1.
Society of Jesus
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The Society of Jesus Latin, Societas Iesu, S. J. SJ or SI) is a religious congregation of the Catholic Church which originated in Spain. The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations on six continents, Jesuits work in education, intellectual research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, and promote social justice, Ignatius of Loyola founded the society after being wounded in battle and experiencing a religious conversion. He composed the Spiritual Exercises to help others follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, ignatiuss plan of the orders organization was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540 by a bull containing the Formula of the Institute. Ignatius was a nobleman who had a background, and the members of the society were supposed to accept orders anywhere in the world. The Society participated in the Counter-Reformation and, later, in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, the Society of Jesus is consecrated under the patronage of Madonna Della Strada, a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is led by a Superior General. The Society of Jesus on October 3,2016 announced that Superior General Adolfo Nicolás resignation was officially accepted, on October 14, the 36th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus elected Father Arturo Sosa as its thirty-first Superior General. The headquarters of the society, its General Curia, is in Rome, the historic curia of St. Ignatius is now part of the Collegio del Gesù attached to the Church of the Gesù, the Jesuit Mother Church. In 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the first Jesuit Pope, the Jesuits today form the largest single religious order of priests and brothers in the Catholic Church. As of 1 January 2015, Jesuits numbered 16,740,11,986 clerics regular,2,733 scholastics,1,268 brothers and 753 novices. In 2012, Mark Raper S. J. wrote, Our numbers have been in decline for the last 40 years—from over 30,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 18,000 today. The steep declines in Europe and North America and consistent decline in Latin America have not been offset by the significant increase in South Asia, the Society is divided into 83 Provinces with six Independent Regions and ten Dependent Regions. On 1 January 2007, members served in 112 nations on six continents with the largest number in India and their average age was 57.3 years,63.4 years for priests,29.9 years for scholastics, and 65.5 years for brothers. The current Superior General of the Jesuits is Arturo Sosa, the Society is characterized by its ministries in the fields of missionary work, human rights, social justice and, most notably, higher education. It operates colleges and universities in countries around the world and is particularly active in the Philippines. In the United States it maintains 28 colleges and universities and 58 high schools and he ensured that his formula was contained in two papal bulls signed by Pope Paul III in 1540 and by Pope Julius III in 1550. The formula expressed the nature, spirituality, community life and apostolate of the new religious order, the meeting is now commemorated in the Martyrium of Saint Denis, Montmartre
2.
Macerata
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Macerata listen is a city and comune in central Italy, the county seat of the province of Macerata in the Marche region. Together with the town, sprawling on the plain below the historic centre. The historical city centre is on a hill between the Chienti and Potenza rivers and it first consisted of the Picenes city named Ricina, then, after its romanization, Recina and Helvia Recina. The newly rebuilt town was Macerata and it became a municipality in August 1138. Typically hilly, the climate is both Mediterranean and continental, the Adriatic Sea, which is approximately 30 kilometres away, and particularly the Apennine Mountains influence the weather. The elevation of Macerata is approximately 315 metres above sea level, so winter is particularly rainy, balkanic and northwestern perturbations may cause snow. Middle seasons are variable, and late snowfall and frost may occur during April, october is neither warm nor very cold. Summer is rather sunny, and sometimes the thermometer reaches 40 °C, garbino is the cause, a hot wind from the hinterland. Summer thunderstorms are frequent in August during the evening, when the weather becomes quite unstable, in the central Piazza della Libertà is the Loggia dei Mercanti with two-tier arcades dating from the Renaissance. There are a number of striking palazzi, mostly along Corso Matteotti, next to the Loggia dei Mercanti, Corso della Repubblica leads to Piazza Vittorio Veneto where, in the Palazzo Ricci, there is a modern art gallery. Another museum that is worth a visit is Palazzo Buonaccorsi where you can see the amazing Eneide Hall. Soon the building will host the city Art Gallery with its most important artpiece, the University of Macerata was founded in 1290 and has about 13,000 students, Macerata also has an art school, two publishing houses, jazz clubs and the like. The Palazzo Buonaccorsi was built in 1700–1720 for Count Raimondo Buonaccorsi, the piano nobile is known for the Sala dellEneide, decorated with frescoes by Rambaldi, Dardani, Solimena, and canvases by Garzi and Giovanni Gioseffo dal Sole. Just north of the town, at the Villa Potenza, lie the remains of ancient Helvia Recina, among the churches in the town are, Macerata Cathedral, built in Neoclassical style in 1771–1790, it has the remains of a 15th-century Gothic bell tower. The interior was designed by Cosimo Morelli, San Claudio al Chienti, Romanesque church south of the Town. Its unusual shape is due to one church being built on the remains of another and it was built during the 14th century as war reparation to Montolmo, which defeated Macerata in a bloody and long war. San Claudio al Chienti is very close to Macerata, but it has been a frazione of Corridonia since that time, San Filippo Neri San Giorgio Santa Maria della Misericordia Santo Stefano In July and August the Sferisterio Opera Festival is held in the 2,500 seat Arena Sferisterio. It is a huge neoclassical arena erected in the 1820s as a stadium for a form of handball by the architect Ireneo Aleandri, the orchestra pit is so wide that musicians at each end cannot hear each other
3.
Papal States
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The Papal States, officially the State of the Church, were territories in the Italian Peninsula under the sovereign direct rule of the pope, from the 8th century until 1870. They were among the states of Italy from roughly the 8th century until the Italian Peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. At their zenith, they covered most of the modern Italian regions of Lazio, Marche, Umbria and Romagna and these holdings were considered to be a manifestation of the temporal power of the pope, as opposed to his ecclesiastical primacy. By 1861, much of the Papal States territory had been conquered by the Kingdom of Italy, only Lazio, including Rome, remained under the Popes temporal control. In 1870, the pope lost Lazio and Rome and had no physical territory at all, Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini ended the crisis between unified Italy and the Vatican by signing the Lateran Treaty, granting the Vatican City State sovereignty. The Papal States were also known as the Papal State, the territories were also referred to variously as the State of the Church, the Pontifical States, the Ecclesiastical States, or the Roman States. For its first 300 years the Catholic Church was persecuted and unrecognized and this system began to change during the reign of the emperor Constantine I, who made Christianity legal within the Roman Empire, and restoring to it any properties that had been confiscated. The Lateran Palace was the first significant new donation to the Church, other donations followed, primarily in mainland Italy but also in the provinces of the Roman Empire. But the Church held all of these lands as a private landowner, the seeds of the Papal States as a sovereign political entity were planted in the 6th century. Beginning In 535, the Byzantine Empire, under emperor Justinian I, launched a reconquest of Italy that took decades and devastated Italys political, just as these wars wound down, the Lombards entered the peninsula from the north and conquered much of the countryside. While the popes remained Byzantine subjects, in practice the Duchy of Rome, nevertheless, the pope and the exarch still worked together to control the rising power of the Lombards in Italy. As Byzantine power weakened, though, the took a ever larger role in defending Rome from the Lombards. In practice, the papal efforts served to focus Lombard aggrandizement on the exarch, a climactic moment in the founding of the Papal States was the agreement over boundaries embodied in the Lombard king Liutprands Donation of Sutri to Pope Gregory II. When the Exarchate of Ravenna finally fell to the Lombards in 751, the popes renewed earlier attempts to secure the support of the Franks. In 751, Pope Zachary had Pepin the Younger crowned king in place of the powerless Merovingian figurehead king Childeric III, zacharys successor, Pope Stephen II, later granted Pepin the title Patrician of the Romans. Pepin led a Frankish army into Italy in 754 and 756, Pepin defeated the Lombards – taking control of northern Italy – and made a gift of the properties formerly constituting the Exarchate of Ravenna to the pope. The cooperation between the papacy and the Carolingian dynasty climaxed in 800, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Emperor, the precise nature of the relationship between the popes and emperors – and between the Papal States and the Empire – is disputed. Events in the 9th century postponed the conflict, the Holy Roman Empire in its Frankish form collapsed as it was subdivided among Charlemagnes grandchildren
4.
