Vatican Museums

The Thursdays in the Museums of 16 November is particularly significant inasmuch as it is dedicated to a presentation of the first Italian translation of the Chinese classic “Trattato sui terremoti” [Treatise on earthquakes] (Edizioni Dehoniane), written in Beijing in 1626 by the Sicilian Jesuit Nicola Longobardo, successor of Matteo Ricci in the missions in China.

The volume, edited by Silvia Toro, and with a preface by Francesco Failla, who will both be present at the meeting along with Pier Luigi Cabri, constitutes a document of extraordinary interest in reconstructing the multi-faceted formation of the Jesuits and the encounter between Europe and China in the context of the scientific knowledge and religious sensibility of the seventeenth century.