The interweaving of rituals : funerals in the cultural exchange between China and Europe /
Author / Creator: | |
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Format: | Book |
Language: | English |
Imprint: | Seattle : University of Washington Press, [2008] |
Subjects: |
Summary: | The death of the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci in China in 1610 was the occasion for demonstrations of European rituals appropriate for a Catholic priest and also of Chinese rituals appropriate to the country hosting the Jesuit community. Rather than burying Ricci immediately in a plain coffin near the church, according to their European practice, the Jesuits followed Chinese custom and kept Ricci's body for nearly a year in an air-tight Chinese-style coffin and asked the emperor for burial ground outside the city walls. Moreover, at Ricci's funeral itself, on their own initiative the Chinese performed their funerary rituals, thus starting a long and complex cultural dialogue in which they took the lead during the next century. |
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Item Description: | "A China program book." |
Physical Description: | viii, 328 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm |
Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 291-314) and index. |
ISBN: | 029598810X 9780295988108 0295988231 9780295988238 |
Author Notes: | Nicolas Standaert is professor of Sinology at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He is the author of Yang Tingyun, Confucian and Christian in Late Ming China: His Life and Thought and editor of Handbook of Christianity in China: Volume 1, 635-1800. |