The memory palace of Matteo Ricci
Recounts the activities in China of the late-sixteenth-century Jesuit missionary, Matteo Ricci, and examines the cultural and historical contexts of those activities.
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4recommend
5mentions
4people
2011–2018years
80% recommend20% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- If you are interested in memory techniques, there is a good book with an interesting historical backdrop of a catholic clergyman who traveled to china.
"The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci" by Jonathan Spence
- Furthermore, the embassies that came from tributary states like Vietnam and Korea did not come to impress the throne; they came to seek the emperor’s approval, which gave them political power back home.
Jesuit missions to China some two centuries earlier wowed Ming officials with technological wonders, high-quality illustrated works, and mathematical and mnemonic tricks. The British may have attempted to follow a similar model to impress the Qing court, not realizing (as noted in TFA) that representatives from other states were expected to behave in a different manner.
A great read on the early Jesuit missions to China (as well as insights into the late stages of the Ming Dynasty) is Ross Terrill's The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci
- I think you meant to credit Jonathan Spence for The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. It is indeed very good.
- The method of loci are the jumping off point in Jonathan Spence's marvelous The Memory Palace Of Matteo Ricci.
- There's a book by Jonathon Spence called the Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, describing the life of an Italian Jesuit who lived in China and was an advisor to the court (I can't recall if it was late Ming or early Qing, but it was in the 17th century). Besides sharing advanced Western science and artistic techniques, another way in which he and other Jesuits inserted themselves into the life of the court was by using the memory palace technique to learn spoken and written Chinese, understand the cultural and social aspects of the court, and impress the court officials with some incredible feats of memory. One trick I remember involved reciting a long passage of Chinese backwards after hearing it once, which utterly astounded those in attendance.
