Dalhousie Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Italian Studies and Chinese Studies are pleased to present: The Other World: Matteo Ricci’s China. A lecture given by Francesco D’Arelli, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute of Montreal.
Monday April 3rd 2017, Room 303, Student Union Building, Dalhousie University
Lecture: 3:30pm-5pm
Reception: 5pm-6pm
Film screening: 6pm-8pm Shun Li and the Poet (Io sono Li, 孙丽与诗 人 ), Dir. Andrea Segre, 2011, in Italian and in Mandarin, with English subtitles. A Chinese immigrant (Tao Zhao) and fishermen of Slavic origins (Rade Serbedzija) become friends in an Italian village of fishermen.
Matteo Ricci S.I. (Li Madou, 1552-1610), Jesuit, coming from Macerata in the Marche region, was not the first to arrive to China under the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), but surely he was the first one to go in to, reaching Beijing in 1601. Once arrived in Macao on August 7th 1582, in the course of a few years he learned the Chinese, he dressed up as a Confucian, grew a full beard, and carrying only the extraordinary memory applying astronomy and mathematics exercised at the Roman College, when he set out and traveled toBeijing. Science and ancient wisdom were the tools that accredit in the most cultured circles of China at the time and which he used to try to convert the Chinese.
Francesco D’Arelli, Ph.D. in Asian Studies (Istituto Universitario Orientale, Napoli), he studied at the Sinological Institute of Leiden (The Netherlands) and at the Cattolica University of Lovanio (Belgio). He was professor at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (2001-2011), at the University Of International Studies Of Rome (2011-2016) and at the Pontifical Urban University (2012-2013) and Antonianum (2012-2014). He was director of the Library and the publishing house of the ISIAO, the Italian Institute for Africa e Orient (2002-2011) and he is scientific director of the Order of Friars Minor (Scuola Superiore di Studi Medievali e Francescani). He has published many essays on Christianity in China, the edition of the Lettere di Matteo Ricci (Macerata, 2001) and the recent book Matteo Ricci. L’altro e diverso mondo della Cina (Milano, 2014). Since 2012, he is cultural Attaché for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and in 2016 he became director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Montréal.
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