Transforming the East researches Jesuit readings of the Chinese classics and their dissemination in Early Modern and Enlightenment Europe (ca. 1590-1773). The project connects scholars at the University of Sydney and Sun Yat-sen University interested in the ways in which Jesuit missionaries to China translated a number of the Confucian Classics into Latin and other European languages. It aims to analyse early Western attempts to understand Chinese literature and philosophy and to document which texts were translated and how they spread to Europe.
By mapping Europe’s first encounter with Chinese thought, this website contributes to the history of Sino-European intellectual encounters and to the philological analysis of Jesuit translations.
Images in carousel:
- 坤舆万国全图. 1602 World map Kunyu Wanguo Quantu by Matteo Ricci
- Confucius sinarum philosophus, first page. From the University of Sydney Library copy, printed in Paris in 1687 held in the Rare Books & Special Collections section (shelf mark: General RB 3687.1)
- Portrait of Zhu Xi (朱熹), from Letter to the Commandery Administrator Huizhi. National Palace Museum, open data
- Confucius sinarum philosophus, front page. From the University of Sydney Library copy, printed in Paris in 1687 held in the Rare Books & Special Collections section (shelf mark: General RB 3687.1).