The jet-setting jesuit.docVIP

The jet-setting jesuit The bookish order of Catholic priests known as Jesuits do get out more than the average men of the cloth―but Renaissance-era priest Matteo Ricci was in a class of his own. When the Italian missionary sallied into Ming Dynasty China, it was a land and culture almost unknown to Westerners, which meant Ricci had to start from scratch. But like an ancient precursor to Indiana Jones, Ricci was a man for whom both brains and guts served to unlock the realm’s hidden treasures. 　　Missionaries are by definition an adventurous lot, but in the 16th century, Matteo Ricci set the bar for pioneering evangelists. When the 30-year-old Ricci set out for China in 1582, he was only the second Jesuit to attempt missionary work in the Middle Kingdom―and the first to survive doing it. Thirty years before, attempt number one had been launched by St. Francis Xavier of Spain, who died after a year on the island of Shangchuan, without ever having reached the mainland. 　　But Ricci was no stranger to foreign lands; he had spent the previous four years in the Portuguese colony of Goa before arriving in Macau to begin learning Chinese language and culture. This endeavor, in and of itself, set Ricci apart from his predecessors: before him, only one Christian missionary, by the name of Ruggiero, had ever attempted to learn Chinese. The same Ruggiero would serve as Ricci’s guide as he penetrated the Chinese mainland, which then remained a largely unexplored frontier among Westerners. 　　Part of the reason for this was that in the 16th century, China was just beginning to open up to international influences again, thanks in large part to the 14th century tributary missions of Zheng He, who helped establish diplomatic relations with states throughout Southeast Asia and Africa. Western influence, however, remained scarce, especially in the holiest of holies: the recently constructed Forbidden City, which stood as an imposing symbol of Ming opulence and power. 　　But Ricci was not