Not available

Abstract

This article develops the twofold aspect of Jesuit presence in China in the XVIth Centuries. as transmitters of Western science to China, as well as transmitters of Chinese science to Europe. The study is restricted to documents written in Latin during the XVIIth Century, because that Century, which begins with the arrival of Matheus Ricci to the Imperial City of Peking, was the real start of the Chinese mission in its 'classic' period, and because Jesuit books on science in China not written in Latin are exceptional. The article surveys a number of works on astronomy, mathematics, mechanics, Chinese geog­ graphy, natural history, and medicine, which merit the name of 'books', and la ter addres­ ses the documentary mass of letters and other unpublished materials sent to Europe by the Jesuit missionaries. Through those documents, XVIIth- Century Jesuits are revealed as competent observers, susceptible to new information, and well documented in high­ quality Chinese sources. Those documents laid the foundations of Western sinology.