Beijing
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Beijing is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China and the worlds third most populous city proper. It is also one of the worlds most populous capital cities, the city, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by population after Shanghai and is the nations political, cultural. It is home to the headquarters of most of Chinas largest state-owned companies, and is a hub for the national highway, expressway, railway. The citys history dates back three millennia, as the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political centre of the country for much of the past eight centuries. Beijing was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium A. D, the city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have made it centre of culture, encyclopædia Britannica notes that few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China. Siheyuans, the traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing. The city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, many of Beijings 91 universities consistently rank among the best in China, of which Peking University and Tsinghua University are ranked in the top 60 universities in the world. Beijings Zhongguancun area is known as Chinas Silicon Valley and Chinas center of innovation. According to the 2016 InterNations Expat Insider Survey, Beijing ranked first in Asia in the subcategory Personal Finance Index, expats live primarily in urban districts such as Dongcheng and Chaoyang in the east, or in suburban districts such as Shunyi. Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had other names. The name Beijing, which means Northern Capital, was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing, the English spelling is based on the pinyin romanisation of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. Those dialects preserve the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 京 as kjaeng, the single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is 京, which appears on automobile license plates in the city. The official Latin alphabet abbreviation for Beijing is BJ, the earliest traces of human habitation in the Beijing municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic Homo sapiens also lived more recently, about 27,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found neolithic settlements throughout the municipality, including in Wangfujing, the first walled city in Beijing was Ji, a city from the 11th to 7th century BC
5.
Ming dynasty
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The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – then known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352. In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
6.
Kunyu Wanguo Quantu
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It has been referred to as the Impossible Black Tulip of Cartography, because of its rarity, importance and exoticism. The map was crucial in expanding Chinese knowledge of the world and it was later exported to Japan and was influential there as well. The 1602 Ricci map is a large,5 ft high and 12 ft wide. The 1906 Eckert IV map resembles the display of this Chinese map and it is the first map in Chinese to show the Americas. The maps mirror image originally was carved on six large blocks of wood and then printed in ink on six mulberry paper panels. It portrays both North and South America and the Pacific Ocean with reasonable accuracy, China appropriately is linked to Asia, India, and the Middle East. Europe, the Mediterranean, and Africa also are well delineated, the map includes images and annotations describing different regions of the world. Africa is noted to have the worlds highest mountain and longest river, the brief description of North America mentions humped oxen or bison, feral horses, and names Canada. The map identifies Florida as Huādì, the Land of Flowers, several Central and South American places are named, including Guatemala, Yucatan, and Chile. The maps cartographer, Matteo Ricci, gave a description of the discovery of the Americas. The Museo della Specola Bologna has in its collection, displayed on the wall of the Globe Room and he had already made a first edition in 1584 at Shiuhing, followed by a second in 1600 at Nanking, and two years later a third in Peking. In 1938, a work by Pasquale dElia, edited by the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, was published with comments, notes. There is a preface by Matteo Ricci in the middle of the map. D’Elia’s translation reads, The figure of the Nove Cieli is printed to the left of the title, the accompanying inscription explains the movement of the planets. The right-hand section has other inscriptions giving general ideas on geography and oceanography, another inscription records an extract of the Storia dei Mongoli regarding the motions of the Sun. In the top of the section, there is an explanation of eclipses and the method for measuring the Earth. Both sections carry the characteristic Jesuit seal, the IHS of the Society of Jesus. At the bottom left, in the Southern Hemisphere, is the name of the Chinese publisher of the map, Matteo Ricci was a Jesuit priest
7.
Macau
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Macau, also spelled Macao, officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China, is an autonomous territory on the western side of the Pearl River Delta in East Asia. Macau is bordered by the city of Zhuhai in Mainland China to the north, Hong Kong lies about 64 kilometres to its east across the Delta. With a population of 650,900 living in an area of 30.5 km2, Macau was administered by the Portuguese Empire and its inheritor states from the mid-16th century until late 1999, when it constituted the last remaining European colony in Asia. Portuguese traders first settled in Macau in the 1550s, in 1557, Macau was leased to Portugal from Ming China as a trading port. The Portuguese Empire administered the city under Chinese authority and sovereignty until 1887, sovereignty over Macau was transferred back to China on 20 December 1999. The Joint Declaration on the Question of Macau and Macau Basic Law stipulate that Macau operate with a degree of autonomy until at least 2049. Macau participates in international organizations and events that do not require members to national sovereignty. Macau is a city in Southern China, known for its casinos. Its gaming revenue has been the worlds largest since 2006, with the heavily dependent on gaming. According to The World Factbook, Macau has the fourth highest life expectancy in the world, the present Chinese name means Inlet Gates. Macau is otherwise known in Chinese as Haojing or Jinghai, the name Macau is thought to be derived from the A-Ma Temple, a temple built in 1448 dedicated to Mazu, the goddess of seafarers and fishermen. It is said that when the Portuguese sailors landed at the coast just outside the temple and asked the name of the place, the Portuguese then named the peninsula Macau. The history of Macau is traced back to the Qin dynasty, the first recorded Chinese inhabitants of the area were people seeking refuge in Macau from invading Mongols during the Southern Song. Under the Ming dynasty, fishermen migrated to Macau from Guangdong, the Macau native people were Tanka boat people. Macau did not develop as a settlement until the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century. In 1513, Jorge Álvares became the first Portuguese to land in China, in 1535, Portuguese traders obtained the rights to anchor ships in Macaus harbours and to carry out trading activities, though not the right to stay onshore. In 1557, the Portuguese established a permanent settlement in Macau, the Portuguese continued to pay an annual tribute up to 1863 in order to stay in Macau. By 1564, Portugal commanded western trade with India, Japan, but their pride was damaged by the indifference with which the Chinese treated them
8.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
9.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
10.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times
11.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
12.
