The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci

In "The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci", Jonathan D. Spence captures the life of the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci, one of the first European to be allowed to live in China, following the model of the memory palace which Ricci presented to the Chinese. Ricci's Palace was formed in his mind where he identify every word with a picture or statue; each picture or statue would be placed in a room; and it would have a meaning and sub meaning behind it. The rationale behind the palace was to help the learner to memorize. In order to teach the Chinese this technique, Ricci wrote to them a book written in Chinese. Spence used four images from Ricci's book "each fixed in its own place and described in sequence," to reconstruct the life of Ricci. The First "was two warriors grappling, the second a tribeswoman from the west, the third a peasant cutting grain, the fourth a maidservant" (10). Moreover, Ricci's used specific "religious" pictures too in the Palace, which the author used to write about the Jesuit's life. Those pictures were of: "Christ and Peter at the sea of Galilee, of Christ and the two disciples at Emmaus, of the men of Sodom falling blinded before the angel the Lord, and of the Virgin Mary holding the Christ Child"(11). Spence noted that mnemonic art is rooted in European History.The First image, the warrior image, which is built upon a Chinese ideograph of war wu, symbolize the meaning of "to prevent [war]" or peace (24). In This chapter, the author explores Ricci's life which is full of scenes of war and violent. Since his Childhood in Macerata, Italy, Ricci's heard of killings in the streets between two Italian families. Furthermore, his town was "constantly aware of the Turkish attacks"(29). The author expend on explaining the relationship between The Ottoman Islamic Empire and Christian Europe. Wars were not uncommon in that area. But not only religious violence between religious was common, but even a struggles between the Jesuits and "members of other religious orders", where there was "little love between [Jesuits, Augustinians, Dominicans, and Franciscans]"(51). Moreover, The author summorze the wars between China and Japan. Nevertheless Ricci himself experienced violent while being in China when his house was attacked by a group of criminals. His leg was injured because he jumped from the window, and "[it] never recovered completely"(58) .Another Theme of Ricci's life is presented by the author through a religious picture which shows peter swimming toward Jesus; the theme is water. The Author explores the world of seas and it's dangers; the Portuguese ships and it's might and flaws; Ricci's own journey from Portugal to to Goa ; and the troubles faced him in the Chinese rivers. At one point, Joao Barradas , a Chinese convert to Christianity anda close friend to Ricci, was killed after the ship over turned in the river. Ricci survived by miracle(92).The second Image, which is built on the Chinese ideograph yao, explores the relationship between the monotheistic religions in China, Europe , and in Ricci's experience. In one event, Ricci was close to convert the Muslim emperor of India where an extremely expensive polyglot bible was prepared to be sent as a gift to the Muslim Emperor Akbar. Although tension existed between all those religion, respect and universal views could be found in Italy. Furthermore, The author shows explore the multi-culturist Rome, at the time , where Jesuits spoke many languages .Reason and science is the theme of the second religious picture: The road to Emmaus. In this chapter Spence shows how well trained the Jesuits were; the amount of books existed in Rome; Ricci's ability to use Science and philosophy to evangelize; and how the memory palace helped Ricci to write books in Chinese. According to Spence, it took Ricci twelve years to master Chinese. He translated many books from Latin to Chinese without carrying them with him , but by using his memory palace.The Third Image "Profit and Harvest" is based on the Chinese character li, which means profit. The theme of this chapter is economy. The author explore the role of gifts to achieve goals; Ricci's financial struggle in china; the Jesuit investment in the silver-silk trade with Japan; Ricci's experiences on how to buy house in China; Chinese suspicion of Ricci to be an alchemist; and his gifts to the emperor.The third religious picture was the men of Sodom. This chapter explores the moral issues. For example , poverty and prostitution in Rome; slavery in Lisboan; Chinese selling their children for slavery ; criticism by Ricci of the actions of Buddhist monks who killed and robbed people while respecting Confucianism; and the spread of Homosexuality in China.In the final Chapter , the author combined the fourth image which is built on the Chinese ideography hao, with the fourth religious picture; The Virgin Mary carrying Jesus. The theme explores many different topic in relation to Mary. For instance, The relation between Mary and the Jesuit order, and the Marian Sodality movements in Europe, india , and China. The Virgins Mary images, which the Jesuit helped to print, attracted many to Christianity in china. Indeed one of the pictures had effect on the Chinese scholar Xu Guangqi that "it acted as a catalyst to his conversion" (247). However, many Chinese misinterpreted those pictures; they thought that the Christian God was a woman! Nevertheless, Ricci's books on Christianity, criticism of Buddhism, and admiration of Confucianism, drew much attention, debate, and respect to him from Chinese scholars and intellectuals.In conclusion, the book is a journey to the world of 16th and 17th century explorer. Not only is the book full of the rich life and experiences of Mateo Ricci, but it is full, also, with the historical context of the world at that period. Spence style and narrative, made Ricci's life alive to the reader.

