The Memory Palace Of Matteo Ricci

Author : Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher : Quercus Books
Page : 350 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Jesuits
ISBN : 1847243444

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The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D. Spence Pdf

In 1577 a Jesuit priest named Matteo Ricci set out from Italy on a long journey to bring the Christian faith and Western thought to Ming dynasty China. He spent time in India and Macao before entering China in 1583 to undertake mission work. Travelling widely, Ricci learned local languages, mastered Chinese classical script, drew the first-ever map of the world in Chinese and acquired a rich appreciation of the indigenous culture of his hosts. In 1596 Ricci wrote a short book in Chinese on the art of memory for the governor of Jiangxi province, who was preparing his three sons for China's demanding civil service examinations. In it he described a 'memory palace' in which to hold knowledge such as might help the three brothers and their peers in the Ming social elite to pass their exams with flying colours. Ricci must have hoped that, in gratitude to him for instructing them in mnemonic skills, they would use their newly won prestige to further the cause of the Catholic Church in China. To capture the complex emotional and religious drama of Ricci's life, author Jonathan Spence relates the missionary's experiences via a series of images. Four of these images derive from events described in the Bible, the others from Ricci's book on the art of memory that was circulated among members of the Ming dynasty elite. A rich and compelling narrative about a remarkable life, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci is also a significant work of global history, juxtaposing the world of Counter-Reformation Europe with that of Ming China.

Author : Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 1985-09-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9780140080988

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The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D. Spence Pdf

From the renowned historian and author of The Death of Woman Wang, a vivid and gripping account of the 16th-century missionary’s remarkable sojourn to Ming China In 1577, the Jesuit Priest Matteo Ricci set out from Italy to bring Christian faith and Western thought to Ming dynasty China. To capture the complex emotional and religious drama of Ricci's extraordinary life, Jonathan Spence relates his subject's experiences with several images that Ricci himself created—four images derived from the events in the Bible and others from a book on the art of memory that Ricci wrote in Chinese and circulated among members of the Ming dynasty elite. A rich and compelling narrative about a fascinating life, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci is also a significant work of global history, juxtaposing the world of Counter-Reformation Europe with that of Ming China.

Author : Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 350 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 1985-01-01
Category : China
ISBN : 0571139590

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The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D. Spence Pdf

Author : Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher : Penguin Books
Page : 372 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 1985-09-03
Category : History
ISBN : 0140080988

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The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by Jonathan D. Spence Pdf

From the renowned historian and author of The Death of Woman Wang, a vivid and gripping account of the 16th-century missionary’s remarkable sojourn to Ming China In 1577, the Jesuit Priest Matteo Ricci set out from Italy to bring Christian faith and Western thought to Ming dynasty China. To capture the complex emotional and religious drama of Ricci's extraordinary life, Jonathan Spence relates his subject's experiences with several images that Ricci himself created—four images derived from the events in the Bible and others from a book on the art of memory that Ricci wrote in Chinese and circulated among members of the Ming dynasty elite. A rich and compelling narrative about a fascinating life, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci is also a significant work of global history, juxtaposing the world of Counter-Reformation Europe with that of Ming China.

Author : Michela Fontana
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2011-05-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9781442205888

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Matteo Ricci by Michela Fontana Pdf

Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), the first of the early Jesuit missionaries of the China mission, is widely considered the most outstanding cultural mediator of all time between China and the West. This engrossing and fluid book offers a thorough, knowledgeable biography of this fascinating and influential man, telling a deeply human and captivating story that still resonates today. Michela Fontana traces Ricci's travels in China in detail, providing a rich portrait of Ming China and the growing importance of cultural exchanges between China and the West. She shows how Ricci incorporated his ideas of "cultural accommodation" into both his life and his writings aimed at the Chinese elite. Her biography is the first to highlight Ricci's immensely important scientific work and that of key Christian converts, such as Xu Guangqi, who translated Euclid's Elements together with Ricci. Exploring the history of science in China and the West as well as their dramatically different cultural attitudes toward religious and philosophical issues, Michela Fontana introduces not only Ricci's life but the first significant encounter between Western and Chinese civilizations.

