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This book is the first scholarly study of the famous Jesuit Chinese children’s primer, the Four Character Classic, written by Giulio Aleni (1582–1649) while living in Fujian, China. This book also includes masterful translations of both Wang Yinglin’s (1551–1602) hallowed Confucian Three Character Classic and Aleni’s Chinese catechism that was published during the Qing (1644–1911). Clark’s careful reading of the Four Character Classic provides new insights into an area of the Jesuit mission in early modern China that has so far been given little attention, the education of children. This book underscores how Aleni’s published work functions as a good example of the Jesuit use of normative Chinese print culture to serve the catechetical exigencies of the Catholic mission in East Asia, particularly his meticulous imitation of Confucian children’s primers to promote decidedly Christian content.

The experience of Prospero Intorcetta, SJ (1625-96), in the biennium 1671-72, after having been appointed in Canton as Sinicae missionis procurator in 1666, then sent for a crucial mission to Rome, stands in the middle of his biography, just divided into a first decade in Asia, from 1659 to 1669, and the second part of his apostolate in China covering over twenty years, from his return in 1674 until his death in Hangzhou. 1 The specific case I am focusing on here can be of interest with regard to sources of the Jesuit correspondence from China, involving both the Jesuits engaged in Peking or Canton and the European readers variously interested in learning about the Chinese world and grasping at recent news on the progress of evangelization in China

This archival document comprises a multi-page administrative dossier from the Portuguese colonial administration in Macau, dated between 1823 and 1827, with the principal communication dated 27 April 1827. It consists of official correspondence, memoranda, petitions, and marginalia addressed to senior colonial authorities—including the Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Lord (a high-ranking official in Lisbon), the Bishop of Macau (Miguel d’Arriaga Borba da Silveira), and the Governor and Captain-General of Macau—concerning the contested regulation and fiscal management of the *anfiao* (opium) trade. Key figures include Luís Chacim (arrived in Macau aboard the vessel *Porto*), L.M.P.S.D.H. (Luís Maria Pereira da Silva e D’Oliveira Horta), António Vicente Mendes, Jorge Moura/Sousa Pacheco, and Dom Man-hi, alongside references to Chinese mandarins—including the Boat Mandarin—and Portuguese military and ecclesiastical officials such as Field Marshal António Barrio and Marshal of the Field (brevet rank) Castro Caldeira e Albuquerque. The dossier documents disputes over jurisdiction between Macau’s Municipal Senate (reconstituted in 1822), the Bishop-Governor, royal officials, and Qing imperial authorities, particularly concerning revenue loss following the shift of *anfiao* fairs to Lantau Island after c. 1820, administrative dereliction, and efforts to restore trade under Portuguese oversight. It further records appeals for royal intervention, procedural deliberations by the Secretaria de Estado dos Negócios Ultramarinos and the Overseas Council, and formal submissions to the Infanta Regent at Ajuda Palace. The material originates from the Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU) and related Portuguese national archives, bearing archival references including M2687 and its variants.

This 1826 administrative document, originating from the Royal College of St Joseph in Macao, China, comprises a formal submission by its Superior, Joaquim José Monteiro Torres, addressed to a high-ranking colonial or ecclesiastical official. The letter transmits an enclosed petition concerning the welfare of missionary activities under the Royal Patronage of the Portuguese Crown, requesting its forwarding to the "Royal Presence" of the August Lord D.º G.º. Signed by both Monteiro Torres and Nuciao Rodrigues Osório de Borja, the document reflects institutional efforts to coordinate ecclesiastical affairs within the Portuguese imperial framework in Asia. Endorsed with marginal annotations indicating administrative routing—specifically instructions to communicate the matter to the Bishop of Macao on 2 April 1827, preceded by earlier notations dating to 23 March and 1 April 1827—the manuscript reveals procedural aspects of colonial governance and church-state relations in the late Portuguese Empire. Originally archived under references linked to the Historical Archive of Portugal (AHU_CU_Índia, Cx. 14, D. 84), the document bears a circular seal associated with Portuguese historical documentation. As a primary source, it provides insight into the bureaucratic mechanisms supporting Catholic missions in Macao during the early 19th century, illustrating the interplay between religious institutions and imperial authority in a colonial Asian context.

