Ruggieri, Michele (Pompilio) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. X, p. 857

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

RUGGIERI, MICHELE (POMPILIO). — Jesuit, missionary, born at Spinazzola (diocese of Venosa) in 1543, died at Salerno on 11 May 1607.

Having taken his degree in both laws at Naples, he entered the Order at Rome in 1572, changing the name Pompilio to Michele; and as early as 1577 he went with Fr. M. Ricci to India, landing at Goa in 1579. The following year he was assigned to the mission to be opened in China; he was therefore at Macao in 1579 to learn the Chinese language; in 1580 he entered Canton with some merchants, returning there three more times; on the last occasion (1582) he was received with esteem and honors by the viceroy of Sciaochi, where thereafter, on 1 January 1583, he was able to celebrate the first Mass and was joined several months later by Fr. Ricci. After some of his initiatives had remained unsuccessful, he was sent to Rome in 1588 to prepare a papal embassy to Peking; when this too failed, R. withdrew to Nola and then to Salerno, where he died.

In addition to several very important letters, in 1581 he composed a catechism in dialogue form, subsequently translated into Chinese by some of his interpreters and published, after careful revision, in November 1584 under the title Vera esposizione del Signore del cielo.

BIBL.: works: for some letters, V. Giappone, Venice 1586; others in P. Tacchi Venturi, Opere stor. del p. Matteo Ricci, II, Macerata 1913, appendix, nos. 1–4, 10–13; the Latin version of the catechism, published for the first time, ibid., pp. 498–540. For the biography cf. P. D'Elia, Fonti Riccione, I, Rome 1942, pp. xcviii–c; III, there 1949, index, pp. 247–48. In addition: L. P. Istor, Notices biogr. et bibliogr. sur la Mautre de l'ancienne mission de Chine, Shanghai 1932, pp. 15–21; L. Wieger, Notes sur la première catholiche écrite en chinois, 1581–84, in Arch. hist. S. L. 1 (1932), pp. 72–84; P. D'Elia, Quadro storico-sinologico del primo libro di dottrina cristiana in cinese, ibid., 3 (1934), pp. 193–222. Celestino Testore