The Acta Pekinensia is a Latin manuscript found in the Jesuit Roman Archives. It is a record of the papal legation to China of Charles Maillard de Tournon, from his arrival in China to his death in Macau. It was compiled by Kilian Stumpf, a German Jesuit missionary/scientist serving at the court of the Kangxi Emperor of China. Stumpf was in a privileged position to record day by day the events of this crucial episode not only in the history of Christianity in China but in Chinese-Western relations. This annotated translation provides a full documentation and an acute and lively commentary on...

China’s Old Churches, by Alan Sweeten, surveys the history of Catholicism in China (1600 to the present) as reflected by the location, style, and details of sacred structures in three crucial areas of north China. Closely examined are the most famous and important churches in the urban settings of Beijing and Tianjin, as well as lesser-known ones in rural Hebei Province. Missionaries built Western-looking churches to make a broad religious statement important to themselves and Chinese worshippers. Non-Catholics, however, tended to see churches as sociopolitically foreign and culturally...

Giulia Falato’s work on Alfonso Vagnone S.J.’ s (1568-1640) Tongyou jiaoyu 童幼教育 (On the Education of Children) offers a systematic study of the earliest treatise on European pedagogy and its first annotated translation in English. In particular, it highlights the role of Tongyou jiaoyu as a cultural bridge between the Chinese and Western traditions. Drawing from archival materials and multi-language literature, Falato produces an insightful account of the Jesuit’s background, the pedagogical debate in late-Ming China, and the making and main sources of the treatise. Through the...

Based on the translation of the Correct Explanation of the Tang “Stele Eulogy on the Luminous Teaching” (1644) by the Jesuit Manuel Dias Jr. and other late Ming Chinese Christian sources, the book reconstructs the process of interpretation and “appropriation” of the Xi’an stele and other ancient Christian relics by the Jesuit missionaries and their Chinese converts.