European ethnotypes in Chinese words : the translation and negotiation of some Western national characters in early nineteenth-century China

The "World Geography" ("Wanguo dili quanji" 萬國地理全集) published in 1844 by the Protestant missionary Karl F.A. Gützlaff was the first geographical account to introduce some European ethnotypes to China. Based on recent archival findings, my article compares this book with both its presumed Western source and its rendering in the 1847 edition of Wei Yuan 魏源's "Maps and Documents of the Maritime Countries" ("Haiguo tuzhi" 海國圖志). It thus explores the role that interlingual and intralingual transfers respectively played first in negotiating and then renegotiating two European stereotypes in their early travels to and within the Qing empire

Early protestant historiography and the travel of some European “National Characters” to China: Karl F. A. Gützlaff’s Gujin wanguo gangjian 古今萬國綱鑑 (1838)

In 1834 a group of missionaries and merchants working along the Chinese coast founded the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China (SDUKC). Based in Canton, it was intended as a means for providing China with the scientific knowledge that had made possible the progress and power of the Western nations. The Society planned to publish books in eight subject areas: history; geography; natural history; medicine; mechanics and mechanical arts; natural philosophy; natural theology; and belles lettres. Before the first Opium war started and the SDUKC’s activities came to an early end, only eight of the eighteen items that the Society initially planned to issue were published; priority was given to treatises on history and geography. This paper examines a treatise entitled "Gujin wanguo gangjian 古今萬國綱鑑" (Outline and Mirror of the Past and Present of the World) which was published in 1838 and provided the Chinese with one of the first full-length world histories. By examining and comparing the descriptions of four European populations, this paper seeks to demonstrate that the British merchants and Protestant missionaries that animated the SDUKC did not intend to attract the Chinese by generically demonstrating “the ‘progress’ of the Europeans”: they rather tried to convey to local readers a multifaceted picture of the European nations and populations in which a set of national stereotypes nurtured for centuries in Western sources were skillfully intertwined so as to convince the local élites of the superiority of the Protestant faith for guaranteeing the morality of the whole society and the prosperity of the country

Un diplomatico cinese a Roma. L'Italia di Xue Fucheng (1838-1894)

Dopo aver contestualizzato il viaggio del diplomatico Xue Fucheng (1838-1894), inviato plenipotenziario dell'Impero Qing in Europa, nel quadro delle relazioni italo-cinesi nella seconda metà dell'Ottocento, il volume propone una traduzione annotata e commentata delle sezioni relative al soggiorno in Italia - e in particolare a Roma - del diario di viaggio intitolato Chushi YIng Fa Yi Bi siguo riji (Diario della missione in Inghilterra, Francia, Italia e Belgio). Esso offre così uno spaccato originale della percezione che un cinese colto di fine Ottocento

Alcune immagini dell'Italia vista da Yuan Zuzhi 袁祖志 (1827-1898)

L'articolo offre un primo resoconto delle impressioni di viaggio del letterato Yuan Zuzhi 袁祖志, giunto in Italia nel 1883 al seguito di una delegazione guidata da Tang Tingshu 唐廷樞. Durante tale missione, a lungo ignorata dagli studi sinologici, Yuan Zuzhi ebbe modo di apprezzare diversi aspetti della produzione artistica italiana (in particolare i mosaici) e alcuni traguardi della modernità, tra cui l'apertura di ampie gallerie e la costruzione della funicolare a Napoli. L'articolo offre abbondanti passi inediti in traduzione.The article provides a summary of the first impressions of the journey of the writer Yuan Zuzhi??, Arrived in Italy in 1883 in the wake of a delegation led by Tang Tingshu??. During this mission, long ignored by studies sinologici, Yuan Zuzhi was able to appreciate the different aspects of Italian artistic production (in particular the mosaics) and some achievements of modernity, including the opening of large tunnels and construction of the funicular in Naples . The article offers abundant unpublished steps in translation

Investigating the introduction of Italian culture into Late Qing China through some foreign travel diaries (1867-1897): What culture? About what Italy? By what China?

This paper aims to provide an overview of the information on Italian culture available in diaries written from 1867 to 1897 by the official delegates of the Qing government. This implies a careful consideration of three aspects: first, the idea of ‘culture’ that the envoys referred to while abroad, in a time when the Chinese language had no exact equivalent for the word ‘culture’ as we conceive it today; second, the very existence of a well-defined Italian culture, in a period when Italy was just a new-born country; finally, the active role that the envoys played in conveying the image of unknown lands to their government and countrymen. Referring to Williams’ definition of the ‘social’, ‘documentary’ and ‘ideal’ categories of culture, this paper will highlight what aspects of Italy’s multi-faceted cultural production captured the attention of the Late Qing delegates and what overall image of it resulted from their travelogues

Introduzione. La guerra, l’Italia e la Cina: un percorso tra storia, diplomazia, letteratura e filosofia

Questo numero della rivista "Sulla via del Catai" trae ispirazione da un progetto di ricerca incentrato sulla visione della prima guerra mondiale nella stampa periodica cinese. Combinando studi di tipo quantitativo e qualitativo, il volume fornisce una panoramica d'insieme del dibattito sulla guerra in alcuni periodici di rilievo, sia generalisti che di settore. Esamina inoltre il ruolo della Cina nella Grande guerra secondo alcune prospettive storiografiche recenti, inquadrandole sia in dimensione globale che bilaterale. Oltre a proporre alcuni approfondimenti originali su temi quali le radici filosofiche della guerra e la letteratura italiana post-bellica, entrambi discussi da autorevoli intellettuali cinesi, il numero ridiscute anche il presunto nesso tra i Chinese labour corps e le origini dell'immigrazione cinese in Italia