Italians
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Italians are a nation and ethnic group native to Italy who share a common culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a native tongue. The majority of Italian nationals are speakers of Standard Italian. Italians have greatly influenced and contributed to the arts and music, science, technology, cuisine, sports, fashion, jurisprudence, banking, Italian people are generally known for their localism and their attention to clothing and family values. The term Italian is at least 3,000 years old and has a history that goes back to pre-Roman Italy. According to one of the common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The Etruscan civilization reached its peak about the 7th century BC, but by 509 BC, when the Romans overthrew their Etruscan monarchs, its control in Italy was on the wane. By 350 BC, after a series of wars between Greeks and Etruscans, the Latins, with Rome as their capital, gained the ascendancy by 272 BC, and they managed to unite the entire Italian peninsula. This period of unification was followed by one of conquest in the Mediterranean, in the course of the century-long struggle against Carthage, the Romans conquered Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Finally, in 146 BC, at the conclusion of the Third Punic War, with Carthage completely destroyed and its inhabitants enslaved, octavian, the final victor, was accorded the title of Augustus by the Senate and thereby became the first Roman emperor. After two centuries of rule, in the 3rd century AD, Rome was threatened by internal discord and menaced by Germanic and Asian invaders. Emperor Diocletians administrative division of the empire into two parts in 285 provided only temporary relief, it became permanent in 395, in 313, Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity, and churches thereafter rose throughout the empire. However, he moved his capital from Rome to Constantinople. The last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476 by a Germanic foederati general in Italy and his defeat marked the end of the western part of the Roman Empire. During most of the period from the fall of Rome until the Kingdom of Italy was established in 1861, Odoacer ruled well for 13 years after gaining control of Italy in 476. Then he was attacked and defeated by Theodoric, the king of another Germanic tribe, Theodoric and Odoacer ruled jointly until 493, when Theodoric murdered Odoacer. Theodoric continued to rule Italy with an army of Ostrogoths and a government that was mostly Italian, after the death of Theodoric in 526, the kingdom began to grow weak
13.
Catholic priest
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The ministerial orders of the Roman Catholic Church are those of bishop, presbyter, and deacon. The ordained priesthood and the priesthood are different in function. The Catholic Church teaches that when a man participates in priesthood, unlike usage in English, the Latin words sacerdos and sacerdotium are used to refer in general to the ministerial priesthood shared by bishops and presbyters. The words presbyter, presbyterium and presbyteratus refer to priests in the English use of the word or presbyters. According to the Annuario Pontificio 2016, as of December 31,2014, there were 415,792 Catholic priests worldwide, a priest of the regular clergy is commonly addressed with the title Father. The state of consecrated life or monasticism is a separate, third distinct vocational state from the clergy, as an overview, there are the members of the laity- who are married or unmarried, and the clergy- the bishops, priests, and deacons. Members of institutes of consecrated life, or monks, can be either clergy or non-ordained members of the religious order. Those ordained priests or deacons who are not members of some sort of religious order most often serve as clergy to a church or in an office of a specific diocese or in Rome. The priest was understood as a mediator between God and human beings who offers sacrifices and intercedes for the people, the Catholic priesthood is a participation in this priesthood of Christ, and therefore traces its origins to Jesus Christ himself. Thus, the New Testament says that as high priest, Jesus has made the Church a kingdom of priests for his God and Father. All who are baptized are given a share in the priesthood of Christ, the whole community of believers is, as such, priestly. The ministerial priesthood of Catholic priests and bishops — what most people think of as the Catholic priesthood — has a distinct history. It is understood to have begun at the Last Supper, when Jesus Christ instituted the Eucharist in the presence of the Twelve Apostles, the Catholic priesthood, therefore, is a share in the priesthood of Christ and traces its historical origins to the Twelve Apostles appointed by Christ. Those apostles in turn selected other men to succeed them as the bishops of the Christian communities, with whom were associated presbyters and deacons. As communities multiplied and grew in size, the bishops appointed more and more presbyters to preside at the Eucharist in place of the bishop in the communities in each region. The diaconate evolved as the assistants of the bishop and his delegate for the administration of Church funds. In the decade of the 2010s, catholic priests as a group garnered public attention due to the cases of sexual abuse of children by catholic clergy being revealed. The theology of the Catholic priesthood is rooted in the priesthood of Christ, a priest is one who presides over a sacrifice and offers that sacrifice and prayers to God on behalf of believers
14.
Jesuit China missions
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The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The first attempt by the Jesuits to reach China was made in 1552 by St. Francis Xavier, Navarrese priest and missionary, Xavier never reached the mainland, dying after only a year on the Chinese island of Shangchuan. At the time of their influence, members of the Jesuit delegation were considered some of the emperors most valued and trusted advisors. Many Chinese, including former Confucian scholars, adopted Christianity and became priests, according to research by David E. Mungello, from 1552 to 1800, a total of 920 Jesuits participated in the China mission, of whom 314 were Portuguese, and 130 were French. In 1844 China may have had 240,000 Roman Catholics, but this number grew rapidly, many Jesuit priests, both Western-born and Chinese, are buried in the cemetery located in what is now the School of the Beijing Municipal Committee. Contacts between Asia and the West already dated back hundreds of years, especially between the Papacy and the Mongol Empire in the 13th century, numerous traders – most famously Marco Polo – had traveled between eastern and western Eurasia. Christianity was not new to the Mongols, as many had practiced Christianity of the Church of the East since the 7th century, by the 16th century, there is no reliable information about any practicing Christians remaining in China. The first Portuguese explorer credited with reaching China was Jorge Álvares in 1513, fairly soon after the establishment of the direct European maritime contact with China and the creation of the Society of Jesus, at least some Chinese became involved with the Jesuit effort. As early as 1546, two Chinese boys enrolled in the Jesuits St. Pauls College in Goa, the capital of Portuguese India. One of these two Christian Chinese, known as Antonio, accompanied St. Francis Xavier, a co-founder of the Society of Jesus, a number of Jesuits visited the place on occasion, and in 1563 the Order permanently established its settlement in the small Portuguese colony. However, the early Macau Jesuits did not learn Chinese, and he founded St. Paul Jesuit College and requested the Orders superiors in Goa to send a suitably talented person to Macau to start the study of Chinese. Accordingly, in 1579 the Italian Michele Ruggieri was sent to Macau, just as Ricci spent his life in China, others of his followers did the same. One time the Chongzhen Emperor was nearly converted to Christianity and broke his idols, the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the conquest of China by the Manchu Qing regime brought some difficult years for the Jesuits in China. Later, Johann Grueber was in Beijing between 1656 and 1661, there were many Christians in the court of the polygamyist emperor. French Jesuits played a role in disseminating accurate information about China in Europe. While not too many 17th-century Jesuits ever went back from China to Europe, one of the earliest Chinese travelers to Europe was Andreas Zheng, who was sent to Rome by the Yongli court along with Michał Boym in the late 1650s. Zheng and Boym stayed in Venice and Rome in 1652–55, Zheng worked with Boym on the transcription and translation of the Nestorian Monument, and returned to Asia with Boym, whom he buried when the Jesuit died near the Vietnam-China border. A few years later, another Chinese traveller who was called Matthaeus Sina in Latin also worked on the same Nestorian inscription, the result of their work was published by Athanasius Kircher in 1667 in the China Illustrata, and was the first significant Chinese text ever published in Europe
15.
