RCCHC "China and the World: Historical Interactions" Talk Series #22 – Liceat nostris artes coniungere vestras. The Joining of Chinese and Western Culture in the Writing and Teaching of the Jesuits in China and Japan (late 16th and early 17th Century)
RCCHC
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Date
24 Oct 2025
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Organiser
RCCHC
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Time
16:30 - 18:00
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Venue
P309 Map
Speaker
Prof. Charles Burnett
Summary
These are the words put into the mouth of Michele Ruggieri (羅明堅), the first Superior of the Jesuit Mission in the Far East (1543-1607), stating that ‘a great desire has led me through a thousand dangers to these fortunate shores, so that your arts can join ours, and whatever Muses Latium cultivates can be woven into yours’. This lecture explores the extent to which Western norms and ways of thinking mingled with traditional values in the first Jesuit missions in China and Japan, as manifested in the texts, images and music that were produced in the late 16th and early 17th century.
Keynote Speaker
Prof. Charles Burnett
Prof. Charles Burnett is Professor Emeritus of the History of Islamic Influences in Europe at the Warburg Institute, University of London, fellow of the British Academy, fellow of the International Society for the History of Science, and fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. His life work has been to document the passage of Arabic science and philosophy to the Latin West through studying and editing (in Arabic and Latin) key works translated from Arabic into Latin, documenting the activity of the translators and the contexts in which they worked, and showing how the translated works were assimilated into the schools and universities of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. His other interests have been in humanism (the role of Latin) in the Christian missions to the Far East and in the history of music.
