Authors: Michela Fontana
Despite the diversity of viewpoints, Ricci was convinced that it would be easy to prove the validity of his teachings to the literati. Astonished at the inadequacy of their arguments, which appeared to violate the most elementary rules of dialectics, he was certain of being able to persuade them on the terrain of rationality, where he felt best equipped. In actual fact, what Ricci saw as an incapacity for logical reasoning was rather a way of thinking based on different mental categories and parameters from those to which he was accustomed. The very originality of Chinese culture made communication between the Jesuit and the literati rather like a dialogue of the deaf.
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Despite his optimism, it would be no easy matter to bring Chinese scholars to recognize the supposed superiority of Western philosophy and religion, as he and especially his Jesuit successors in the mission were to learn. When Chinese intellectuals formed a deeper understanding of the Christian religion after Ricci’s death—and of the philosophical, social, and political repercussions that the spread of Catholicism in China would involve—they were able to produce what they saw as valid and perfectly logical arguments against it.
Ricci’s social success grew over time, and with it the number of people eager to make his acquaintance. His understanding in the fields of science, philosophy, and ethics aroused wonder, as did his physical appearance, above all the thick beard reaching “almost down to his belt,” something quite exceptional for the Chinese. The missionary was obliged by etiquette to return every invitation and to attend countless banquets, a way of life that led him to fast by day so as to do justice to the cuisine in the evening. Ricci also endeavored to eat only fish on Friday, but he soon noted that this strange habit gave rise to mockery, whereupon he adopted an alternative diet of vegetables and pulses, which he succeeded in maintaining also when dining out.
After two months of intense social life, he was so tired that he complained to his friend Zhang Doujin. The philosopher suggested a remedy. When yet another visitor turned up at the door, it would be enough to have the servants say that the master was out. The Jesuit replied that he could not do this, as it would be a lie. The philosopher burst into laughter and retorted that the Chinese lied all the time. Ricci then explained that it was considered wrong in his country not to tell the truth, above all for a priest wishing to teach the moral virtues to others. Moreover, he thought it his duty to open the door to whoever came looking for him. The explanation came as a great surprise to Zhang Doujin, who did not regard falsehood as a sin. Ricci was known in the city henceforth as a man who never told lies.
The “Treatise on Friendship,” a Moral Essay in Chinese
Now accepted into the most exclusive circles, Li Madou was a frequent guest at the home of Prince Kang Yi, a palace as sumptuous as the residence of a European prince, with great courtyards and pavilions set in grounds scattered with ponds full of water lilies and lotus flowers, where the prince engaged his guests in conversation.
The Jesuit brought the customary gifts of prisms, terrestrial and celestial globes, sundials, and copies of his map of the world, which had become an effective means of cultural exchange, receiving lengths of silk and silver ingots in exchange. Particular appreciation was shown for an oil painting on copper of Saint Lawrence, which the prince had framed in ebony and jade. He in turn gave Ricci a fan decorated by his own hand. Fans were widely used in China both to combat the heat and as accessories, performing a role comparable to that of gloves in Europe. Rigid or folding, they could be round, square, or oval in shape and were made of a whole range of materials, including bamboo, perfumed sandalwood, ebony, ivory, paper, silk, and thin gauze. Those most in fashion as gifts for important personages were folding fans of dark wood, with white or gilded paper upon which it was customary to write sonnets and greetings or to paint flowers and animals, as the imperial prince had done.
Having come to know Xitai, Prince Kang Yi invited him to move into his palace. Ricci preferred to decline the offer but was very flattered. After twelve years in China, he now felt satisfied with his social standing. As he reported to De Sande, “We are gaining more and more credit and respect among the Chinese.” He explained that securing the consideration of the most important mandarins was “extremely necessary” to the success of the mission, the aim being not “to seek honors” for their own sake but to prepare the terrain for the spreading of the Christian doctrine. “In this land where the law of Our Lord is not known,” he argued in defense of his decision to adopt mandarin dress, “the reputation of that law depends to a certain degree on the credit and reputation of its preachers, for which reason it is necessary that we should adapt externally to the local ways and customs.” He added that there was no danger of his success leading him into the sin of pride, as this would be prevented by the still vivid memories of the suffering, humiliation, disgrace, and persecution endured in Zhaoqing and Shaozhou, a period during which, as he put it, “we were treated and regarded as the scum of the earth.”