Author : R. Po-chia Hsia
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2010-10-28
Category : History
ISBN : 9780191625114

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A Jesuit in the Forbidden City by R. Po-chia Hsia Pdf

A 16th century Italian Jesuit, Matteo Ricci was the founder of the Catholic Mission in China and one of the most famous missionaries of all time. A pioneer in bringing Christianity to China, Ricci spent twenty eight years in the country, in which time he crossed the cultural divides between China and the West by immersing himself in the language and culture of his hosts. Even 400 years later, he is still one of the best known westerners in China, celebrated for introducing western scientific and religious ideas to China and for explaining Chinese culture to Europe. The first critical biography of Ricci to use all relevant sources, both Chinese and Western, A Jesuit in the Forbidden City tells the story of a remarkable life that bridged Counter-Reformation Catholic Europe and China under the Ming dynasty. Hsia follows the life of Ricci from his childhood in Macerata, through his education in Rome, to his sojourn in Portuguese India, before the start of his long journey of self-discovery and cultural encounter in the Ming realm. Along the way, we glimpse the workings of the Portuguese maritime empire in Asia, the mission of the Society of Jesus, and life in the European enclave of Macau on the Chinese coast, as well as invaluable sketches of Ricci's fellow Jesuits and portraits of the Chinese mandarins who formed networks indispensible for Ricci's success. Examining a range of new sources, Hsia offers important new insights into Ricci's long period of trial and frustration in Guangdong province, where he first appeared in the persona of a foreign Buddhist monk, before the crucial move to Nanchang in 1595 that led to his sustained intellectual conversation with a leading Confucian scholar and subsequent synthesis of Christianity and Confucianism in propagating the Gospels in China. With his expertise in cartography, mathematics, and astronomy, Ricci quickly won recognition, especially after he had settled in Nanjing in 1598, the southern capital of the Ming dynasty. As his reputation and friendships grew, Ricci launched into a sharp polemic against Buddhism, while his career found its crowning achievement in the imperial capital of Beijing, leaving behind a life, work, and legacy that is still very much alive today.

Author : Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher : Quercus Books
Page : 169 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : China
ISBN : 1847243428

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The Death of Woman Wang by Jonathan D. Spence Pdf

In The Death of Woman Wang the award-winning historian Jonathan Spence paints a vivid picture of an obscure time and place: provincial China in the late 17th century. Drawing on a range of sources, including local Chinese histories, the memoirs of scholars and other contemporary writings, Spence reconstructs an extraordinary tale of rural tragedy in a remote corner of the northeastern Chinese province of Shantung. Life in the county of T'an-ch'eng emerges as an endless cycle of floods, plagues, crop failures, banditry and heavy taxation. Against this turbulent background a tenacious tax collector, an irascible farmer, and an unhappy wife act out a poignant drama at whose climax the wife, having run away from her husband, returns to him, only to die at his hands. The Death of Woman Wang not only magnificently evokes the China of the late Ming period, but also deepens our understanding of the China we know today.

Author : Mary Laven
Publisher : Faber & Faber
Page : 297 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2011-02-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9780571271788

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Mission to China by Mary Laven Pdf

In the sixteenth century, the vast and sophisticated empire of China lay almost entirely unknown to Western travellers. As global trade expanded, this land of reputedly boundless wealth, pale-faced women, and indecipherable tongues began to feed the fantasies of European merchants and adventurers. The Catholic Church, meanwhile, saw in this great people millions of souls who would be damned unless the Christian message could be brought to them. In this book, Mary Laven tells the extraordinary story of the first Jesuit mission to China. Confronting enormous challenges, the Italian priest Matteo Ricci and a tiny handful of learned companions travelled thousands of miles from southern Europe to the very heart of the empire. In 1601, they gained permission from the notoriously xenophobic Wanli emperor to settle in the fabled Forbidden City. Living among eunuchs and mandarins, wearing the clothes and reading the books of Confucian scholars, Ricci and his associates strove to master the language and culture of their hosts. At the same time, they energetically preached the virtues of Western art and science. What were the motives of the carpenters and boatmen, the mothers, fathers and children who burned their idols and were cleansed with the waters of baptism? Mary Laven tries to answer these questions, as she brings this remote world vividly to life.