Chinese characters
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Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and some other Asian languages. In Standard Chinese, and sometimes also in English, they are called hànzì. They have been adapted to write a number of languages including, Japanese, where they are known as kanji, Korean, where they are known as hanja. Collectively, they are known as CJK characters, in English, they are sometimes called Han characters. Chinese characters constitute the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world, Chinese characters number in the tens of thousands, though most of them are minor graphic variants encountered only in historical texts. Studies in China have shown that literacy in written Chinese requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters. In Japan,2,136 are taught through secondary school, the characters used in Japan are distinct from those used in China in many respects. There are various national standard lists of characters, forms, in South Korea, when Chinese characters are used they are of the traditional variant and are almost identical to those used in places like Taiwan and Hong Kong. In Old Chinese, most words were monosyllabic and there was a correspondence between characters and words. Rather, a character almost always corresponds to a syllable that is also a morpheme. However, there are a few exceptions to this correspondence, including bisyllabic morphemes. Modern Chinese has many homophones, thus the same syllable may be represented by many characters. A single character may also have a range of meanings, or sometimes quite distinct meanings, cognates in the several varieties of Chinese are generally written with the same character. They typically have similar meanings, but often quite different pronunciations and these foreign adaptations of Chinese pronunciation are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations, and have been useful in the reconstruction of Middle Chinese. When the script was first used in the late 2nd millennium BC, words of Old Chinese were generally monosyllabic, increasing numbers of polysyllabic words have entered the language from the Western Zhou period to the present day. The process has accelerated over the centuries as phonetic change has increased the number of homophones and it has been estimated that over two thirds of the 3,000 most common words in modern Standard Chinese are polysyllables, the vast majority of those being disyllables. The most common process has been to form compounds of existing words, words have also been created by adding affixes, reduplication and borrowing from other languages. Polysyllabic words are written with one character per syllable
16.
Age of Discovery
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It also marks the rise of the period of widespread adoption in Europe of colonialism and mercantilism. Many lands previously unknown to Europeans were discovered during this period, from the perspective of many non-Europeans, the Age of Discovery marked the arrival of settlers and invaders from a previously unknown continent. This represented one of the most-significant global events concerning ecology, agriculture and it also allowed for the expansion of Christianity throughout the world with the spread of missionary activity, becoming the worlds largest religion. The Portuguese began systematically exploring the Atlantic coast of Africa from 1418, in 1488 Bartolomeu Dias reached the Indian Ocean by this route. In 1492 the Catholic Monarchs of Castile and Aragon funded Christopher Columbuss plan to sail west to reach the Indies by crossing the Atlantic and he landed on a continent uncharted by Europeans and seen as a new world, the Americas. In 1498, a Portuguese expedition commanded by Vasco da Gama reached India by sailing around Africa, soon, the Portuguese sailed further eastward, to the valuable Spice Islands in 1512, landing in China one year later. In 1513, Spanish Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama, thus, Europe first received news of the eastern and western Pacific within a one-year span around 1512. Meanwhile, from the 1580s to the 1640s, Russians explored and conquered almost the whole of Siberia, another source was the Radhanite Jewish trade networks of merchants established as go-betweens between Europe and the Muslim world during the time of the Crusader states. Knowledge about the Atlantic African coast was fragmented and derived mainly from old Greek and Roman maps based on Carthaginian knowledge, the Red Sea was barely known and only trade links with the Maritime republics, the Republic of Venice especially, fostered collection of accurate maritime knowledge. Indian Ocean trade routes were sailed by Arab traders, between 1405 and 1421, the Yongle Emperor of Ming China sponsored a series of long range tributary missions under the command of Zheng He. The fleets visited Arabia, East Africa, India, Maritime Southeast Asia, by 1400 a Latin translation of Ptolemys Geographia reached Italy coming from Constantinople. The rediscovery of Roman geographical knowledge was a revelation, both for mapmaking and worldview, although reinforcing the idea that the Indian Ocean was landlocked, a prelude to the Age of Discovery was a series of European expeditions crossing Eurasia by land in the late Middle Ages. A series of Europeans took advantage of these to explore eastwards, most were Italians, as trade between Europe and the Middle East was controlled mainly by the Maritime republics. The close Italian links to the Levant raised great curiosity and commercial interest in countries which lay further east, christian embassies were sent as far as Karakorum during the Mongol invasions of the Levant, from which they gained a greater understanding of the world. The first of these travellers was Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, dispatched by Pope Innocent IV to the Great Khan, about the same time, Russian prince Yaroslav of Vladimir, and subsequently his sons Alexander Nevsky and Andrey II of Vladimir, travelled to the Mongolian capital. Though having strong political implications, their journeys left no detailed accounts, other travellers followed, like French André de Longjumeau and Flemish William of Rubruck, who reached China through Central Asia. After returning, he dictated an account of his journeys to a scholar he met in Granada, the Rihla, between 1357 and 1371 a book of supposed travels compiled by John Mandeville acquired extraordinary popularity. These overland journeys had little immediate effect, the Mongol Empire collapsed almost as quickly as it formed and soon the route to the east became more difficult and dangerous
17.
