Michele Ruggieri

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Michele Ruggieri SJ ( Chinese  羅明堅 , Pinyin Luó Míngjiān ; * 1543 in Spinazzola ; † May 11, 1607 in Salerno ) was an Italian priest , one of the founding fathers of the Jesuit mission to China and the co-author of the first Portuguese- Chinese dictionary. This makes him one of the first European sinologists .

Youth and education

Pompilio Ruggieri was born in Spinazzola, Apulia , in 1543 and acquired a doctorate in “both rights” (in utroque iure) in Naples, i.e. in canonical and civil law , and was then employed by Philip II of Sicily and Naples in his administration. On October 27, 1572 he entered the Society of Jesus in Rome and took the religious name Michele. After his spiritual training, Ruggieri signed up for the mission in Asia and went first to Lisbon , where he was ordained a priest in March 1578 while he was waiting for a ship to take him to Goa .

Missionary in India and China

A manuscript page of the Portuguese-Chinese dictionary by Ruggieri, Ricci & Fernandez, c. 1583–88.

Ruggieri left Europe with Rudolph Acquaviva , Matteo Ricci and others. He reached Portuguese India in September 1578 and immediately began studying the languages ​​of the Malabar Coast . After only 6 months he was ready to take confession . It was this talent for languages ​​that made him an ideal collaborator for the Jesuit China Mission.

Ruggieri was sent to Macau to learn Chinese and study the customs. He arrived there on July 20, 1579. He began studying again immediately. During this time he also founded the Shengma'erding Jingyuan ("St. Martin House"), the first school for teaching Chinese to foreigners. He was aware that he would only be the first in a series of many who would come after him.

Ruggieri's and Ricci's goal was to settle somewhere in the “real” China, not just Macau. To prepare for relocation, Ruggieri made a series of trips to Canton (Guangzhou) and Zhaoqing (the then residence of the Governor General of Guangdong and Guangxi ). In doing so, he made useful contacts with the authorities. So he was also one of the first Christian missionaries to penetrate the interior of China in the Ming Dynasty . After several unsuccessful attempts to obtain permission for a permanent mission to China, he was finally granted permission in 1582 and in 1583 Ricci and Ruggieri moved to Zhaoqing. This marked the first stage of the Jesuits' “long ascent” to Beijing .

In 1584 Ruggieri published the first Chinese catechism. From Zhaoqing he visited villages in the region and baptized several families that became the core of the first Christian communities in the region.

Probably between 1583 and 1588, Ruggieri worked with Matteo Ricci on the Portuguese-Chinese dictionary , the first dictionary of a European language and Chinese. To do this, they also developed a transcription system to represent the Chinese characters with Latin letters. She was assisted in this work by a Chinese Jesuit lay brother, Sebastiano Fernandez , who had been raised and trained in Macau. Unfortunately, the manuscript was moved to the archives of the Jesuits in Rome and was not rediscovered until 1934 by Pasquale d'Elia SJ (1890–1963). It was published in 2001. Ruggieri is also credited with the first collection of handwritten maps of China translated into Latin from Chinese sources. These maps date from around 1606 and are almost fifty years older than the manuscript maps by Michael Boym and the Novus Atlas Sinensis by Martino Martini . The manuscript is now in the State Archives in Rome under the number ms. 493 .

Return to Europe

In November 1588, Ruggieri returned to Rome from China to ask the Pope to send a diplomatic mission to Emperor Wanli . The Jesuits had come up with this plan to come to the imperial court in Beijing. However, Ruggieri was unsuccessful: the popes died one after another, his own health failed and finally the exhausted Jesuit withdrew to Salerno.

In Salerno he continued his work to spread knowledge about China in Europe. There he completed his Latin translation of the Four Books of Confucian Philosophy , wrote poems in Chinese and distributed copies of the cards he had brought back from Zhaoqing. In the school of Salerno he was heavily used as a confessor and spiritual guide. He died on May 11, 1607.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d biography ( memento of the original from September 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the Ricci 21st Century Roundtable database . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / ricci.rt.usfca.edu
  2. ↑ a b c Michele Ruggieri , Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bdcconline.net
  3. ↑ Heming Yong, Jing Peng: Chinese Lexicography: A History from 1046 BC to AD 1911: A History from 1046 BC to AD 1911 . OUP Oxford, August 14, 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-156167-2 , pp. 385-.
  4. ↑ Yves Camus, “Jesuits' Journeys in Chinese Studies” ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.riccimac.org
  5. ↑ "Dictionnaire Português-Chinês: Pu Han ci dian: Portuguese-Chinese dictionary", by Michele Ruggieri, Matteo Ricci; edited by John W. Witek. Published 2001, Biblioteca Nacional. ISBN 972-565-298-3 .
  6. ^ Matteo Ricci, Nicolas Trigault : De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu , vol. 2, chap. 12, “Father Ruggieri goes to Rome to arrange for an embassy from the Pope ...”, pp. 193f in English translation: Louis J. Gallagher (1953). China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matteo Ricci: 1583-1610 , Random House, New York, 1953.

Works

  • Atlante della Cina di Michele Ruggieri SI facsimile. Edited by Eugenio Lo Sardo. Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Rome 1993, ISBN 88-240-0380-X .
  • La filosofía Moral de Confucio . Edited by Thierry Meynard and Roberto Villasante SJ .. Mensajero & Sal Terrae & Universidad Pontificia de Comillas, GC Loyola, Madrid 2018.

literature

  • George H. Dunne: The great example. The China Mission d. Jesuits . Schwabenverlag, Stuttgart 1965 (American English: Generation of giants . 1962. Translated by Margarethe Diemer).
  • Francesco Antonio Gisondi: Michele Ruggeri SJ. Missionary in Cina, primo sinologo europeo e poeta “cinese” . Jaca Book, Milan, 1999.
  • Joseph Shih: Le Père Ruggieri et leproblemème de l'évangélisation en Chine . Pontifica Universitas Gregoriana, Rome 1964.

See also

Web links

Commons : Michele Ruggieri  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Ruggieri, Michele
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ruggieri, Pompilio; Ruggiero, Michele; Ruggeri, Pompilo; Rogerio, Michaele; Roggieri, Michele; 羅明堅 (Chinese); Luó Míngjiān (pinyin)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian missionary
DATE OF BIRTH 1543
PLACE OF BIRTH Spinazzola
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 1607
Place of death Salerno