Author : Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2011-05-04
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 9780307793812

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The Question of Hu by Jonathan D. Spence Pdf

This lively and elegant book by the acclaimed historian Jonathan D. Spence reconstructs an extraordinary episode in the early intercourse between Europe and China. It is the story of John Hu, a lowly but devout Chinese Catholic, who in 1722 accompanied a Jesuit missionary on a journey to France--a journey that ended with Hu's confinement in a lunatic asylum. At once a triumph of historical detective work and a gripping narrative, The Question of Hu deftly probes the collision of tw ocultures, with their different definitions of faith, madness, and moral obligation.

Author : Pei-kai Cheng,Michael Elliot Lestz,Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher : W. W. Norton
Page : 531 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : History
ISBN : 0393973727

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The Search for Modern China by Pei-kai Cheng,Michael Elliot Lestz,Jonathan D. Spence Pdf

This collection of primary source documents--many translated into English for the first time and available only in this book--gather proclamations, treaties, laws, and other public acts with pieces reflecting everyday life, family, social networks, and culture.

Author : R. Po-chia Hsia
Publisher : Hackett Publishing Company
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : Missionaries
ISBN : 1624664334

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Matteo Ricci and the Catholic Mission to China, 1583-1610 by R. Po-chia Hsia Pdf

Portuguese Asia -- Catholic renewal -- Ming China -- Matteo Ricci -- Ricci in our time.

Author : Frances A Yates
Publisher : Random House
Page : 474 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2011-10-31
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781448104130

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The Art of Memory by Frances A Yates Pdf

This unique and brilliant book is a history of human knowledge. Before the invention of printing, a trained memory was of vital importance. Based on a technique of impressing 'places' and 'images' on the mind, the ancient Greeks created an elaborate memory system which in turn was inherited by the Romans and passed into the European tradition, to be revived, in occult form, during the Renaissance. Frances Yates sheds light on Dante’s Divine Comedy, the form of the Shakespearian theatre and the history of ancient architecture; The Art of Memory is an invaluable contribution to aesthetics and psychology, and to the history of philosophy, of science and of literature.

Author : Susana Martinez-Conde,Stephen L. Macknik,Sandra Blakeslee
Publisher : Profile Books
Page : 371 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2011-02-03
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9781847652959

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Sleights of Mind by Susana Martinez-Conde,Stephen L. Macknik,Sandra Blakeslee Pdf

What can magic tell us about ourselves and our daily lives? If you subtly change the subject during an uncomfortable conversation, did you know you're using attentional 'misdirection', a core technique of magic? And if you've ever bought an expensive item you'd sworn never to buy, you were probably unaware that the salesperson was, like an accomplished magician, a master at creating the 'illusion of choice'. Leading neuroscientists Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde meet with magicians from all over the world to explain how the magician's art sheds light on consciousness, memory, attention, and belief. As the founders of the new discipline of NeuroMagic, they combine cutting-edge scientific research with startling insights into the tricks of the magic trade. By understanding how magic manipulates the processes in our brains, we can better understand how we work - in fields from law and education to marketing, health and psychology - for good and for ill.

Author : Graham Best
Publisher : Independently Published
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2019-03-21
Category : Self-Help
ISBN : 1090326300

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Your Complete Guide to Building a Memory Palace by Graham Best Pdf

Do you want to leverage your memory by over 700%? (Yes! Seriously!) See dramatic results in one evening by building a Memory Palace. Start using this powerful memory system immediately. Fun, easy, packed with entertaining activities and illustrations, this is the memory improvement book for you.Everyone can benefit by learning how to build a Memory Palace.Business persons-- gain that competitive edge and unleash confidence with a trained memory.Students-- children and adults! This strategy is fun and can easily be applied to learning history, a language, memorizing technical terminology and much more!Seniors-- protect your brain's power with this simple mind training. You'll see a dramatic short-term memory boost.This book will guide you step-by-step to build your own Memory Palace.

Author : Jonathan D. Spence
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 269 pages
File Size : 40,6 Mb
Release : 2012-07-25
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780307823069

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Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K'ang-Hsi by Jonathan D. Spence Pdf

A remarkable re-creation of the life of K'ang-hsi, emperor of the Manchu dynasty from 1661-1772, assembled from documents that survived his reign. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.