Juan González de Mendoza and the Historia del Gran Reino de la China: building a sinological knowledge from the Sixteenth Century Europe

 

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Sola García, Diego
Formato: artículo original
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de Publicación:2016
Descripción:This article presents succinctly a review of the life and work of Juan González de Mendoza (1545-1618), religious of the Order of St. Augustine that proclaimed himself “chronicler of China”. In 1585 he published the Historia del Gran Reino de la China, a book that gave him certain fame in scholarly circles of his time. Reviewing to Mendoza and his text involves asking what China was portrayed by the author, from which sources he obtained his news and the purpose that pursued his publication. His work became from the moment of its appearance a great success due to the increasing demand for news about China in Renaissance Europe. Although Mendoza had never been to Asia, he developed a meticulous historiographical work with the sources at his disposal. At the same time, the work had to serve multiple interests: political interests because of the origin of the text (a failed embassy of Philip II of Spain to Ming China); missionaries interests according to a competitive atmosphere with different religious orders fighting between them to take place in the evangelization race of the East; finally, personal interests due to the high personal expectations of Mendoza deposited in his Historia. His contribution is a decisive episode in the building of the image of China in Early Modern Europe
País:Portal de Revistas UCR
Institución:Universidad de Costa Rica
Repositorio:Portal de Revistas UCR
Lenguaje:Español
OAI Identifier:oai:portal.ucr.ac.cr:article/25027
Acceso en línea:https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/estudios/article/view/25027
Palabra clave:China
Ming Dynasty
missionary literature
Order of Saint Augustine
Juan González de Mendoza
dinastía Ming
literatura misionera
Orden de San Agustín