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The situation now seemed to have undergone a radical change, and Ricci felt so at ease among the literati of Nanchang and so sure of his mastery of the language that he decided to attempt the writing of a treatise in praise of friendship in Mandarin Chinese. What subject could be more suitable to celebrate the start of a dialogue on an equal footing with the Chinese in the city where he had been received with such a kind welcome? Ricci knew that friendship was considered one of the fundamental relationships for Confucian society and was regarded as equally important by the authors of the Western world, who had sung its praises since antiquity. Inspired by his love for the classics, he set vigorously to work on the
Jiaoyou lun
.
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He dedicated this “Treatise on Friendship” to Prince Kang Yi and made him a gift of the manuscript at the end of 1595.
The introduction employs a typical device of rhetoric to set the scene. Having been welcomed and treated to a sumptuous banquet, Li Madou is asked by the prince to explain what they think of friendship in Europe, a land where—as Ricci puts it, insisting on the concepts to which he attaches such importance—“discourse is based on reason.” In reply, as befits a learned humanist, he offers seventy-six maxims drawn from Greek and Latin authors and fathers of the Church, carefully selected to demonstrate the affinity between the moral principles of the Chinese and European cultures.
The authors included Horace (“My friend is nothing other than half of me, and so I must treat him as I treat myself”); Cicero (“The world without friendship would be like the sky with no sun”); Aristotle (“If there were no friendship in the world, there would be no joy”); Saint Augustine (“He to whom I can show my heart completely becomes my intimate friend”); Martial on the vulnerability of those who open their hearts to feelings (“If I have few friends, I have little joy, but also little sadness”); Erasmus on the need for honesty (“The fulsome praise of friends does me more harm than the undue criticism of enemies”); and Seneca (“If you cannot be a friend to yourself, how can you be a friend to others?”).
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Other maxims reworked by Ricci on the basis of memory invited reflection on affection, fellow feeling, solidarity, loyalty, and understanding. In order to explain that friendship meant the communion of two people in the Chinese culture as well, Ricci pointed out that in ancient Chinese, the character for “friendship” contained the stylized drawing of two hands. Finally, to make his treatise more entertaining, he accompanied some of the Chinese versions with phonetic transcriptions of the original Latin so that the scholars could read them aloud as though in that language.
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Having completed the work, the first written in Chinese by a Westerner, he circulated it in manuscript form among his friends and acquaintances.
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Its success was far beyond Ricci’s most optimistic expectations. It seemed as though everyone in town was dying to read Li Madou’s maxims, and many delighted in quoting them during banquets. Ricci had to draft some copies to keep in his house, as visitors passing through were always begging to read the work and copy out passages. The Jesuit would have been glad to have the treatise printed in order to facilitate its circulation, but he could not obtain the indispensable imprimatur from the ecclesiastical authorities in Goa. He was to encounter the same problem in the years to come every time he wished to publish a moral or scientific work in Chinese, and he complained of this in a letter to Superior General Acquaviva,
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asking to be allowed to dispense with the authorization of inquisitors who were resident in India and were called upon to judge his works without any knowledge of Chinese. This dispensation was never forthcoming.
The problem was solved by the Chinese, who printed and circulated various editions of the treatise without even asking the author’s permission. The work was to retain its popularity in later years, and Ricci prepared a new expanded version that met with the same success.
