A remarkable survival; one of the great scholar Lodovico Buglio’s translations printed at the Jesuit Mission Press in 17th century Peking (present-day Beijing).
Lodovico (aka Luigi) Buglio (1606-1682) was born in the small town of Mineo in Sicily. He entered the Jesuit order in 1622 at the tender age of 17. He spent several years at the college of Rome and became Professor of Humanities and Rhetoric. He volunteered to work as a missionary in China and arrived in Macao in 1636 at the age of 30 where he spent some time learning Chinese, before entering Jiangnan province. In 1639 he decided to travel to Szechuan Province and was the first Catholic missionary to reach Chengdu in 1640 where he spent 7 years as a missionary.
In 1644 the warlord Zhang Xianzhong (1606-1647) captured Chengdu and set up a regime of Terror there. Buglio was forced to work for Zhang as an official until Qing forces re-captured Chengdu. Buglio was arrested and sent to Peking. There he was rehabilitated and worked as a mathematician at the court. He famously had a big falling out with Schall von Bell (1591-1666) over his accommodating attitude to the compilation of the Chinese calendar which Buglio claimed included aspects of superstition. He died in Peking on October 7th 1682, aged 76 and was buried in the Zhalan cemetery.
During his time in China, Buglio wrote or translated some 30 titles numbering over 80 volumes: He translated parts 1 & 3 of Aquinus’ Summa Theologica (30vols.) the Roman Missal and the Roman Breviary, as well as other doctrinal works and a number of texts about European geography, trade, and natural history (about lions and hawks). The present volume is a translation of a handbook for administering the last rites before death. It was based on the Rituale Romanum, published in Rome by Pope Paul V in 1614.
Very rare. Only one copy in OCLC (Biblotheque National de France).
Chan: Chinese books and documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome. I, 95 (p. 147-148).
