Presenting the “Nestorian” Monument From the Late Seventeenth to the Early Eighteenth Century

Research on this topic led to some interesting, but at times inaccurate statements about Father Michal Piotr Boym, a Jesuit missionary in China whose writings became a link in the cultural relations of China and Europe during the seventeenth century and later. In the 1876 edition of Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Carl Gustav Adolph Siegfried wrote a biographical sketch of Boym in one sentence, mentioned Boym' s Flora Sinensis of 1656 and his writings about medicine that Andre Cleyer (1634? -1698) edited. He then concluded: Because of the newer literature about China, everything else has become fairly meaningless.1 The term fairly meaningless raises questions concerning nineteenth-century historiography about China. This conference with its focus on Boym seeks to broaden and rectify that discussion. A major thrust of the literature about the Nestorian Monument centers on its discovery or on its being featured in the work of Athanasius Kircher (1601

Ancient history · Art · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Philosophical and Historical Studies · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity