Histoire de L'Expedition Chrestienne au Royaume de la Chine.: First French edition of one of the most important works on China
by RICCI, MATTEO (1552-1610)
- Used
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
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CHELTENHAM, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
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About This Item
Lyon, Horace Cardon, 1616, Translated into French by D. F. de Riquebourg-Trigault.Thick 8vo,(170 x 110mm). Engraved title, frontispiece portrait, folding woodcut and engraved plate of letterpress. Contemporary limp vellum, title inscribed in manuscript on spine.
First French edition of one of the most important works on China.
First published in Augsburg by Christopher Mangius (1615), 'this chronicle about the Western mission in China from 1583-1611… provided a systematic portrait of contemporary Chinese society as perceived by Ricci, who was fluent in Chinese and exhibited both a sympathetic interest in Chinese culture and an erudite perspective on the Jesuits' accomplishments.
Matteo Ricci, Italian Jesuit priest and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China missions. He created the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, a 1602 map of the world written in Chinese characters.
Ricci arrived at the Portuguese settlement of Macau in 1582 where he began his missionary work in China. He became the first European to enter the Forbidden City of Beijing in 1601 when invited by the Wanli Emperor, who sought his services in matters such as court astronomy and calendrical science. He converted several prominent Chinese officials to Catholicism. He also worked with several Chinese elites, such as Xu Guangqi, in translating Euclid's Elements into Chinese as well as the Confucian classics into Latin for the first time in history.
'[This work] was among the most important and widely read books on China published during the seventeenth century' (Marcia Reed and Paola Demattè, China on Paper, 2011).
Cordier Sinica I, 809; De Backer & Sommervogel VIII, 240; Streit V: 2096.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Bruce Marshall Rare Books (GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 552
- Title
- Histoire de L'Expedition Chrestienne au Royaume de la Chine.
- Author
- RICCI, MATTEO (1552-1610)
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Publisher
- Horace Cardon
- Place of Publication
- Lyon
- Date Published
- 1616
- Size
- thick 8vo (170 x 110mm)
- Weight
- 0.00 lbs
- Keywords
- China, ricci, jesuit, culture,
Terms of Sale
Bruce Marshall Rare Books
About the Seller
Bruce Marshall Rare Books
About Bruce Marshall Rare Books
Our particular specialities are fine natural history books, atlases & cartography, voyages & discovery, early illustrated books, important books in the history of science and astronomy, fine works from the Kelmscott Press, old engravings and photographs.
The books and manuscripts listed here are a selection of our stock.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Plate
- Full page illustration or photograph. Plates are printed separately from the text of the book, and bound in at production. I.e.,...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Vellum
- Vellum is a sheet of specialty prepared skin of lamb, calf, or goat kid used for binding a book or for printing and writing. ...
- Inscribed
- When a book is described as being inscribed, it indicates that a short note written by the author or a previous owner has been...
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