Tomas Pereira, the Jesuit missionary of Portugal, entered the Chinese mainland during the reign of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty. He lived in Beijing for 37 years and like his predecessors, Matteo Ricci, Alvaro Semedo and other Jesuits, he was not only a missionary, but also an observer, a researcher and a builder of Chinese Culture. Buddhism, introduced into China in the Han dynasties, had become one of the major sects in China, aroused his great attention. Pereira studied and observed the Chinese culture so heterogeneous as Christianity with vision of a Western missionary. This article intends to examine and discuss his understanding of Chinese Buddhism, based on the “Treatise of Chinese Buddhism” authored by Tomás Pereira.

Livro das Monções Fontes

Livro das Monções.

Livro das Monções.

Novas Aquisições Francesas

Documentação sobre Macau referenciada no Catálogo dos Documentos Relativos às Filipinas, de Pedro Torres y Lanza

Secretarias Provinciais

This dissertation examines the role of urban real estate in the finances and networks of the Jesuit missions in China. Starting in 1612, when Jesuit missionaries working in China envisioned for the first time a strategy for making the missions financially independent from Europe, I will investigate how and why it took until the second half of the eighteenth century for the Christian communities in China to become financially self-sustaining. The procurators and their subordinate treasurers, the Jesuits primarily in charge of the financial management of the missions, are the subject of this dissertation. How did they combine the resources and personnel extracted from Europe, India, and China to establish an autonomous financial foundation for the missions in China? This dissertation argues that their most reliable source of income was revenue from investments in urban real estate. The arc of this dissertation spans both the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries examining the Portuguese and the French Jesuit missions in China. Through a close analysis of Jesuit procurators’ activities and personal networks this dissertation will assert that while they realized the necessity of economic integration in the global missions early on, procurators encountered great problems in realizing this goal. As such, this dissertation recognizes the limitations of global networks by exploring the role of global contact and the circulation of missionaries, money, and mail and by looking at the Jesuit search for financial opportunities in the local and regional economy to become self-sustaining communities. Only by studying the Jesuit finances in China over a time-span of 166 years does the relationship between Longobardo’s strategic planning for financial independence in 1612 and the French Jesuits’ budget for their missions in Beijing in 1778 become fully clear. This dissertation’s most important contribution is in charting the growing importance of revenue from investments in urban real estate. Ironically, just as the missions in China had begun to galvanize local resource networks largely independent of the central organization of the Society, European monarchs expelled the Jesuits from their realms and Rome finally dissolved the Jesuits as a Society.

A Filmoteca Ultramarina Portuguesa (FUP) foi criada com o objetivo de reunir em microfilme os principais núcleos de documentação relativos à ação dos portugueses no mundo, provenientes de diversos arquivos e bibliotecas nacionais e estrangeiros e que informam sobre diferentes povos e culturas da Europa, de África, da Ásia e ainda da América do Sul. Em franco desenvolvimento entre as décadas de 50 e 60 do século XX, é constituída por cerca de 500.000 imagens. O projeto DigiT FUP - Digitalização e Tratamento da Filmoteca Ultramarina Portuguesa. Imagem Digital na dupla função de transferência de suporte e restauro documental, financiado pela Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian entre 2013-2014, visa dar continuidade ao tratamento digital sistemático da FUP, no seguimento de investimentos realizados pela Fundação Jorge Álvares, e proceder à sua disponibilização no ACTD. Para o efeito tem sido efectuado trabalho de conversão e recuperação das imagens, além de investigação associada nas áreas da conservação e da ciência da computação. Nesta sequência, procede-se à disponibilização de ca. de 6000 imagens digitais realizadas a partir dos microfilmes de documentos do anterior Arquivo Histórico do Estado da Índia, actual Arquivo de Goa (Directorate of Archives and Archaelogy, Government of Goa). De notar que existe uma relação de causa e efeito entre a imagem disponível e as condições envolventes, dependendo a sua legibilidade de aspectos como o estado de conservação do original em papel, a captura da imagem em microfilme nos arquivos de origem nem sempre realizada nas melhores condições, e o estado de conservação actual do microfilme, sobre o qual incide a investigação em curso, no sentido de o restaurar, de recuperar a informação e conservar o material subsistente nas melhores condições para memória futura.