East Asia
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East Asia is the eastern subregion of the Asian continent, which can be defined in either geographical or ethno-cultural terms. Geographically and geopolitically, it includes China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Korea and Japan, it covers about 12,000,000 km2, or about 28% of the Asian continent, the East Asian people comprise more than 1.5 billion people. About 38% of the population of Asia and 22%, or over one fifth, the overall population density of the region is 133 inhabitants per square kilometre, about three times the world average of 45/km2. Historically, societies in East Asia have been part of the Chinese cultural sphere, major religions include Buddhism, Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion in China and Taiwan, Shinto in Japan, Korean shamanism in Korea. Shamanism is also prevalent among Mongolians and other populations of northern East Asia. The Chinese calendar is the root from which many other East Asian calendars are derived, Chinese Dynasties dominated the region in matters of culture, trade, and exploration as well as militarily for a very long time. There are records of tributes sent overseas from the kingdoms of Korea. There were also considerable levels of cultural and religious exchange between the Chinese and other regional Dynasties and Kingdoms, as connections began to strengthen with the Western world, Chinas power began to diminish. Around the same time, Japan solidified itself as a nation state, throughout World War II, Korea, Taiwan, much of eastern China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam all fell under Japanese control. Culturally, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam are commonly seen as being encompassed by cultural East Asia, there are mixed debates around the world whether these countries or regions should be considered in East Asia or not. Vietnam Siberia in Russia Sovereignty issues exist over some territories in the South China Sea, however, in this context, the term Far East is often more appropriate which covers ASEAN countries and the countries in East Asia. However, being a Eurocentric term, Far East describes the geographical position in relation to Europe rather than its location within Asia. Alternatively, the term Asia Pacific Region is often used in describing East Asia and this usage, which is seen in economic and diplomatic discussions, is at odds with the historical meanings of both East Asia and Northeast Asia. The Council on Foreign Relations defines Northeast Asia as Japan and Korea, the military and economic superpower of China became the largest economy in the world in 2014, surpassing the United States of America. Currently in East Asia, trading systems are open, and zero or low duties on imports of consumer and capital goods etc. have considerably helped stimulate cost-efficiency. Free and flexible labor and other markets are important factors making for high levels of business-economic performance. East Asian populations have demonstrated highly positive work ethics, there are relatively large and fast-growing markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds. The culture of East Asia has been influenced by the civilisation of China, East Asia, as well as Vietnam, share a Confucian ethical philosophy, Buddhism, political and legal structures, and historically a common writing system
18.
Roman Catholicism
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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church or the Universal Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history, headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the churchs doctrines are summarised in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed. Its central administration is located in Vatican City, enclaved within Rome, the Catholic Church is notable within Western Christianity for its sacred tradition and seven sacraments. It teaches that it is the one church founded by Jesus Christ, that its bishops are the successors of Christs apostles. The Catholic Church maintains that the doctrine on faith and morals that it declares as definitive is infallible. The Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as such as mendicant orders and enclosed monastic orders. Among the sacraments, the one is the Eucharist, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest the sacrificial bread and wine become the body, the Catholic Church practises closed communion, with only baptised members in a state of grace ordinarily permitted to receive the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Catholic Church as Queen of Heaven and is honoured in numerous Marian devotions. The Catholic Church has influenced Western philosophy, science, art and culture, Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and medical services in the world, from the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticised for its doctrines on sexuality, its refusal to ordain women and its handling of sexual abuse cases. Catholic was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in the letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans, written about 110 AD. In the Catechetical Discourses of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name Catholic Church was used to distinguish it from other groups that call themselves the church. The use of the adjective Roman to describe the Church as governed especially by the Bishop of Rome became more widespread after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages. Catholic Church is the name used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church follows an episcopal polity, led by bishops who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders who are given formal jurisdictions of governance within the church. Ultimately leading the entire Catholic Church is the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the pope, in parallel to the diocesan structure are a variety of religious institutes that function autonomously, often subject only to the authority of the pope, though sometimes subject to the local bishop. Most religious institutes only have male or female members but some have both, additionally, lay members aid many liturgical functions during worship services
19.
History of Macau
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Macau is a Special Administrative Region of the Peoples Republic of China. Macau became a colony of the Portuguese empire in 1557 and it was lent to Portugal as a trading post but remained under Chinese authority and sovereignty. Self-administration was next achieved in the 1840s, when the Qing dynasty and Portugal signed the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking in 1887, the treaty terms made Macau a Portuguese territory again until 1999, when it was handed over to China. Macau was the last extant European territory in continental Asia, the human history of Macau stretches back up to 6,000 years, and includes many different and diverse civilisations and periods of existence. Evidence of human and culture dating back 4,000 to 6,000 years has been discovered on the Macau Peninsula, during the Qin Dynasty, the region came under the jurisdiction of Panyu County, Nanhai Prefecture of the province of Guangdong. It was administratively part of Dongguan Prefecture in the Jin Dynasty, in 1152, during the Song dynasty, it was under the jurisdiction of the new Xiangshan County. Since the 5th century, merchant ships travelling between Southeast Asia and Guangzhou used the region as a port for refuge, fresh water, and food. The first recorded inhabitants of the area are some 50,000 people seeking refuge in Macau from invading Mongols in 1277 and they were able to defend their settlements and establish themselves there. Mong Há has long been the center of Chinese life in Macau and the site of what may be the regions oldest temple, a shrine devoted to the Buddhist Guanyin. Later in the Ming Dynasty, fishermen migrated to Macau from various parts of Guangdong and Fujian provinces, the Hoklo Boat people were the first to show interest in Macau as a trading centre for the southern provinces. However, Macau did not develop as a settlement until the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century. During the age of discovery Portuguese sailors explored the coasts of Africa, the sailors later established posts at Goa in 1510, and conquered Malacca in 1511, driving the Sultan to the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula from where he kept making raids on the Portuguese. The Portuguese under Jorge Álvares landed at Lintin Island in the Pearl River Delta of China in 1513 with a hired junk sailing from Portuguese Malacca and they erected a stone marker at Lintin Island claiming it for the King of Portugal, Manuel I. In the same year, the Indian Viceroy Afonso de Albuquerque commissioned Rafael Perestrello — a cousin of Christopher Columbus to sail to China in order to open up trade relations. Rafael traded with the Chinese merchants in Guangzhou in that year and in 1516, Portugals king Manuel I in 1517 commissioned a diplomatic and trade mission to Guangzhou headed by Tomé Pires and Fernão Pires de Andrade. The embassy lasted until the death of the Zhengde Emperor in Nanjing, the embassy was further rejected by the Chinese Ming court, which now became less interested in new foreign contacts. The Ming Court was also influenced by reports of misbehaviour of Portuguese elsewhere in China, in 1521 and 1522 several more Portuguese ships reached the trading island Tamão off the coast near Guangzhou, but were driven away by the now hostile Ming authorities. Pires was imprisoned and died in Canton, following a ship wreck in 1535, Portuguese traders were allowed to anchor ships in Macaus harbours, and the right to carry out trading activities, though not the right to stay onshore
20.
