Italian priest,
scholar, and
explorer (1552-1610). Born the eldest son of a
pharmacist, Ricci went to
Rome in 1568 to study
law and soon decided to become a
Jesuit to study
science and
theology. He also worked to improve his
memory, using an
ancient technique in which he constructed
imaginary buildings to hold
imagined
objects with
mnemonic significance. This
technique allowed him to perform
astounding feats of
memorization.
After he was
ordained, Ricci served as a
missionary in
China -- originally, he lived in a
Portuguese colony at
Macao, but he was later given
permission to live in
China. He tried to follow as many
Chinese customs as possible: he dressed as a
Confucian scholar, learned the Chinese
language, wrote and published
books in Chinese, and adopted the Chinese
name Li Ma-tou. He wrote a number of
mathematical texts and
published an annotated
map of the
world.
Ricci was a great
admirer of the principles of
Confucianism, and he enjoyed getting to
show off his
memory by memorizing lists of several hundred
randomly chosen characters. One of his most prized
possessions was a small
crucifix which was said to be made of
splinters of the
True Cross.
Ricci's
books and
sermons gained
converts among the
Chinese -- some of them were quite
influential -- but he also earned some
enemies. In 1592, he sprained an
ankle escaping from an
angry mob and walked with a
limp afterward. However, he was officially allowed to enter
Peking in 1601. He was allowed to visit the
imperial court, though he was not permitted to meet the
Emperor. When he died, he was buried in Peking by
imperial permission.
Ricci had a
significant impact on Chinese
science by making
Western mathematical results, at that time centered on
Euclid, available to
Chinese mathematicians. His
letters back to
Europe added to European
knowledge of
China and may have had some effect on the
Enlightenment. However, some
church leaders
chafed at his practice of allowing
traditional Chinese religious rituals during Catholic ceremonies -- in fact,
Pope Clement XI condemned Ricci for it, though he waited 'til after his death to do so.
Research from GURPS Who's Who 2, compiled by Phil Masters, "Matteo Ricci" by William H. Stoddard, pp. 52-53.