Matteo Ricci and the Ming Dynasty

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life of Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit priest who in the 16th century led a Christian mission to China. An accomplished scholar, Ricci travelled extensively and came into contact with senior officials of the Ming Dynasty administration. His story is one of the most important encounters between Renaissance Europe and a China which was still virtually closed to outsiders.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Mary Laven No other episodes
  Reader in Early Modern History at the University of Cambridge
• Craig Clunas 5 episodes
  Professor of the History of Art at the University of Oxford
• Anne Gerritsen 2 episodes
  Reader in History at the University of Warwick

Reading list

• Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579-1724
  Liam Matthew Brockey (Harvard University Press, 2007) Google Books →
• South China in the Sixteenth Century
  C. R. Boxer (ed.) (Orchid Press, 2006) Google Books →
• Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World
  Timothy Brook (Profile Books, 2008) Google Books →
• Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China
  Timothy Brook (University of California Press, 1998) Google Books →
• Empire of Great Brightness: Visual and Material Cultures of Ming China 1368-1644
  Craig Clunas (Reaktion Books, 2007) Google Books →
• Encounters: The Meeting of Asia and Europe, 1500-1800
  Amin Jaffer and Anna Jackson (eds) (V&A Publications, 2004) Google Books →
• Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Encounter with the East
  Mary Laven (Faber & Faber, 2011) Google Books →
• The First Jesuits
  John W. O'Malley (Harvard University Press, 1995) Google Books →
• A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552-1610
  R. Po-chia Hsia (Oxford University Press, 2010) Google Books →
• The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci
  Jonathan D. Spence (Faber & Faber, 1985) Google Books →
• China and Maritime Europe, 1500-1800: Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, and Missions
  John E. Wills Jr (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2010) Google Books →

Related episodes

• Journey to the West
  
  20 May, 2021 890 Other literatures
• Marco Polo
  
  24 May, 2012 910 Geography and travel
• Li Shizhen
  
  28 Nov, 2019 610 Medicine and health
• The Taiping Rebellion
  
  24 Feb, 2011 950 History of Asia
• The Ming Voyages
  
  13 Oct, 2011 950 History of Asia
• Al-Ghazali
  
  19 Mar, 2015 210 Philosophy and theory of religion
• The Jesuits
  
  18 Jan, 2007 270 History of Christianity
• The Borgias
  
  22 Nov, 2012 940 History of Europe
• Alcuin
  
  30 Jan, 2020 270 History of Christianity
• Gerald of Wales
  
  4 Oct, 2012 940 History of Europe
• Justinian’s Legal Code
  
  17 Nov, 2016 340 Law
• The 12th Century Renaissance
  
  20 Oct, 2016 900 History
• The Medici
  
  26 Dec, 2013 940 History of Europe
• Maimonides
  
  17 Feb, 2011 100 Philosophy
• Renaissance Magic
  
  17 Jun, 2004 130 Parapsychology and occultism
• Rudolph II
  
  31 Jan, 2008 940 History of Europe
• The Shimabara Rebellion
  
  11 May, 2023 950 History of Asia
• The Long March
  
  29 Nov, 2018 950 History of Asia
• Montaigne
  
  25 Apr, 2013 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism
• Hildegard of Bingen
  
  26 Jun, 2014 780 Music

---

Programme ID: b05qjq67

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05qjq67

Auto-category: 951 (China)