RICCI, MATTEO. - Jesuit, pioneer of the Catholic missions in China, b. at Macerata on 6 Oct. 1552, d. at Peking on 11 May 1610.
After attending the Jesuit College in his native city, he devoted himself in Rome to the study of law for two years, after which he entered the Society of Jesus on 15 Aug. 1571. During the philosophy courses at the Roman College, he followed the mathematics lectures (understood in the much broader sense of those times) of the celebrated Fr. Clavius. Having embarked on 5 March 1577 at Lisbon, he reached, in 1578, Goa, where he completed his studies and was ordained a priest, and in 1582 Macao in China, where he applied himself to the study of the Chinese language and literature, because he was destined, together with Fr. M. Ruggieri, to break down the barrier of that great Empire, which prevented the entry of missionaries and of the faith, and to reach as a final stage Peking, the Court and the Emperor himself. Such was the goal assigned to the two missionaries by the visitor of broad modern views, Fr. A. Valignano; but to reach it required 18 years of work and waiting. Ricci, in fact, entered China in 1583 and was able to establish his residence at Sciaochin, where he soon entered into relations and great fame with the learned men of the place, to whom he showed the various objects brought from Europe, among them a world map and a statue of the Virgin with the Child in her arms, which he placed at the entrance of the house, and made the first conversions.
When the prefect of Canton, on whom Sciaochin depended, was changed, he was expelled from his see and moved in 1589 to Sciaoceu; then in 1595 to Nanchino and then to Nanciam; in 1598 again to Nanchino, then to Peking, then he returned to Sciaoceu. In 1601 he settled definitively at Peking. In 1597 he had been elected superior of the mission, where he won the favor and esteem of the Court and of the Emperor Wanli.
At his death, Christianity numbered 2000 converts, of whom 400 were at Peking; among them many from the nobility and the ruling class. One should remember Paolo Siu, Ricci's collaborator in the drafting of his Chinese books and future chancellor of the Empire, founder of the Christianity of Sciangai (he gave his name to the suburb of Zi-Kawei), Leone Li, who later obtained from the authorities the gift of a plot of land for the burial of Ricci, and Michele Yang, who hosted the Fathers during the persecution at the cost of his life. On his tomb, at Sciala (he was the first foreigner who was not an ambassador to be buried in China), a tombstone was placed (where the memory of the deceased was recorded) and perhaps also the inscription of the prefect of Peking, Uainiuscia, and finally in 1650 the present lapidary inscription.
The principles on which Ricci based his extraordinary work were simple, in conformity with the spirit of the directives left by St. Ignatius and with the orders given by Fr. A. Valignano: the greatest sympathy and respect for the spiritual and intellectual values of the Chinese, the most perfect possible knowledge of the language, the use of science for an apologetic purpose, the apostolate of the pen and of conversation, care for the cultured classes, on which the government of the people depends, the primacy granted to supernatural virtues (cf. P. D'Elia, L'uomo più strano della Cina, in Ecclesia, 11 [1952], pp. 477-81). There is clear testimony of this in his literary activity; besides the numerous letters and memoirs, he composed more than 20 works, in Chinese, of apologetics, mathematics, astronomy (cf. the list in P. D'Elia, Fonti Ricciane, III [index], pp. 239-43); of which the principal ones are cited: On Friendship, Catechetical Conversations, Solid Treatise on God, Christian Doctrine, Ten Paradoxes, Treatise on the Four Elements, Treatise on Heaven and on Earth, etc.; above all one should remember the various ever more perfected editions of world maps (cf. P. D'Elia, Il mappamondo cinese del p. M. R., translated and annotated, Rome 1938) and his history of the Chinese mission, which remained unpublished until our own days and was published by P. Tacchi Venturi under the title: Opere storiche del p. M. R. (2 vols., I, Commentari della Cina, Macerata 1911; II, Lettere, ibid. 1913) and by P. D'Elia, under the title: Fonti Ricciane: Storia della introd. del Cristianesimo in Cina (3 vols., Rome 1942-49) with ample use of Chinese sources, updated bibliography, appendices and indexes; to which other volumes will follow for the letters and the other works.
On the legend that Ricci was a pious conciliator of beliefs in the sense of patronizing a kind of syncretism to the detriment of dogma, cf. P. D'Elia, Il domma cattolico integralmente presentato da M. R. ai letterati della Cina, in Civ. Catt., 1935, II, pp. 35-53. For the question of the name of God and of the rites, v. RITI, QUESTIONE DEL. - See plate XLVII.
