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Reposted by Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History

NCC (北米日本研究資料調整協議会) @nccjapaninfo.bsky.social · 13h

How do postcards capture historical moments & places? How can we “read” even the structure of their printing? 📮 Revisit our #NCCSpotlight by Tokiko Bazzell (Formerly University of Hawai’i’ at Manoa Library) on Hawai’i’s historical postcard collection to find out! guides.nccjapan.org/homepage/new...

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 13h

Our librarian Mårten Söderblom Saarela reviewed Jiani He's Ruling the Mongols of Manchuria: Language, Literacy, and Power in Late Qing Borderlands (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2025) in the Journal of Chinese History 中國歷史學刊. Sadly, the review is behind a paywall.

doi.org/10.1017/jch....

Ruling the Mongols of Manchuria: Language, Literacy, and Power in Late Qing Borderlands. By Jiani He. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2025. 328 pp. €141.00 (cloth), €140.99 (eBook) | Journal of...

Ruling the Mongols of Manchuria: Language, Literacy, and Power in Late Qing Borderlands. By Jiani He. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2025. 328 pp. €141.00 (cloth), €140.99 (eBook)

doi.org

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 18h

Our librarian Mårten Söderblom Saarela will give three online talks for the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia, on November 8, 2025, 9:00am-1:30pm Eastern time. The theme of the talks is "The Jesuit Mission to China." For details and registration, see ncta.princeton.edu.

The poster for the event. RSVP at https://ncta.princeton.edu/registration/

A sea monster from Ferdinand Verbiest’s Chinese world map Kunyu quantu (1648). Photograph taken from a reproduction held at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, Boston College.

A diagram showing sunrise and sunset from Adam Schall von Bell’s Chinese treatise Yuanjing shuo (Explanation of the telescope; 1626). Photograph taken from an undated Japanese manuscript copy held at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, Boston College.

A drawing of a European telescope from Adam Schall von Bell’s Chinese treatise Yuanjing shuo (Explanation of the telescope; 1626). Photograph taken from an undated Japanese manuscript copy held at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, Boston College.

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 2d

Since today is mid-autumn festival (zhongqiu jie 中秋節), or ch'usŏk 秋夕, we're sharing these images of Luke Hua Hsiao-hsien's 華效先 painting Our Lady on the Crescent Moon 新月上的聖母. Yes, we are aware that the moon today is full, not new, but this is the best we could do.

Detail of Luke Hua Hsiao-hsien's 華效先 painting Our Lady on the Crescent Moon 新月上的聖母.

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 2d

Today we celebrate the birthday of our namesake, Fr. Matteo Ricci 利瑪竇, S.J. (Oct. 6, 1552-May 11, 1610). Happy Birthday, Fr. Ricci!

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 6d

Details from two illustrations in Shengjiao xiangshuo 聖教像說 [Images and explanations of the holy teaching] (web.bc.edu/ricci/indexT...), a Catholic publication with Qing-period origins. Clothing in the book appears to reflect Republican fashion. We thus conjecture that it was published after 1911.

Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 7d

Very interesting. I took out the book, but the photo is reproduced in very low resolution (lower than the one you shared, from the looks of it). Also, I cannot figure out what their source is for the photo. Do you know?

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 9d

Thank you for sharing this photo. Do you have a reference for it? Who took it, where was it published, etc.?

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 18d

Our librarian wrote an essay on what he calls the Taichung polyglot, a draft for a multilingual Chinese dictionary produced in Taiwan in the 1950s and now held in part at the Library. This draft is part of the paper trail of the Chinese-French Grand dictionnaire Ricci.

web.bc.edu/ricci/

Ricci Library

web.bc.edu

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 21d

Our staff is in the process of cataloguing a recently donated collection of archival material. A cursory survey suggests that the collection primarily contains French-language letters and newspaper clippings relating to the Catholic church in China in the first half of the twentieth century.

Newspaper clippings and letters on a table.

A library staff member surveys a collection of letters.

Manuscript letters spread out on a table.

A black and white photo depicting a religious service from a printed booklet is spread out on a table.

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 23d

*arrives 😩

Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · 23d

A truckload (over 1,700 lbs.) of books—a donation from Ms. Tsutsui Suna (Kirishitan Bunko, Sophia University)—arrive from Japan. We will catalog these books in the coming months and update you on our progress.

An open truck full of boxes parked outside the Ricci Institute.

Boxes stacked outside the Ricci Institute.

Boxes temporarily stored in the Ricci Institute Library stacks.

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Aug 7

Chen Cui 崔晨 (Ca' Foscari University of Venice) just published an article on medievalism in Giulio Aleni’s 艾儒略 (1582-1649) translation of Catholic liturgy. The article is based in part on research carried out at the Library. The article is open access: www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16... Congratulations!

www.mdpi.com

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Jul 30

One of the Institute's jijin 祭巾, headgear worn by Catholic priests in late imperial China. The jijin was first described by Giuilo Aleni 艾儒畧 (1582-1649) in his Misa jiyi 彌撒祭義 (Meaning of the rite of the mass, preface dated 1629). The pictured jijin is small and probably belonged to an altar boy.

The jijin on the table, with the hat itself in focus.

The insignia of the Society of Jesus embroidered on the jijin.