This book is not what I had hoped it to be, which is my fault for not researching its content a little further before I bought it and invested some time in reading it. With that caveat out of the way, I want to make it clear that I found the book interesting enough to keep reading through some rather arcane historical details of the Jesuit missions in China at the end of the 16th century. I was not looking for such a book, but once into the story, I had to keep going. Congratulations to the author for making history entertaining.I was looking for a book about memory---specifically a book about how to use the method of loci or places to improve one’s memory. This book is about a man, a Jesuit priest, Matteo Ricci, who used such techniques to store vast quantities of Christian scripture and European literature in his memory so that, when he was sent to China as a missionary in 1582, he had no need to carry many boxes of books with him. It was all in his head. Not only that, he used these memory techniques to learn Chinese writing, which involves the memorization of the shapes of thousands of ideographs, their subtle differences, and their many meanings. He was the first western missionary to be able to converse as an equal with Chinese scholars and literati. And most importantly, for Ricci as a missionary with the goal of acquiring Chinese converts to Christianity, it enabled him to debate the merits of his faith with Confucian scholars and Buddhist monks.Unfortunately, Ricci left few written details about how he used the method of loci, his “memory palace,” to firmly fix so much detail in his memory. We know only that he did so. Jonathan Spence uses the few mental images that he knows Ricci used as an organizational structure for his book. There are only four images and four pictures, a picture associated with each image, that the author has been able to distill from his study of Ricci’s writings. Each of these eight images and pictures serves as the focus of a separate chapter in this book. This is about all that we get of Ricci’s memory technique.So this is a book about an amazing Christian missionary, who served in China from 1582 until his death there in 1610. In following his adventures, we get a fascinating look into the Chinese civilization and culture of that era. Spence is an expert on Chinese history, having written a number of books on the subject, and this story of Matteo Ricci is greatly enriched by this historical background.I was almost totally ignorant about the richness of Chinese civilization in that period when European sea powers were beginning to establish trading centers and colonies in Asia. I found fascinating the amazing sophistication of the Chinese imperial government, its complicated bureaucracy, the relationships between government ministers and military officers, and the demanding examination standards for young men who wished to find a place in the imperial bureaucracy. Then there is Chinese culture: its reliance on slavery, the separation of the Emperor from the people, the power of the eunuchs, and the openness to many variations of sexuality. This sexual openness was something that Ricci saw as a great obstacle in his attempt to convert Chinese to Christianity, so he often came into conflict with Chinese intellectuals over this. Ricci was appalled that the Chinese saw nothing evil about homosexual relations, and the Chinese were appalled that Ricci was appalled at what they thought was perfectly normal.So there is a lot to keep one reading this book to the very end. Even though it’s not the book I thought it would be, it did turn out to be a pleasant surprise.

Used it on my senior thesis, such an interesting book. Extremely easy to read, hard to put down.

I ordered this book, the second I have owned, to use with my students who need memory work. The mental construction described makes seems like magic for the recall of details important for longer writing assignments, essays, short answer tests, and so on. Another benefit of the book is Spence's prose, an excellent model for writers at any stage.

Jonathan Spence's fluent prose sails across all the seas covered by the Spanish and Portuguese colonisers of the 16th century, but always returning to the linguistic connections between Ricci and the Chinese. This book was originally published in 1984, and I seem to have got a "print on demand" copy. The paper and binding are up to Penguin's best standards, but the printing on some pages is slightly blurred, not enough to affect legibility, but enough to be annoying. I have to give the line engravings only 3 out of 10 for clarity.

nice book without too much wear and tear

Je suis très très déçu par ce livre car le titre écrit très gros fait référence uniquement au livre extrêmement important pour la Chine de l’époque écrit par Mattéo Ricci, de loin le plus grand sinologue contrairement à Monsieur Jonathan D. Spence, « Xiguo jifa 西国记法» : littéralement : méthode de mémorisation des pays occidentaux, ou Mnémotechnique de l’Occident publié à Nanchang en 1596, sans même en donner le texte en chinois ni une traduction. L’auteur a usurpé ce titre pour faire son beurre, car s’il l’avait appelé comme il se doit « la contreréforme en Europe et en Chine de la dynastie Ming » au regard de la vie de Mattéo Ricci, cela n’aurait dupé personne, mais cela n’aurait pas non plus fait l’affaire de son éditeur.Je déteste ce genre de pratique.

Arrived in excellent condition. I am looking forward to reading the book.

What a nice story to read! Shipment and the book quality was excellent.

The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci uses a Chinese-language treatise by Ricci on the mnemonic arts as a guide to the story of his mission to China. Ricci was the first Christian missionary to be able to establish residence in Beijing, in 1601. His story is as remarkable - Ricci was able to learn Chinese well enough to translate books and debate points of theology with local scholars, and his capacity for memorisation appears to have been exceptional - as it is poignant. It also offers rich comment on mutual European and Chinese Renaissance-era prejudices. Indeed, Spence makes a very entertaining job of digging up colourful cultural details from both sides, and in painting the mission's political, economic, and religious context.The memory palace was a system by which information was placed within the rooms of an imaginary palace, in this case a single room peopled with statues conjured for their association value with Chinese characters. Spence's book uses the palace images as its own guide, and he also analyses four religious prints published, with brief commentaries by Ricci, in a contemporary Chinese collection of graphics. The book is loosely chronological as well as thematic, following its protagonist from Macerata in Italy to Rome, Goa, Macau, and through various provincial cities to Ricci's death in Beijing. This is both an original and an insightful historical work, with wide relevance in spite of its specialised topic.

I thought this was going to focus more on the memory palace technique. It turned out to be more of a history lesson, but an interesting one nonetheless!