Forbidden City
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The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty—the years 1420 to 1912. It is located in the center of Beijing, China, and it served as the home of emperors and their households as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government for almost 500 years. Constructed from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings, the palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture, and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987, part of the museums former collection is now located in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Both museums descend from the institution, but were split after the Chinese Civil War. With over 14.6 million annual visitors, the Palace Museum is the most visited art museum in the world, the common English name, the Forbidden City, is a translation of the Chinese name Zijin Cheng. The name Zijin Cheng first formally appeared in 1576, another English name of similar origin is Forbidden Palace. The name Zijin Cheng is a name with significance on many levels, zi, or Purple, refers to the North Star, which in ancient China was called the Ziwei Star, and in traditional Chinese astrology was the heavenly abode of the Celestial Emperor. The surrounding celestial region, the Ziwei Enclosure, was the realm of the Celestial Emperor, the Forbidden City, as the residence of the terrestrial emperor, was its earthly counterpart. Jin, or Forbidden, referred to the fact no one could enter or leave the palace without the emperors permission. Today, the site is most commonly known in Chinese as Gùgōng, the museum which is based in these buildings is known as the Palace Museum. When Hongwu Emperors son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he moved the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, construction lasted 14 years and required more than a million workers. Material used include whole logs of precious Phoebe zhennan wood found in the jungles of south-western China, the floors of major halls were paved with golden bricks, specially baked paving bricks from Suzhou. From 1420 to 1644, the Forbidden City was the seat of the Ming dynasty, in April 1644, it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun dynasty. He soon fled before the armies of former Ming general Wu Sangui and Manchu forces. By October, the Manchus had achieved supremacy in northern China, the Qing rulers changed the names on some of the principal buildings, to emphasise Harmony rather than Supremacy, made the name plates bilingual, and introduced Shamanist elements to the palace. In 1860, during the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces took control of the Forbidden City, in 1900 Empress Dowager Cixi fled from the Forbidden City during the Boxer Rebellion, leaving it to be occupied by forces of the treaty powers until the following year. Under an agreement with the new Republic of China government, Puyi remained in the Inner Court, while the Outer Court was given over to public use, the Palace Museum was then established in the Forbidden City in 1925
21.
Wanli Emperor
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The Wanli Emperor, personal name Zhu Yijun, was the 13th emperor of the Ming dynasty of China. Wanli, the era name of his reign, literally means ten thousand calendars and he was the third son of the Longqing Emperor. His reign of 48 years was the longest among all the Ming dynasty emperors, Zhu Yijun ascended the throne at the age of ten and adopted the regnal name Wanli, thus he is historically known as the Wanli Emperor. For the first ten years of his reign, he was aided by the Senior Grand Secretary, Zhang Juzheng, during this period, the Wanli Emperor deeply respected Zhang as a mentor and a valued minister. Archery competitions, equestrianism and calligraphy were some of the pastimes of Wanli, as Zhang Juzheng was appointed Minister of Ming dynasty in 1572, he launched a reform by the name of “abiding by ancestors’ rules”. He started from rectifying administration with a series of such as reducing redundant personnel. This improved officials’ quality and efficiency of administration, and based on such facts he launched relevant reforms in the fields of land, finance, in essence, Zhang Juzheng’s reform was a rectification of social maladies without offending the established political and fiscal system of the Ming Dynasty. Although it did not eradicate political corruption and land annexation, it positively relieved social contradictions, more over, Zhang efficiently protected the dynasty from Japan, Jurchens and Mongols so he could save national defense expenditure. By 1580s, Zhang stored astronomical numbers of silvers, this is second only to 10 years of Mings total tax revenue. Wanlis first 10 years regime led Mings renaissance economically, culturally and militarily, after Zhangs death, the Wanli Emperor felt free to act independently, and reversed many of Zhangs administrative improvements. In 1584, the Wanli Emperor issued an edict confiscating all of Zhangs personal wealth, especially after 1586 when he had conflicts with vassals about his heir, Wanli decided to not to hold the council for 20 years. The Ming dynastys tragic had begun since then, after Zhang Juzhengs death, the Wanli Emperor decided to take complete personal control of the government. During this early part of his reign, he showed himself to be a competent and diligent emperor, overall, the economy continued to prosper and the empire remained powerful. Unlike the last 20 years of his reign, the Wanli Emperor at this time would attend every morning meeting, at this time, the Wanli Emperor sent Li Chengliang and his sons to handle the situation, resulting in overall success. Japanese invasions, Toyotomi Hideyoshi of Japan sent 200,000 soldiers in his first expedition to invade Korea, the Wanli Emperor made three strategic moves. First, he sent a 3, 000-strong army to support the Koreans, second, if Koreans entered Ming territory, he gave them sanctuary. Third, he instructed the Liaodong area to prepare for possible invasion, the first two battles fought with the Japanese were defeats since Ming troops under general Li Rusong were outnumbered and ill-prepared to fight the 200, 000-strong Japanese army. The emperor then sent an army of 80,000 men
22.
Chinese astronomy
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Astronomy in China has a very long history, with historians indicating that the Chinese were the most persistent and accurate observers of celestial phenomena anywhere in the world before the Arabs. Detailed records of observations began during the Warring States period. The telescope was introduced in the seventeenth century, in 1669, the Peking observatory was completely redesigned and refitted under the direction of Ferdinand Verbiest. Today, China continues to be active in astronomy, with many observatories, one of the main functions was for the purpose of timekeeping. The Chinese used a calendar, but, because the cycles of the sun. The Chinese calendar was considered to be a symbol of a dynasty, as dynasties would rise and fall, astronomers and astrologers of each period would often prepare a new calendar to be made, with observations for that purpose. Astrological divination was also an important part of astronomy, astronomers took careful note of guest stars, which suddenly appeared among the fixed stars. Ancient astronomical records of phenomena like comets and supernovae are used in modern astronomical studies. The Chinese developed three different cosmological models, the Gai Tian, or hemispherical dome, model conceived the heavens as a hemisphere lying over a dome-shaped earth. The second cosmological model, associated with the Hun Tian school, saw the heavens as a celestial sphere not unlike the spherical models developed in the Greek, the divisions of the sky began with the Northern Dipper and the 28 mansions. In 1977, a box was excavated from the tomb of Yi. Names of the 28 lunar mansions were found on the cover of the box, as lunar mansions have such an ancient origin, the meanings of most of their names have become obscure. Even worse, the name of each lunar mansion consists of only one Chinese word, the meanings of the names are still under discussion. Besides the 28 lunar mansions, most constellations are based on the works of Shi Shen-fu and Gan De, in the fourth century BC, the two Chinese astronomers responsible for the earliest information going into the star catalogues were Shi Shen and Gan De of the Warring States period. These books appeared to have lasted until the sixth century, but were lost after that, a number of books share similar names, often quoted and named after them. These texts should not be confused with the original written by them. Notable works that helped preserve the contents include, Wu Xian has been one of the astronomers in debate and he is often represented as one of the Three Schools Astronomical tradition along with Gan and Shi. Moreover, it was customary in the past for the Chinese to forge works of notable scholars, Wu Xian is generally mentioned as the astronomer who lived many years before Gan and Shi
23.
