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How China cast its light on the west

By Zhao Xu | China Daily | Updated: 2018-02-24 07:51

Reports about China that Jesuit missionaries sent home had a profound influence in court and intellectual circles of Europe

In 1658 Martino Martini, an Italian Jesuit missionary who had spent time in China, published in Munich one of his four influential books about the country. Sinicae Historiae Decas Prima tells the history of China starting from antiquity and ending at 1BC, a year that falls under the reign of Emperor Aidi of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 24).

Trying to incorporate Chinese history into the system and chronology of European history telling, Martini, who was preoccupied with converting people, failed to gauge the impact his works would have on intellectuals in the West.

How China cast its light on the west

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