The Memory Palace Of Matteo Ricci

A key theme woven throughout Spence’s book is the contested state of faith. In China, Ricci attempted to convert Confucians, Buddhists, and Taoists. Meanwhile, in Europe, the Catholic church faced the Counter-Reformation. In Chapter 4 Ricci documents the challenges facing the church and the various strategies employed in evangelizing and spreading the Christian faith. The Jesuits were known as soldiers of God and famed for their far-reaching and committed approach to missionary work. However, Jesuits in Goa focused more on indigenous Christians—known as St. Thomas Christians or Malabar Christians—rather than Muslims or Jews. They were converted by St. Thomas, who traveled through Asia Minor and the West Coast of India before being martyred in Madras. Although they were practicing Christians, their beliefs were different from orthodox Catholic doctrine. For example, they believed that Mary was the mother of Christ rather than mother of God, which was considered heretical. As this example highlights, the issue was not simply converting people to Catholicism but also ensuring that converts followed the correct Christian doctrine.

Spence also spends considerable time describing the situation faced by Jews in Europe. They were prominent in Roman commercial culture in both the garment trade and banking. Because the church forbade loaning money for interest, Jewish people ran banking and loan industries. In this period it was commonly—and negatively—referred to as usury. Jewish people faced discrimination, documented in the creation of a Jewish ghetto in Rome. The Inquisition was the most extreme form of discrimination. In Goa, the Inquisition was formerly initiated in 1560, but victims of the Inquisition were murdered as early as 1543 for the crime of secretly practicing Jewish ceremonies. Christians who were considered heretical—the aforementioned Malabar Christians—were also subject to examination by the Inquisition in Goa, which Rici disagreed with. Jewish people who converted to Christianity were still subject to the Inquisition, which sought to punish converts who remained secretly Jewish. A dozen Jewish people were burned at the stake in Ancona, a city where Jewish people had been promised refuge by the papacy. Spence draws a parallel between Ricci’s misunderstanding of the multiple faiths he encountered in China—including Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism—and the Chinese concept of huihui, which for Ricci flattened the considerable differences between the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths that animated conflict in Europe. Ricci also discovered a strong Islamic faith in China, as well as several Jews.

The question of cultural translation is introduced as a key concern. In China, for example, Ricci shaved his head and beard and wore the robes of a Buddhist monk. In doing so, he adapted his dress to conform to conceptions of how holy men looked in China. He wrote to his school friend Fuligatti in November 1585 about the little group of Westerners gathered in Zhaoqing: “Would that you could see me as I am now: I have become a Chinaman. In our clothing, in our looks, in our manners and in everything external we have made ourselves Chinese” (114).

Ricci saw parallels between Catholic and Buddhist modes of appearance, such as robes for priests, chanting, the vows of celibacy and poverty, and the sacredness of the temple or church. However, after several years, Ricci learned that he had developed the wrong external image, as Buddhist clergy had low social status. Mimicking common Buddhist modes of presentation did not bring prestige. Once he realized this, Ricci grew his hair and beard and wore a fine purple silk robe with silk shoes covered in embroidery. Spence documents Ricci slowly gaining awareness of the complexities of Chinese society and the intricacies of faith and how that influenced his attempts at conversion.

Ricci’s success in learning Chinese was the result of his skill in combining two mnemonic techniques: vivid visual cues and lengthy sequences. He quickly picked up the language, focusing on the formation of individual ideographs. Ideographs lent themselves well to memory images, and sentences could be memorized as a succession of images. Chinese was well suited to Ricci’s method because “their words have no articles, no cases, no number, no gender, no tense, no mood; they just solve their problems with certain adverbial forms which can be explained very easily” (137). Not all languages were as adaptable to Ricci’s method. For example, he struggled to learn Greek, as the sentences had to be memorized more precisely and images were less effective in conveying meaning. After 12 years, Ricci was proficient enough in Chinese to explain these methods in the Chinese language.

The spread of knowledge and intellectual exchange was important to the Jesuit faith and training. The Jesuits published their first major book in 1559, an expurgated version of Martials Epigrams. This was typical of Jesuit publishing, which produced editions of great works that removed any offensive material. The desire to publish work that promoted moral lessons without offending the innocence of youth was key to the Jesuit mission. They also produced cheap editions of classic texts for poor students. While Ricci was a student in Rome, he had access to books and learned to memorize, which was a key tenant of Jesuit education. Ricci made use of this intellectual heritage while in China.

Spence highlights several examples where the reality of Jesuit life was different than Jesuit teachings. The most extreme example was the Jesuits’ reliance on trade to fund their missions in China and Japan, which had unexpected repercussions. For example, because of Ricci’s unstable financial situation, moving between being near bankruptcy and donations of silver bullion, there were rumors that Ricci was an alchemist. The silver came from trade in Macao, but he fueled these rumors because there was a perception in China that Jesuits were not supposed to rely on trade. Ricci’s fame as an alchemist was hard to dispel. In another example, music was discouraged in Jesuit services, but Ricci wrote a cycle of eight songs that were popular among the Chinese scholarly class.