Álvaro Semedo
Álvaro Semedo (* 1585 in Nisa , Portugal ; † July 18, 1658 in Guangzhou ) was a Portuguese Jesuit missionary in China and author of a book about China (1641). His Chinese name was initially Xie Wulu , from 1621 Zeng Dezhao .
Life
Semedo was a novice in the Jesuit order from 1602 and was sent by the order to China via Goa in 1608 . From 1610 he was in the Portuguese ruled Macau and from 1613 in the actual China in Nanjing . When the Christians were attacked in Nanjing in 1616, he was temporarily imprisoned and sent back to the Portuguese enclave of Macau, where he remained until 1621. After the anti-Christian campaigns in China subsided, he went back there and lived mainly in the central and southern provinces. In 1625 he was the first European to see the Nestorian stele in Xi'an (earliest evidence of Christianity in China) and reported on it in Europe.
In 1636 he became the Order's procurator for the China Mission and left Macau in 1637 to solicit support for the Mission in China in Europe. In 1640 he arrived in Lisbon and in 1644 he again left Rome for China. During this time he published a Portuguese book on China in 1641, which became very influential in the image of China in Europe. An English translation appeared in 1655, a French translation in 1667, and a Spanish (1642) and Italian (1643) translation.
After his return to China he was Vice Provincial of the Order in Guangzhou (Canton). In China, the Qing dynasty of the Manchu conquerors had replaced the Ming dynasty in 1644, but Semedo held on to remaining followers of the Ming dynasty in southern China for some time, while the majority of the Jesuits had already declared their loyalty to the new dynasty. When Guangzhou was conquered by the Manchus, Semedo was imprisoned for some time, but was released again through the intercession of other Jesuits ( Adam Schall von Bell ).
Fonts
- Imperio de la China. I cultura evangelica en èl, por los religios de la Compañia de Iesus, Madrid 1642 (Spanish edition, originally Portuguese in 1641) Online
- English edition: History of the Great and Renowned Monarchy of China, 1655, Archives
literature
- David E. Mungello: Curious Land. Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology, Steiner Verlag, Studia Leibnitiana, Supplementa 25, 1985, University of Hawaii Press 1989
- L. Carrington Goodrich, Chao-Ying Fang (Ed.): Dictionary of Ming Biography, 2 volumes, New York / London: Columbia University Press 1976.
Web links
References and comments
- ^ Imperio de la China, Boston College ( Memento from August 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Semedo, Álvaro |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Wulu, Xie; Dezhao, Zeng |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Portuguese Jesuit missionary in China |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1585 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nisa , Portugal |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 18, 1658 |
| Place of death | Guangzhou |