CATTANEO, LAZZARO

CATTANEO, LAZZARO. - One of the earliest missionaries to China, b. at Sarzana in 1560, d. in China on 19 Jan. 1640. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Rome on 27 Feb. 1581. He pursued his studies largely in Portugal and, having been ordained a priest, sailed from Lisbon for Goa in 1588. Superior of the mission on the Fishery Coast in 1589, he arrived at Macao in 1593 and entered China the following year. After learning sufficient Chinese at Chaotceou with Fr. Matteo Ricci, he accompanied him on his first journey to Peking (1598). He then worked at Nanking and for several years at Macao, where calumnies against him gave rise to serious disturbances (1606). He was subsequently the first apostle of Sciangai (1608-10, at the invitation of the famous doctor Paolo Siù) and of Hangtcheou (1611). Having taken refuge in Macao during the persecution that followed, he later founded a new mission at Kiating in Kiangsu. He spent his old age at Hangtcheou, from 1622 until his death. He composed several treatises in Chinese (on the knowledge of God, contrition for sins, etc.) and assisted Fr. Ricci in various linguistic works, notably in compiling a dictionary in which the five ordinary tones of Chinese are distinguished by accents.