaign of denunciations against Fr. Schall (on these incidents, cf. A. Vath, Johann Adam Schall von Bell, Colonia 1933, pp. 253-63). In 1651 the two fathers were released and erected a new church in Peking (Tong-tang), making it a centre of Catholic life. Reconciliation among the missionaries came about only when the minority of the new emperor Kanghi provided an opportunity for the attack against Fr. Schall by the Chinese and Muslim astronomers. B., who had replied to the pamphlets of the accusers, was arrested with the other fathers in Peking (Schall, Verbiest, and Magalhaens) and, with them, condemned by the tribunal of the Lipu (1664). Public misfortunes prevented the execution of the sentence (death for Fr. Schall, exile for the others), and the fathers remained in Peking; but only later (1669 and 1671), when Kanghi personally assumed the government, did they recover full freedom for apostolic work and public worship. B. was thus able to spend his last years peacefully in Peking. He also became known for having taught Chinese painters the rules of European perspective. The emperor ordered that his funeral be conducted solemnly, as we know from an account by Fr. Filippo Grimaldi.
B. made an outstanding contribution to the development of Chinese Christian literature. His works include translations intended to make possible the introduction of a liturgy in the Chinese language (already granted by Paolo V in 1615, but not put into effect; subsequently requested anew from Rome several times, but without success): Missale romanum auctoritate Pauli V Pont. Max. sinice redditum (Peking 1670); Breviarium romanum sinice redditum (ibid. 1674, incomplete); Manuale ad sacramenta ministranda iuxta ritum S. Rom. Ecc. sinice redditum (ibid. 1675). His translations of the Little Office of the Virgin and of the Office of the Dead also had several reprints at Touseve and Peking in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His masterpiece, the translation of a large part of the Somma teologica of S. Tommaso (30 vols., plus 4 volumes of indexes, Peking 1654-79), was reprinted in Peking in 1930.