It seems quite important to me to introduce a short unit about the activities carried out buy the Catholic Church especially by the Company of Jesus as they were intended to create an interchange over cultural grounds between European civilization and China without expansion projects.
Father Matteo Ricci; he was a man of the greatest finest and most sophisticated cultural level, ingenious, capable, committed and resilient, he set forth that path, often difficult, that brought him to Beijing on the 24th of January, 1601, right into the Forbidden City, reaching what had been impossible to any other European before him.
Portrait of Father Matteo Ricci by Emanuele
Yu Wen Hui (called Pereira) 1610, a deposited
in the Jesus Church in Rome. (inv n.68)
Excerpt of an Imperial Document, dating 1716, three idioms: Chinese, Manchoo, Latin, showing authentic signatures among these the authentic signature by Father Kilianus Stumpf, Beijing Imperial Palace Glass Processing Workshop Manager. (This documents is not pertinent, but shows autograph signatures by two very famous Jesuit priests, chronicles writers: Father Maurizio Ripa, and Father Giuseppe Castiglione)