The Jesuit now felt ready to found a new mission and asked Duarte de Sande to send funds from Macao and brethren to live with him in Nanchang, as Cattaneo had remained in Shaozhou. His requests were granted, and he was joined in December 1595 by the Portuguese Jesuit João Soerio, fourteen years his junior, before whom he solemnly professed the fourth vow,
circa missiones
, in January 1596, a step making him eligible for the highest positions in the Society of Jesus.
In the space of a few months, Ricci managed to buy a house within the walls of the city not too far from the governor’s mansion, and he settled in with Soerio; the Chinese Jesuit Huang Mingsha, christened Francisco Martines, who arrived from Shaozhou; two young probationers from Macao; and five servants.
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An Extraordinary Gift: The “Treatise on Mnemonic Arts”
Even though Ricci encountered a higher level of culture in Nanchang than in the other Chinese cities, rumors spread there too that he was a sort of wizard skilled in alchemy, and he often found himself in the embarrassing position of having to deny any knowledge of secret formulas. Fortunately, he was aided in avoiding questions about the transmutation of base metals by the great interest his other talents aroused in that city full of scholars. One of these was his exceptional memory that helped him not only in the study of Mandarin and the classics of Chinese philosophy but also to recall what he had learned at the Roman College so many years ago. During a meeting with a group of
xiucai
, perhaps prompted by the remarks of these young literati on how hard it was to learn by heart the countless Confucian quotations required in order to pass the examinations, Ricci demonstrated his extraordinary memory by asking one of them to write down a succession of Chinese characters chosen at random. After reading them just once, he was able to repeat them all faultlessly from beginning to end, and he then added to the general amazement by repeating them backward, from end to beginning, with no mistakes and no hesitations.
News of this astonishing feat soon spread through the city, and everyone was convinced that Ricci had some secret, miraculous technique, a “divine rule” of memory, that they all begged him to reveal. The governor Lu Wan’gai asked him to teach it to his sons, who were then studying for the imperial examinations.
A good memory was vital for Chinese scholars and students, who took years as children to learn the elaborate characters of the written language, and then as adults had to memorize thousands and thousands of passages from the Confucian classics for the state examinations. In the West, a good memory was instead regarded as an indispensable tool of rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Orators such as Cicero, who was reportedly able to speak for days in the Senate without once referring to written notes, had to be able to store enormous amounts of data and concepts in their mind for use in their disquisitions.
Ricci had an extraordinary memory. As he stated in a letter to Girolamo Costa dated October 28, 1595, he was able to remember as many as five hundred Chinese characters after reading them through just once.
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He was, however, also able to draw on the mnemonic techniques devised by the ancient Greeks, which had been revived in the Middle Ages and had become extremely popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
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According to a legend recounted by Cicero in his
De Oratore
(“On the Orator”), their invention dated back to the Greek poet Simonides, who lived in the fifth century
bc
.
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Tradition has it that the noble Scopas commissioned Simonides to recite a poem in his honor at a banquet in Thessaly but took offense because the poet introduced the exploits of Castor and Pollux into the composition. He refused to pay more than half the agreed sum and said that the Dioscuri would doubtless come up with the rest. Shortly after this unpleasant incident, the poet was told by a servant that two young men were asking for him at the door. He went outside but found nobody there. In the meantime, however, the roof of the banqueting hall collapsed, killing Scopas and all of the guests. Needless to say, it was Castor and Pollux that saved Simonides as a reward for honoring them.
According to the legend, the corpses were mangled beyond recognition, but Simonides was able to help the families find the remains of their dear ones by remembering the exact places in which the guests had been seated. The idea of developing a mnemonic technique arose out of this episode. It involved arranging the objects in question in a precise order and associating them with specific places so as to harness the resources of visual memory.
Ricci knew the treatises on mnemonic techniques by Cicero and other Latin and Greek authors, and he had himself written a short work as a student on the method of “loci,” or places, which he decided to revise and translate into Chinese in response to the pressing requests. The
Xiguo jifa
, or “Treatise on Mnemonic Arts,” opened with the legend of Simonides and Scopas and then went on to provide a concrete example of how to apply the method.