Talented but devious: the 'Italian character' according to the geographical sources published in China between 1815 and 1858

From the late 16th to the first half of the 19th century, the Chinese Empire relied almost exclusively on Western sources to collect information about Europe, its countries and their inhabitants. In this process of cultural transmission, the writings of the Jesuit fa- thers, first, and those of the Protestant missionaries, later on, actively contributed to shape and determine the mental representation of foreign countries and people in China, before the first Chinese travellers had the chance to travel westwards and pro- vide a first-hand impression of what they saw and heard abroad. This paper investi- gates the representation of the Italian people that is conveyed by texts on world ge- ography translated or edited in Chinese by the Protestant missionaries from 1815 to 1858. Furthermore, it examines how the ambivalent image resulting from these writ- ings, in sharp contrast to the idyllic description of Italy contained in the Jesuits writ- ings of the 16th and 17th centuries, was adopted and perpetuated by some very influ- ential Chinese literati of that time in their works of world geography. Besides enucleating the features of the ‘Italian character’ emerging from these sources, this paper thus casts light on a poorly known network of information that operated in the period concerned and actively contributed to the shaping and spreading of ethnic stereotypes in China.