Giulio Alenio


Giulio Aleni, in Chinese, was an Italian Jesuit missionary and scholar. He was born in Leno near Brescia in Italy, at the time part of the Republic of Venice, and died at Yanping in China. He became a member of the Society of Jesus in 1600 and distinguished himself in his knowledge of mathematics and theology.

Life

In 1610, he was sent as a missionary to China. While waiting at Macau for a favorable opportunity to enter the country he taught mathematics to local scholars and published his "Observation sur l'éclipse de lune du 8 Novembre 1612, faite a Macao"
He adopted the dress and manners of the country, was the first Christian missionary in Jiangxi, and built several churches in Fujian. One of his converts, a scholar name Li Jiubiao, recorded Aleni's and Andrius Rudamina's, one of his fellow Jesuits, responses to the questions and speculations of his parishioners and compiled them into a journal.

Works

He published works in Chinese on a variety of topics. His cosmography, , was translated into Manchu during the reign of Kang-he as Wylie: Tumen chakai unengki sekiyen, Möllendorff: Tumen jakai unengki sekiyen. A copy was sent from Beijing to Paris in 1789. He completed the work of earlier Jesuit scholars to produce the Zhifang waiji, China's first global geography. Among his most important religious works are a controversial treatise on the Catholic Faith, in which are refuted what he saw as the principal errors of the Chinese; and The Life of God, the Saviour, from the Four Gospels and used even by Protestant missionaries.

Legacy

The life and works of Giulio Aleni are the subject of several conferences in 1994 and 2010. Two of his books, Life of Matteo Ricci, Xitai of the West and Holy images of the Heavenly Lord have been presented to the public by Fondazione Civiltà Bresciana in two separate occasions, on 13 and 25 October 2010.

Citations