In the Garden of the World. Italy to a Young 19Th Century Chinese Traveler, 2020 Miriam Castorina
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Miriam Castorina FIRENZE UNIVERSITY Miriam Castorina PRESS In the garden of world In the garden of the world Italy to a young 19th century Chinese traveler FUP STUDI E SAGGI ISSN 2704-6478 (PRINT) | ISSN 2704-5919 (ONLINE) – 206 – FLORIENTALIA ASIAN STUDIES SERIES – UNIVERSITY OF FLORENCE Editor-in-Chief Pedone Valentina, University of Florence, Italy Sagiyama Ikuko, University of Florence, Italy Scientific Board Bianchi Ester, University of Perugia, Italy Brezzi Alessandra, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy De Troia Paolo, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy Del Bene Marco, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy Fujiwara Katsumi, Osaka University, Japan Hyodo Hiromi, Gakushuin University, Japan Klöter Henning, Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany Li-Chia Liu Jennifer, Harvard University, United States Masini Federico, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy Nagashima Hiroaki, University of Nishogakusha, Japan Romagnoli Chiara, Roma Tre University, Italy Ruperti Bonaventura, University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, Italy Stirpe Luca, Gabriele d’Annunzio University, Italy Tada Kazuomi, University of Tokyo, Japan Tomasi Massimiliano, Western Washington University, United States Yongming Zhou, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States Zuccheri Serena, University of Bologna, Italy Published Titles Valentina Pedone, A Journey to the West. Observations on the Chinese Migration to Italy, 2013 Edoardo Gerlini, The Heian Court Poetry as World Literature. From the Point of View of Early Italian Poetry, 2014 Ikuko Sagiyama, Valentina Pedone (edited by), Perspectives on East Asia, 2014 Ikuko Sagiyama, Valentina Pedone (edited by), Transcending Borders. Selected papers in East Asian studies, 2016 Ikuko Sagiyama, Miriam Castorina (edited by), Trajectories. Selected papers in East Asian studies 軌跡, 2019 Miriam Castorina, In the garden of the world. Italy to a young 19th century Chinese Traveler, 2020 MIRIam CASTORINA In the garden of the world Italy to a young 19th century Chinese traveler FIRENZE UNIVERSITY PRESS 2020 In the garden of the world : Italy to a young 19th century Chinese traveler / Miriam Castorina. – Firenze : Firenze University Press, 2020. (Studi e saggi ; 206) https://www.fupress.com/isbn/9788855180337 ISSN 2704-6478 (print) ISSN 2704-5919 (online) ISBN 978-88-5518-032-0 (print) ISBN 978-88-5518-033-7 (PDF) ISBN 978-88-5518-034-4 (XML) DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-033-7 Graphic design: Alberto Pizarro Fernández, Lettera Meccanica SRLs FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice) All publications are submitted to an external refereeing process under the responsibility of the FUP Editorial Board and the Scientific Boards of the series. The works published are evaluated and approved by the Editorial Board of the publishing house, and must be compliant with the Peer review policy, the Open Access, Copyright and Licensing policy and the Publication Ethics and Complaint policy. Firenze University Press Editorial Board M. Garzaniti (Editor-in-Chief), M.E. Alberti, M. Boddi, A. Bucelli, R. Casalbuoni, F. Ciampi, A. Dolfi, R. Ferrise, P. Guarnieri, R. Lanfredini, P. Lo Nostro, G. Mari, A. Mariani, P.M. Mariano, S. Marinai, R. Minuti, P. Nanni, A. Orlandi, A. Perulli, G. Pratesi, O. Roselli. The online digital edition is published in Open Access on www.fupress.com. Content license: the present work is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license allows you to share any part of the work by any means and format, modify it for any purpose, including commercial, as long as appropriate credit is given to the author, any changes made to the work are indicated and a URL link is provided to the license. Metadata license: all the metadata are released under the Public Domain Dedication license (CC0 1.0 Universal: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode). © 2020 Author(s) Published by Firenze University Press Firenze University Press Università degli Studi di Firenze via Cittadella, 7, 50144 Firenze, Italy www.fupress.com This book is printed on acid-free paper Printed in Italy TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IX ABBREVIATIONS XI PRELIMINARY NOTES XIII INTRODUCTION XVII CHAPTER 1 CHINESE JOURNEYS TO “THE WEST”: GUO LIANCHENG’S PREDECESSORS 1 1. Chinese first-person accounts on Italy up to the 19th century 7 CHAPTER 2 GUO LIANCHENG AND THE CATHOLIC MISSION IN HUBEI 11 1. The Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Chinese mission 11 2. Guo Liancheng and the Catholic mission in Hubei at the beginning of the 19th century 14 3. Popular uprisings and persecutions against Christians 18 4. Luigi Celestino Spelta OFM (1818-1862) 22 CHAPTER 3 GUO LIANCHENG AND HIS JOURNEY TO THE WEST 31 1. Biographical notes on