Frustrated at the Door: Alessandro Valignano Evaluates the Jesuits' China Mission (1588)

Abstract

Jesuits were famous for being the first Europeans to enter China in the modern period. But before Matteo Ricci charmed his way to Beijing, the challenge seemed impossible. This report on the status of the Jesuits’ China enterprise after its first six years considers the problems that the missionaries faced in Guangdong Province, their first stop inside the Ming Empire. Alessandro Valignano, inspector of the Asian missions, wrote it for his superiors in Rome with the intention of describing a path to success in the Ming empire. This report by Valignano on the China mission stands in contrast to later Jesuit writings about the Ming Empire, situating the Jesuits within a political and cultural framework where, as they thought at that moment, they had little hope for advancing their mission.

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• people Alessandro Valignano

Provenance

• openalex (W4400513826)
  2026-04-30T19:57:06.011064+00:00

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