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Jul 11

New arrival: He Bian and Mårten Söderblom Saarela, The Manchu Mirrors and the Knowledge of Plants and Animals in High Qing China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Asia Center, 2025).

The book includes some discussion of Jesuit influences on Manchu writings and their reception in Europe.

The book is standing on a table showing its cover, an abstract oil painting.

The book is open, showing a color illustration of multilingual notecards on side and text on the other.

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Jul 8

Here we see a conservator at the BnF in Paris repairing a copy of Sinarum scientia, a Latin-language work published using Chinese woodblock printing technology in Guangzhou (Canton) in the 17th century.

www.instagram.com/reel/DL2yazH...

Login • Instagram

Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.

www.instagram.com

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Jun 25

We did some more Googling, and it appears that the second (pink) ticket is indeed a bus ticket. "C.G.O.Co." stands for "China General Omnibus Co." Guobi 國幣 being, we assume, Chinese currency (as opposed to foreign).

Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Jun 25

We recently bought a late 19th-c. Catholic work published in Shanghai. Cataloguing it, we found a note in pencil with the date 1941. We also found two tram tickets, one with penciled notes in the same hand. We will post about the book itself on a different occasion. For now, please enjoy these.

Recto of Shanghai tramways ticket, probably from ca. 1941.

Verso of Shanghai tramways ticket, probably from ca. 1941.

Recto of Shanghai tramways (or bus?) ticket, probably from ca. 1941.

Verso of Shanghai tramways (or bus?) ticket, probably from ca. 1941. It is inscribed in pencil: "From Yongan to Jing'an Temple, 4 cents | From Jing'an to Nanyang College, 6 cents" 永安到靜安寺4分 | 靜安到南洋公學6分.

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Jun 20

Congratulations to former RI-HYI Fellow Prof. Son Eunsil on the publication of her article on Thomas Aquinas's views on homosexuality, which presents a reassessment in light of his concept of natural law and human nature. The article can be accessed here: kiss.kstudy.com/Detail/Ar?ke....

Son Eunsil - Harvard-Yenching Institute

Eunsil SON is an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Seoul National University (SNU), where she has been teaching Christianity since 2021. She holds a B.A. in French Language...

www.harvard-yenching.org

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Jun 16

Lin Dieken 林迭肯 (Handa 漢達, 1900-1972) et al.'s Guoyu pinyin cihui 國語拼音詞彙 [National-language vocabulary with phonetic transcriptions] from 1944. This dictionary was published in a period when intellectuals of various political stripes were advocating for Chinese language reform.

The book Guoyu pinyin cihui 國語拼音詞彙 opened to its title page.

Guoyu pinyin cihui 國語拼音詞彙 open to a section of the main part of the dictionary, showing headwords in Latin-script transcriptions and Chinese characters.

The cover of Guoyu pinyin cihui 國語拼音詞彙 in browned cardboard.

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Jun 9

A number of paintings depicting Jesuit missionaries to Ming and Qing China, as well as Xu Guangqi 徐光啟, were returned to the Institute from the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore, where they had been on loan. The paintings were made at the T'ou-sè-wè 土山灣 orphanage in Shanghai before 1915.

A painting of Matteo Ricci lies on a table, encased in protective wrapping. Another painting is placed on a table behind it.

A scan of a painting depicting Xu Guangqi.

A scan of a painting depicting Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen 南懷仁).

A scan of a painting depicting Matteo Ricci (Li Madou 利瑪竇).

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Jun 6

Today we celebrated Fr. Robert Carbonneau's birthday at the Institute. Dr. Carbonneau, C.P., in an Archival Specialist at the Ricci Institute. He also teaches in the Theology department at Boston College. Happy birthday, Fr. Rob!

Fr. Rob Carbonneau and Mark Mir are seated in the Ricci Institute conference room.

A piece of Boston cream pie sits on a plate on a table.

Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Jun 3

Today the Library received donations adding to a collection related to American missions in Korea and China. We will return with more information once we've processed the material.

A person is pointing at a photograph in a plastic sleeve together with other documents. More documents are placed on a table underneath.

Archival documents and a publication are placed on a table. A person is handling a red paper cutting.

A Chinese teapot is taken out of its box.

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · Jun 2

Chen Chen 陳辰, a PhD candidate in the School of Philosophy at Zhejiang University and a visiting student at Georgetown, is at the Library doing research on Matteo Ricci's 利瑪竇 (1552-1610) Ershiwu yan 二十五言 [Twenty-five passages], a text largely based on a Latin version of Epictetus' Encheiridion.

Chen Chen 陳辰 is seated at a table reading a book. More books are stacked on the table, where an open laptop is also placed.

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Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History @bcricciinstitute.bsky.social · May 28

Japanese woodblock update: Today we visited the Boston College Digital Scholarship team (ds.bc.edu) in the O'Neill Library to begin the 3D printing of a prototype from the scan made a few weeks ago. This model will not be quite life size. We will return to check on the printing tomorrow morning.

A 3D printer is running a print job of a woodblock, showing a completion rate of 1%.

A laptop computer displays a 3D rendering of a Japanese printing woodblock, with a 3D printer in the background.

Detail of the printing process in the 3D printer.

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