Chinese calendar
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Traditional Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar which reckons years, months and days according to astronomical phenomena. It is used for activities in China and overseas Chinese communities. It depictures and lists the dates of traditional Chinese holidays, and guides Chinese people in selecting the most auspicious days for weddings, funerals, moving, in the Chinese calendar, the days begin and end at midnight. The months begin on the day with the dark moon, the years begin with the dark moon near the midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox. The solar terms are the important components of the Chinese calendar, in a month, there are one to three solar terms. The currently used traditional Chinese calendar is the end result of centuries of evolution, many astronomical and seasonal factors were added by ancient scientists, and people can reckon the date of natural phenomena such as the moon phase and tide upon the Chinese calendar. The Chinese calendar has over 100 variants, whose characteristics reflect the evolutionary path. As with Chinese characters, different variants are used in different parts of the Chinese cultural sphere, calendars in Mongolia and Tibet have absorbed elements from the Chinese calendar and elements from other systems, but they are not direct descendants of the Chinese calendar. The official calendar in China is the Gregorian calendar, but the traditional Chinese calendar still plays an important role there. The Chinese calendar is known officially as the Rural Calendar, but is referred to by other names, such as the Former Calendar. The Chinese calendar preserves traditional East Asian culture, although the month sequences of Chinese calendar is decided by the solar term, the Chinese calendar is not an agriculture calendar. The Chinese calendar has greatly influenced the traditional calendars around Asia, the calendar has a year, month and date frame. The key elements are the day, synodic month and solar year, the Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, similar to the Hindu and Hebrew calendars. The concepts in the Chinese, Hindu, and Hebrew calendars, day, in the Chinese calendar, a day starts from the midnight, in the Hindu calendars, a day starts from sunrise, and in the Hebrew calendar, a day starts from sunset. Month, the time is based on the obliquity of the moon path, a month is about 29 17/32 days. Phase, 1/30 month, 12° obliquity of the moon path, a unique concept of dating method in the Hindu calendar, a phase is about 63/64 day, which derived out the 64 divinatory symbols. Date, the day number in a month, in the Chinese and Hebrew calendars, days are numbered in sequence from 1 to 29 or 30, and in the Hindu calendars, the days are numbered according to the number of the phase in the days. In the Hindu calendars, some dates may be vacant, Year, the time based on the earths revolution
24.
Catholicism
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The use of terms catholicism and catholicity is closely related to the use of term Catholic Church. The earliest evidence of the use of term is the Letter to the Smyrnaeans that Ignatius of Antioch wrote in about 108 to Christians in Smyrna. In 380, Emperor Theodosius I limited use of the term Catholic Christian exclusively to those who followed the faith as Pope Damasus I of Rome. Numerous other early writers including Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine of Hippo further developed the use of the term catholic in relation to Christianity. In Christian theology, and specially in ecclesiology, terms Catholicism, when used with small c, terms catholicism and catholicity generally designate theological doctrine of the catholicity of the Church without denominational connotations. A common belief in Catholicism is institutional continuity with the early Christian church founded by Jesus Christ, many churches or communions of churches identify singularly or collectively as the authentic church. The Bishop of Rome was also considered to have the right to convene ecumenical councils, when the Imperial capital moved to Constantinople, Romes influence was sometimes challenged. The first great rupture in the Church followed this Council and they are often called Ancient Oriental Churches. The next major break was after the Council of Chalcedon and this Council repudiated Eutychian Monophysitism which stated that the divine nature completely subsumed the human nature in Christ. This Council declared that Christ, though one person, exhibited two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation and thus is both fully God and fully human, the next great rift within Christianity was in the 11th century. This division between the Western Church and the Eastern Church is called the East–West Schism, several eastern churches reunited, constituting some of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Liturgical and canonical practices vary between all these particular Churches constituting the Roman and Eastern Catholic Churches, in all these cases the beliefs and practices of Catholicism would be identical with the beliefs and practices of the Church in question. However, in Roman Catholicism, the term catholic is understood as to cover those who recognize and are in standing with the Magisterium. The sense given to the word by those who use it to distinguish their position from a Calvinistic or Puritan form of Protestantism. It is then meaningful to attempt to draw up a list of common characteristic beliefs, the Roman Catholic Church includes the 23 rites who recognize the Magisterium. Belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the belief that Christ is made manifest in the elements of Holy Communion, possession of the threefold ordained ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. Belief that the Church is the vessel and deposit of the fullness of the teachings of Jesus and this teaching is preserved in both written scripture and in unwritten tradition, neither being independent of the other. A belief in the necessity and efficacy of sacraments, liturgical and personal use of the Sign of the Cross The use of sacred images, candles, vestments and music, and often incense and water, in worship
25.
Xu Guangqi
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Xu Guangqi, who later adopted the baptismal name Paul, was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer, and mathematician in the Ming Dynasty. Xu was a colleague and collaborator of the Italian Jesuits Matteo Ricci and Sabatino de Ursis and they translated several classic Western texts into Chinese and he was also the author of the Nong Zheng Quan Shu, one of the first comprehensive treatises on the subject of agriculture. He was one of the Three Pillars of Chinese Catholicism and his current title is Servant of God. Xu Guangqi was born into a poor family in Shanghai on April 24,1562. Xu received the equivalent of his bachelors degree at nineteen, afterwards, he spent the majority of his time in positions of high office serving the Ming court. When he died, he held positions of Minister of Rites and he lived in a period when Chinese mathematics had gone into decline. The earlier efforts at algebra had been almost forgotten, Xu blamed some of the failures on a decline in interest of practical science in China and became something of a critic of Chinese society. He was a colleague and collaborator of Matteo Ricci, the Italian Jesuit, together they translated several classic Western texts into Chinese, as well as several Chinese Confucian texts into Latin. Riccis influence led to Xu being baptized as a Roman Catholic in 1603 and his descendants remained as Catholics and Protestants into the 21st century. From 1607 until 1610, Xu was forced to retire from public office and it was during this time that he experimented with Western-style irrigation methods. He also experimented with the cultivation of potatoes, cotton. He was called once more to serve the Chinese bureaucracy, where he rose to a high rank, yet he continued to experiment and learn of new agricultural practices while he served his office, promoting the use of wet-rice in the Northeast of China. From 1613 until 1620 he often visited Tianjin, where he helped organize self-sufficient military settlements, Xu Guangqis tomb still exists in Shanghai in Guangqi Park just a short walk from the Xujiahui Cathedral in the Xujiahui area on Nandan Road. Xu Guangxi was especially worried about the ability of his country to defend itself and he wrote a book on military techniques and strategies entitled Cook Xus Words in response to the criticisms he faced for daring discuss military matters in spite of being a mere scholar. He frequently cited the Xunzi and Guanzi, and made use of rewards and punishments along the lines of the Legalists, at least in relief activities. Xu Guangqi put forward the concept of a Rich country and strong army, in 1607, Xu and Ricci translated the first parts of Euclids Elements into Chinese, introducing his countrymen to new concepts in mathematics and Western logic. Chinese scholars credit Xu as having started Chinas enlightenment, after followers of Xu and Ricci publicly predicted a solar eclipse in 1629, Xu was appointed by the Emperor as the leader of an effort to reform the Chinese calendar. The reform, which constituted the first major collaboration between scientists from Europe and from the Far East, was completed after his death
26.
