Early Modern Fashion Cities

doi:10.1017/9781108850353.010

8 - Early Modern Fashion Cities

Italy and Europe in a Global Context

from Part II - Early Modern Global Entanglements

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2023

Eugenia Paulicelli

Edited by

Christopher Breward ,

Beverly Lemire and

Giorgio Riello

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Christopher Breward: Affiliation:
National Museums of Scotland
Beverly Lemire: Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Giorgio Riello: Affiliation:
European University Institute, Florence

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Summary

The Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) was one of the founders of the Jesuit mission in China. When in China, Ricci discovered that if he presented himself dressed as a priest he was not afforded social legitimacy in elite and court society.1 So he decided to dress as a Confucian scholar, thus ‘translating’ his social position into Chinese. This reference to dress is of a piece with Ricci’s work as the first translator of the Confucian classics into Latin and of Western classics, such as Euclid’s Elements (c. 300 bce), into Chinese in collaboration with the writer, mathematician, and politician Xu Guangqi (1562–1633). As a ‘Western Confucian’, Ricci embodied a hybrid identity where dress acted as the material mediator of cultures, locations, and geographies (Figures 8.1 and 8.2).

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Global History of Fashion
From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century
, pp. 231 - 270

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108850353.010 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2023

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