Enciclopedia Cattolica

INTORCETTA, PROSPERO

Volume VII · p. 91 · 1951

English translation · Testo originale italiano

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

INTORCETTA, PROSPERO. - Jesuit, missionary, b. at Piazza Armerina (Enna) on 28 Aug. 1625, d. at Hang-tcheu on 3 Oct. 1696. Having fled at the age of 16 from the College of Catania for the novitiate (1642), in 1657 he departed for China, where his field of work was Kiang-si and especially the city of Kien-tchang. He did not lack accusations and persecutions until, arrested in 1665, he was deported to Peking, then to Can-

ton. Replaced in prison by another father, he was able to leave for Rome (1672) to advocate the interests of the mission, and above all to speak about the thorny question of the Chinese rites. Two years later he was again in China; visitor for China and Japan (1676-84); then vice-provincial of China (1687-90) and subsequently superior at Hang-tcheu.

His principal work is the Sinarum scientia politico-moralis, partly in Chinese, printed at Hang-tcheu, and partly in Latin (Goa 1667).

BIBL.: Sommervogel, IV, cols. 640-43; L. Pfister, Notiers biogr. et bibliogr. sur les Mesures de l'ancienne mission de Chine, I, 2nd ed., Sciangai 1932, pp. 321-28 (with ample bibliography). Celestino Testore
Cite this article

“INTORCETTA, PROSPERO.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VII (1951), p. 91. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/intorcetta-prospero.