Product Description

In 1577, a Jesuit priest named Matteo Ricci set out from Italy on a long journey to bring the Christian faith and Western thought to Ming dynasty China. He spent time in India and Macao before entering China in 1583 to undertake mission work. Travelling widely, Ricci learned local languages, mastered Chinese classical script, drew the first-ever map of the world in Chinese and acquired a rich appreciation of the indigenous culture of his hosts. In 1596, Ricci wrote a short book in Chinese on the art of memory for the governor of Jiangxi province, who was preparing his three sons for China's demanding civil service examinations.In it, he described a 'memory palace' in which to hold knowledge such as might help the three brothers and their peers in the Ming social elite to pass their exams with flying colours. Ricci must have hoped that, in gratitude to him for instructing them in mnemonic skills, they would use their newly won prestige to further the cause of the Catholic Church in China. To capture the complex emotional and religious drama of Ricci's life, author Jonathan Spence relates the missionary's experiences via a series of images. Four of these images derive from events described in the Bible, the others from Ricci's book on the art of memory that was circulated among members of the Ming dynasty elite. A rich and compelling narrative about a remarkable life, "The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci" is also a significant work of global history, juxtaposing the world of Counter-Reformation Europe with that of Ming China.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43605 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Review
An extraordinarily delicate achievement - The New York Times Book Review

From the Back Cover
"An extraordinary tour de force, a work of literature and at the same time a remarkable wide-ranging use of historical sources" John King Fairbank, Harvard University
In 1577 an Italian Jesuit priest named Matteo Ricci set out from Italy on a long journey to bring the Christian faith to Ming dynasty China. Travelling widely, Ricci learned local languages, mastered Chinese script, and acquired a rich appreciation of the indigenous culture of his hosts. In 1596 he wrote a short book on the art of memory for the governor of Jiangxi province, who was preparing his sons for China's demanding civil service examinations. Ricci's Treatise on Mnemonic Arts, with its striking metaphor of a "memory palace" for the storing of knowledge, was widely circulated among members of the Ming dynasty elite.
To capture the complex emotional and religious drama of Ricci's life, Jonathan Spence relates the missionary's experiences via a series of images. Four of these images derive from events described in the Bible, the others from his Treatise on Mnemonic Arts.
A rich and compelling narrative of a remarkable life, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci is also a significant work of global history, juxtaposing the world of Counter-Reformation Europe with that of Ming china.

About the Author
Jonathan Spence is the author of more than a dozen books on China, including the Gate of Heavenly Peace, The Search for Modern China, Mao Zedong and God's Chinese Son. A Sterling Professor of History at Yale, he is a past president of the American Historical Association and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Westhaven, Connecticut.

Customer Reviews

Incredible insights into the art of memory.
This book is worth reading for the account of Ricci's memory system alone. The way the Jesuits used the power of the sensory imagination to remember texts or chinese characters is inspirational. Spence explains the secrets of creating such a system, though this ain't no self-help book. But more interesting still was the way that Ricci used his imaginative interpretations of chinese pictograms to convey Christian images and ideas to the Chinese; and the way that he performed memory feats to impress and gain access to high chinese circles for his work.

Graceful, dazzling multicultural history
Jonathan Spence's approach here is so effortlessly engaging, so like a work of historically informed fiction, that you can easily lose sight of just how responsible and convincing it is at the same time. Framing the book with Ricci's own mnemonic imagery gives Spence a complex but perfectly coherent lens through which to write. Spence deftly allows Ricci's own images to define the scope of the narrative as well, so he isn't burdened with scholarly asides attempting to fill in the gaps with a general history.

This is a book of simple genius. I've reviewed several books on Amazon, and never given a five star rating before. This wonderful book rates a five.

Disappointing
The title is misleading, and the blurb doesn't provide much accurate information either. This book is neither a treatise on the ancient and medieval systems of memory, nor a biography, but a meandering series of snapshots of Matteo Ricci, whose life in China at the end of the 16th century was fascinating (or might have been in the hands of a different author). The extracts from his letters are vivid and exciting and provide flashes of insight into Chinese customs and the perils of travel by land and sea, but Spence's own writing is loosely organised and somewhat tedious.