Guo Liancheng 31 2. The Xiyou bilüe 西遊筆略 editions 40 3. Guo Liancheng and his journey to Italy 51 CHAPTER 4 GUO LIANCHENG IN ITALY 57 1. Guo Liancheng in Northern Italy 61 2. Guo Liancheng in Turin 64 3. Guo Liancheng in Rome 67 CHAPTER 5 THE XIYOU BILÜE: SOME LINGUISTIC AND CULTURAL CONSIDERATIONS 73 1. The XYBL between tradition and modernity 73 2. Linguistic innovations in XYBL 85 Miriam Castorina, In the garden of the world. Italy to a young 19th century Chinese traveler, © 2020 Author(s), content CC BY-SA 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0 Universal, published by Firenze University Press (www.fupress.com), ISSN 2704-5919 (online), ISBN 978-88-5518-033-7 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88- 5518-033-7 VI IN THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD APPENDIXES Appendix I. Toponyms 93 Appendix II. Neologisms and new expressions 99 Appendix III. Anthroponyms 103 REFERENCES 107 LIST OF TABLES 115 INDEX OF NAMES 117 In loving memory of Francesca Minutiello ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Back in 2007, just a few months before I was due to discuss my PhD thesis, my laptop, two different devices (on which I had saved all the documents) and a hard copy of the first twenty pages of my work were stolen. In those years, cloud services were not common and so, in the blink of an eye, I lost three years’ work and all hope of succeeding in the field of Chinese Studies. In despair, I had to re-translate and re-write in six months the 400 pages of my thesis and fi- nally discussed it in April 2008. Subsequently, even if I continued my research focusing on the cultural flow between Italy and China, I totally abandoned the research I had conducted for the previous three years on a young Chinese trav- eler and his journey to the West. Now, more than ten years later, I find myself once again attempting to honor the same young Chinese man and his personal story with this book, the publi- cation of which would not be possible without the support of the Department of Education, Languages, Intercultures, Literatures and Psychology at the Uni- versity of Florence, which in part sponsored the cost of the publication. This book is not the translation of my PhD thesis but a new critical version in which I have updated much of the information and refrained from inserting all the translations of the original text. Nevertheless, parts of the original Chi- nese account have been translated here, so as to give a taste of the unique na- ture of the work I will present in the following pages. In these years many scholars have helped me with their advice, shared knowledge and research experiences, especially my tutor Professor Federico Masini, Full professor at Sapienza University of Rome, to whom I will always be grateful, firstly for having initiated me into the magical world of Sinology and secondly because it was he who introduced me to the Chinese travel ac- count presented here. Most of my research was conducted in archives and libraries in Italy, (Rome and Venice above all), and in China (Beijing), thanks to the three-year grant I received from Sapienza University of Rome. My research then continued in Peking University, especially in the time spent working there as an Italian lec- turer and visiting scholar between 2014 and 2015. My gratitude goes not only Miriam Castorina, In the garden of the world. Italy to a young 19th century Chinese traveler, © 2020 Author(s), content CC BY-SA 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0 Universal, published by Firenze University Press (www.fupress.com), ISSN 2704-5919 (online), ISBN 978-88-5518-033-7 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88- 5518-033-7 X IN THE GARDEN OF THE WORLD to my colleagues and teachers of Sapienza and Peking universities but also to all the administrative staff who helped in many other ways, especially in the then Faculty of Oriental Studies, where I spent some of my best years, both from an academic and a personal viewpoint. I also thank Michele Fatica, retired professor at Naples University “L’Orientale”, for “having shown me the way” and for the precious historical materials he provided me with. I owe my gratitude to Roberto Piacentini and Father Luciano Faravelli for the research they carried out for me in Montebello della Battaglia as well as to Father Pacifico Sella who opened the door for me at the Franciscan archive in Marghera. Some important data for the compilation of this work were provid- ed by Francesco Maglioccola, who spent a lot of time in Wuhan working on the history of the Italian community in the region and who has access to oth- erwise unavailable sources. I thank him for his unfailing willingness to share information with me. Some very difficult passages in Chinese would have been unintelligible with- out the precious and constant support of Zhang Tongbing and Sun Pingping, who helped me to interpret and translate them as well as tracing the original classical quotation in the text when I was unable to.