This year we observe the 400th anniversary of the death of Matteo Ricci SJ, the extraordinary Jesuit missionary to China who died on May 11, 1610.  His inspiration to many, over the past 400 years, as a missionary was due to his personal qualities, his complete adaptation to Chinese customs and to his authoritative knowledge of the sciences.  Not only was Matteo Ricci willing to go to China to preach the Gospel of Christ, but he was willing to be transformed by the people he befriended there.  Ricci learnt Chinese, assumed the status and dress of a mandarin, studied their thinkers, and wrote books which greatly impressed the literati, who called him ‘the wise man from the west’.  As a Jesuit missionary, Ricci began an unequalled synthesis of Christianity and Chinese culture.  Probably no European name of past centuries is so well known in China as that of Li-ma-teu (Matteo Ricci).

The education pack available here brings alive the memory of Matteo Ricci for a new generation with special reference to his journeys, his missionary activity and his immersion into Chinese life and culture.