The Catholic Four-Character Classic (Tianzhu shengjiao sizi jingwen 天主聖教四字經文): A Confucian Pattern to Spread a Foreign Faith in Late Ming China

EnThe generation of missionaries which followed Ricci's method after his death in the 17th century, continued to work among the Chinese literati, producing a variety of religious, philosophical, and scientific treatises. Yet, the Jesuits, including Ricci himself, did not neglect the instruction of new converts through simpler text (doctrinae), devised to teach the Christian dogmas in a language that could be easily recited by those who could read, and memorized by the flock. One of the most well-known missionaries of the post-Ricci generation was the Italian Giulio Aleni (1582-1649), active in the southern provinces of Zhejiang and Fujian between the 1620s and 1649. Aleni was not only interested in converting the literati, but also tried, with the help of Chinese Christians, to build a strong local church at the popular level. Among his numerous works in Chinese, one which certainly bears witness to this evangelical effort at the grass root level is a booklet entitled The Four-Character Classic of the Holy Religion of the Lord of Heaven (Tianzhu shengjiao sizi jingwen, original ed. 1642; revised 1663 ed.). For whom was this Christian primer written? How was it used in religious education? How did it compare with similar texts in other religious traditions of China? These are questions I will try to answer in this essay.ItLa generazione di missionari che seguì il metodo di Ricci dopo la sua morte nel corso del Seicento continuò a lavorare tra i letterati cinesi, producendo una varietà di trattati religiosi, filosofici e scientifici. Tuttavia, i gesuiti, compreso lo stesso Ricci, non trascurarono l'istruzione dei nuovi convertiti attraverso testi più semplici (doctrinae), ideati per insegnare i dogmi cristiani in un linguaggio che potesse essere facilmente recitato da coloro che sapevano leggere, e memorizzato dai fedeli. Uno dei missionari più noti della generazione post-Ricci fu l'italiano Giulio Aleni (1582-1649), attivo nelle province meridionali di Zhejiang e Fujian tra gli anni 1620 e 1649. Aleni non era solo interessato a convertire i letterati, ma cercò anche, con l'aiuto dei cristiani cinesi, di costruire una chiesa locale a livello più popolare. Tra le sue numerose opere in cinese, una che certamente testimonia questo sforzo evangelico è un libretto intitolato Il Classico dei Quattro Caratteri della Santa Religione del Signore del Cielo (Tianzhu shengjiao sizi jingwen, ed. originale 1642; ed. riveduta 1663). Per chi fu scritto questo abbecedario cristiano? Come veniva usato nell'educazione religiosa? Come si compara con testi simili in altre tradizioni religiose della Cina? Queste sono domande a cui cercherò di rispondere nel mio saggio

Interlopers at the Fringes of Empire: The Procurators of the Propaganda Fide Papal Congregation in Canton and Macao, 1700-1823

The office of the procurator of the papal Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide) offers a unique case study of noncommercial interloping in the long eighteenth century in the Pearl River Delta, and reveals the complexity and fluidity of life at the intersection of Asian and European maritime environments in that special human ecosystem. The oceanic infrastructure of the Age of Sail and the Sino-Western trade system in Canton sustained the Catholic missionary enterprise in Asia, and the professional figure of the procurator represented its economic and political linchpin. Procurators were agents connected with both European and Qing imperial formations, yet not directly at their service. They utilized existing maritime trade networks to their own advantage without being integral parts of those networks’ economic mechanisms. All the while, they subverted Qing prohibitions against Christianity. Using sources preserved in Rome, this article offers new insights into the global mechanisms of trade, communication, and religious exchange embodied by the procurators-interlopers and their networks, with significant implications for the history of the Sino-Western trade system, Qing policies toward the West and Christianity, and the history of Asian Catholic missions. Keywords: Guangzhou, Macao, Canton System, Propaganda Fide, papacy, Jesuits, Portugal, Kangxi Emperor, Clement XI, Yongzheng Emperor, Qianlong Emperor, Qing dynast

Directing liquid crystalline self-organization of rod-like particles through tunable attractive single tips

Dispersions of rodlike colloidal particles exhibit a plethora of liquid crystalline states, including nematic, smectic A, smectic B, and columnar phases. This phase behavior can be explained by presuming the predominance of hard-core volume exclusion between the particles. We show here how the self-organization of rodlike colloids can be controlled by introducing a weak and highly localized directional attractive interaction between one of the ends of the particles. This has been performed by functionalizing the tips of filamentous viruses by means of regioselectively grafting fluorescent dyes onto them, resulting in a hydrophobic patch whose attraction can be tuned by varying the number of bound dye molecules. We show, in agreement with our computer simulations, that increasing the single tip attraction stabilizes the smectic phase at the expense of the nematic phase, leaving all other liquid crystalline phases invariant. For a sufficiently strong tip attraction, the nematic state may be suppressed completely to get a direct isotropic liquid-to-smectic phase transition. Our findings provide insights into the rational design of building blocks for functional structures formed at low densities.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Pyroxene low-temperature plasticity and fragmentation as a record of seismic stress evolution in the lower crust

Seismic rupture of the lower continental crust requires a high failure stress, given large lithostatic stresses and potentially strong rheologies. Several mechanisms have been proposed to generate high stresses at depth, including local amplification of stress heterogeneities driven by the geometry and rheological contrast within a shear zone network. High dynamic stresses are additionally associated with the subsequent slip event, driven by propagation of the rupture tips. In the brittle upper crust, fracturing of the damage zone is the typical response to high stress, but in the lower crust, the evolution of combined crystal plastic and brittle deformation may be used to constrain in more detail the stress history of rupture, as well as additonal parameters of the deformation environment. It is crucial to understand these deep crustal seismic deformation mechanisms both along the fault and in the wall rock, as coseismic damage is an important (and sometimes the only) method of significantly weakening anhydrous and metastable lower crust, whether by grain size reduction or by fluid redistribution.A detailed study of pyroxene microstructures are used here to characterise the short-term evolution of high stress deformation experienced on the initiation of lower crustal earthquake rupture. These pyroxenes are sampled from the pseudotachylyte-bearing fault planes and damage zones of lower crustal earthquakes linked to local stress amplifications within a viscous shear zone network, recorded in an exhumed granulite-facies section in Lofoten, northern Norway. In orthopyroxene, initial low-temperature plasticity is overtaken by pulverisation-style fragmentation, generating potential pathways for hydration and reaction. In clinopyroxene, low-temperature plasticity remains dominant throughout but the microstructural style changes rapidly through the pre- and co-seismic periods from twinning to undulose extinction and finally the formation of low angle boundaries. We present here an important record of lower crustal short-term stress evolution along seismogenic faults