Matteo Ricci, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Matteo Ricci

Italian priest and missionary

Date of Birth: 06-Oct-1552

Place of Birth: Macerata, Marche, Italy

Date of Death: 11-May-1610

Profession: writer, mathematician, missionary, translator, presbyter, cartographer, explorer

Zodiac Sign: Libra

Matteo Ricci (Italian pronunciation: [mat't??o 'ritt?i]; Latin: Mattheus Riccius Maceratensis; 6 October 1552 – 11 May 1610), was an Italian Jesuit priest and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China missions.
His 1602 map of the world in Chinese characters introduced the findings of European exploration to East Asia.
He is considered a Servant of God by the Roman Catholic Church. Ricci arrived at the Portuguese settlement of Macau in 1582 where he began his missionary work in China.
He became the first European to enter the Forbidden City of Beijing in 1601 when invited by the Wanli Emperor, who sought his services in matters such as court astronomy and calendrical science.
He converted several prominent Chinese officials to Catholicism, such as Xu Guangqi, who aided in translating Euclid's Elements into Chinese as well as the Confucian classics into Latin for the first time.