Images and representations of Europe in China: Missionaries narrate the West

Paolo De Troia analyses the geographical and cartographic works of Ricci and Giulio Aleni, showing how the Jesuits offered Chinese readers an idealized image of Europe, capable of arousing curiosity and admiration and of legitimizing the missionary project among elites. Thus, not only China as a myth for Europe, but also Europe as a myth for China: a mirror game in which each civilization both saw and redefined itself through the other, mediated by Jesuit exchanges.