Istoria delle cose operate nella China da monsignor Gio. Ambrogio Mezzabarba patriarca d'Alessandria, legato appostolico in quell'impero, e di presente vescovo di Lodi, scritta dal padre Viani suo confessore e compagno nella predetta legazione. Opera data adesso la prima volta alla luce

Autore: VIANI, Sostegno (Padre Servita, 1690-1739)

Tipografo: [Antoine Claude Briasson]

Dati tipografici: Paris, [1739]


8vo (179x115 mm). XV, [1 blank], 256 pp. Collation: [π]8 A-Q8. Contemporary stiff vellum, ink title on spine (minor losses to spine). On the front pastedown bookplate of Cavalier Horace Mann and his stamp on the title page. Some light foxing, but a very nice copy, uncut and unopened.

 

First edition. In 1720 Clement XI sent to Beijing a delegation headed by Archbishop Carlo Ambrogio Mezzabarba, of whom Viani was the confessor, with the task of solving some controversies on local rites and ceremonies not appreciated by the Church; after considerable difficulties, Emperor Khang-hi granted a couple of audiences, but the lack of an agreement caused, some years later, the expulsion of the missionaries and the ruin of the ecclesiastical structure in China. Mezzabarba, patriarch of Alexandria, legate in China and cardinal, was born in Pavia in 1685 and died in Lodi in 1741. This is the first-hand report of this mission that Viani wrote upon his return from the trip. The date of printing is taken from the imaginary dedication to Francis Xavier.

 

Quérard, X, 137; Cordier, II, 920.


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