INTORCETTA, PROSPERO. - Jesuit, missionary, b. at Piazza Armerina (Enna) on 28 Aug. 1625, d. at Hangzhou on 3 Oct. 1696. Having fled at the age of 16 from the College of Catania to the novitiate (1642), in 1657 he set out for China, where his field of work was Jiangxi and especially the city of Jianchang. Accusations and persecutions were not lacking until, arrested in 1665, he was deported to Beijing, then to Canton. Replaced in prison by another father, he was able to leave for Rome (1672) to champion the interests of the mission, and above all to speak of 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 afterwards superior at Hangzhou.

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

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: Sommervogel, IV, coll. 640-43; L. Pfister, Notices biogr. et bibliogr. sur les Mesures de l'ancienne mission de Chine, I, 2nd ed., Shanghai 1932, pp. 321-28 (with ample bibl.).

Celestino Testore

@incollection{ec7_intorcetta_prospero, author = {Testore, Celestino}, title = {Intorcetta, prospero}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {114--115}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/intorcetta-prospero} }

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Intorcetta, Prospero

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