The Jesuits wanted to understand China to win converts. Accordingly, they adopted Chinese names, dress, language and immersed themselves in the Chinese culture, while introducing the Chinese to western mathematics, science, cartography and astronomy. In 1592 Ricci famously predicted a solar eclipse more accurately than the court astronomers. As a result, Emperor Wan-li invited Ricci to Peking. Ricci arrived in the city in 1601 and resided there until he died in 1610. The most influential Western description of China since the 13th-century account by Marco Polo is by a Jesuit, Mateo Ricci.
Matteo Ricci, the pioneer Jesuit missionary to China, left an unfinished manuscript entitled "Della entrata della Compagnia di Giesu at Christianita nella Cina", which was completed and translated into Latin in 1615 in Augsburg. He added material from other Ricci manuscripts, as well as an account of Ricci's death and funeral. It was quickly reprinted across Europe and translated into numerous European languages.
Gallagher writes: 'it probably had more effect on the literary and scientific, the philosophical and the religious phases of life in Europe than any other historical volume of the seventeenth century. It introduced Confucius to Europe and Copernicus and Euclid to China. It opened a new world' (China in the Sixteenth Century: the Journal of Matthew Ricci, 1953).
The title page engraving shows Matteo Ricci and Saint Francis Xavier, along with Ricci's map of China. Trigault was born in Douai in 1577 and joined the Jesuits at 17 or 18. After spending a decade teaching in the Society's colleges, he petitioned to be sent as a missionary to the 'Indies', finally securing passage in 1607. He seems to have arrived in China in about 1610 and was in charge of the mission in three provinces. At this time, the Japan mission, founded by Francis Xavier (1506-1552), overshadowed that of their brethren in China; but Trigault was part of a band of missionaries that, through Matteo Ricci's (1552-1610) influence and diplomacy, had managed to obtain prestige in the Ming empire by becoming the first westerners to learn Mandarin and offer new forms of knowledge to the Chinese elite.