Early Modern Evangelization of China: The Franciscan Mission and its Theory

Marie Curie Skłodowská Individual Fellowship

call: H2020-MSCA-IF-2019

Proposal number: 892795

One of the outcomes of this project was the international workshop “Ut sanguis martyrum sit semen christianorum:  Martyrdom in Early modern Christian missions in Asia”, celebrated at Palacky University Olomouc, 1-2 June 2022.

Martyrdom -understood in the Christian culture as suffering and, ultimately, death for Christ-, is a rich and controversial field of study, which has received considerable scholarly attention, especially in the last decades. The idea of martyrdom is, by its very nature, intrinsic to the Christian evangelization enterprise, because the Apostolate is considered as the continuation of the activity of Christ’s disciples in spreading the faith, and as the perpetuation of the deeds and the doctrine of Jesus Christ as well as of his Passion.

From this point of view, martyrdom is deeply embedded in the missionary discourse and imagery. In fact, Early Modern Christian missions are bound to the idea of martyrdom not only in their theological and spiritual underpinning, but also in practice: missionary relationes often depict suffering, hardship, persecution, and in many cases, heroic deaths in the name of God’s glory. Moreover, the Jesuit indipetae letters are full of desire of martyrdom, longing for death in the Indies. Despite this relevance of martyrdom for Early Modern evangelization enterprise, the scholarly exploration of this particular period is fairly limited, especially in regards of a global, integrative perspective not focused on single case studies.

The workshop aimed at contributing to the study or martyrdom in Early Modern missions, especially in Asia (complemented with Latin American perspectives). This period is, in our understanding, crucial for the very idea of martyrdom, because it was precisely in the 16^th century, following the confessional split between the Catholics and the Protestants, when the Catholic notion of martyrdom re-emerged after its medieval latency. The aim of the workshop is to explore the idea and the practices of martyrdom in Early modern missions from multiple points of view, including, in the first place, historical and literary, but also anthropological, theological or iconographical perspectives.

• Program 

• Book of abstracts 

• Poster

New Worlds. Far East in Early Modern European Culture

One of the topics closely related to the project is the Early modern representation of China and Japan (and of the Orient in general), created in the 16^th and 17^th centuries mainly by Catholic missionaries active in those territories, and transmitted in their relationes (informs), chronicles and letters addressed to their European brethren. What is the image of the Far East in these documents? How do missionaries perceive and undertstand these new worlds, which are often completely alien to the European eye, and how do they transmit their experience to the readers back in Europe? What is the result of the encounter of the first-hand missionary experience with the often dreamlike image of the Orient, that had been present in European imagination from the Middle Ages?

The exhibition focused on the image and the myth of China and Japan in early modern Europe. Its aim was to present a selection of old prints in the collection of Research Library in Olomouc. These texts played a decisive role in the creation of the image of China and Japan in the 17^th century, and it should be remembered that this early modern image is extremely influential also for the contemporary Western perception of the Far East.  

This book was published to accompany the exhibition New Worlds. The Far East in Early Modern European Culture, held in 2023 at the Research Library Olomouc, one of the largest libraries in the Czech Republic. The aim of the exhibition was to present a selection from its ancient collection’s prints that contributed to the image of China and Japan in the 17^th century, a key period for the Western perception of the Far East. The book analyzes both its discursive and iconographic representation in contemporary books, engravings, and illustrations. It employs the perspective of the Otherness, in order to show how the European view of the Far East is determined by expectations, stereotypes, fantasies and dreams about an exotic and magical Orient that have existed in European imagery since the Middle Ages and that remain in force to this day.

Nakládalová, I. (2023). Nové světy. Dálný východ v evropské kultuře raného novověku. Research Library Olomouc.