Euclid's Elements
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Euclids Elements is a mathematical and geometric treatise consisting of 13 books attributed to the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid in Alexandria, Ptolemaic Egypt circa 300 BC. It is a collection of definitions, postulates, propositions, the books cover Euclidean geometry and the ancient Greek version of elementary number theory. Elements is the second-oldest extant Greek mathematical treatise after Autolycus On the Moving Sphere and it has proven instrumental in the development of logic and modern science. According to Proclus, the element was used to describe a theorem that is all-pervading. The word element in the Greek language is the same as letter and this suggests that theorems in the Elements should be seen as standing in the same relation to geometry as letters to language. Euclids Elements has been referred to as the most successful and influential textbook ever written, for centuries, when the quadrivium was included in the curriculum of all university students, knowledge of at least part of Euclids Elements was required of all students. Not until the 20th century, by which time its content was taught through other school textbooks. Scholars believe that the Elements is largely a collection of theorems proven by other mathematicians, the Elements may have been based on an earlier textbook by Hippocrates of Chios, who also may have originated the use of letters to refer to figures. This manuscript, the Heiberg manuscript, is from a Byzantine workshop around 900 and is the basis of modern editions, papyrus Oxyrhynchus 29 is a tiny fragment of an even older manuscript, but only contains the statement of one proposition. Although known to, for instance, Cicero, no record exists of the text having been translated into Latin prior to Boethius in the fifth or sixth century. The Arabs received the Elements from the Byzantines around 760, this version was translated into Arabic under Harun al Rashid circa 800, the Byzantine scholar Arethas commissioned the copying of one of the extant Greek manuscripts of Euclid in the late ninth century. Although known in Byzantium, the Elements was lost to Western Europe until about 1120, the first printed edition appeared in 1482, and since then it has been translated into many languages and published in about a thousand different editions. Theons Greek edition was recovered in 1533, in 1570, John Dee provided a widely respected Mathematical Preface, along with copious notes and supplementary material, to the first English edition by Henry Billingsley. Copies of the Greek text still exist, some of which can be found in the Vatican Library, the manuscripts available are of variable quality, and invariably incomplete. By careful analysis of the translations and originals, hypotheses have been made about the contents of the original text, ancient texts which refer to the Elements itself, and to other mathematical theories that were current at the time it was written, are also important in this process. Such analyses are conducted by J. L. Heiberg and Sir Thomas Little Heath in their editions of the text, also of importance are the scholia, or annotations to the text. These additions, which distinguished themselves from the main text. The Elements is still considered a masterpiece in the application of logic to mathematics, in historical context, it has proven enormously influential in many areas of science
27.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
28.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
29.
Marche
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Marche, or The Marches /ˈmɑːrtʃᵻz/, is one of the twenty regions of Italy. The name of the region derives from the name of marca, originally referring to the medieval March of Ancona and nearby marches of Camerino. Marche is well known for its tradition, with the finest and most luxurious Italian footwear being manufactured in this region. Except for river valleys and the very narrow coastal strip. A railway from Bologna to Brindisi, built in the 19th century, inland, the mountainous nature of the region, even today, allows relatively little travel north and south, except by twisting roads over the passes. Most of the region is mountainous or hilly, the features being the Apennine chain along the internal boundary. With the sole exception of Monte Vettore,2,476 metres high, the hilly area covers two-thirds of the region and is interrupted by wide gullies with numerous – albeit short – rivers and by alluvial plains perpendicular to the principal chain. The parallel mountain chains contain deep river gorges, the best known being those of the Furlo, the Rossa and the Frasassi. The coastal area is 173 kilometres long and is relatively flat, inland, in the mountainous areas, is more continental with cold and often snowy winters, by the sea is more mediterranean. Precipitation varies from 1000-1500 mm. per year inland and 600-800 mm. per year on the Adriatic coast, Marche was known in ancient times as the Picenum territory. The Picens or Picentes were the Italic tribe who lived in Picenum during the Iron Age, in the fourth century BC the northern area was occupied by the Senones, a tribe of Gauls. In Marche was fought the Battle of Sentinum in 295 BC, after it, the Romans founded numerous colonies in the areas, connecting them to Rome by the Via Flaminia, Ascoli was a seat of Italic resistance during the Social War. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the region was invaded by the Goths, after the Gothic War, it was part of the Byzantine Exarchate of Ravenna. After the fall of the Exarchate it was briefly in the possession of the Lombards, in the ninth to eleventh centuries the marches of Camerino, Fermo and Ancona were created, hence the modern name. Marche was nominally part of the Papal States, but most of the territory was under local lords, in the twelfth century, the commune of Ancona resisted both the imperial authority of Frederick Barbarossa and the Republic of Venice, and was a maritime republic on its own. An attempt to restore Papal suzerainty by Gil de Albornoz in the century was short-lived. During the Renaissance, the region was fought over by rival aristocratic families, such as the Malatesta of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano and the house of Montefeltro of Urbino. The last independent entity, the Duchy of Urbino, was dissolved in 1631, after Napoleons defeat, Marche returned to Papal rule until 4 November 1860, when it was annexed to the unified Kingdom of Italy by a plebiscite
30.
Christopher Clavius
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Christopher Clavius was a German Jesuit mathematician and astronomer who modified the proposal of the modern Gregorian calendar after the death of its primary author, Aloysius Lilius. Clavius would later write defences and an explanation of the reformed calendar, in his last years he was probably the most respected astronomer in Europe and his textbooks were used for astronomical education for over fifty years in and even out of Europe. Little is known about Clavius early life other than the fact that he was born in Bamberg in either 1538 or 1537 and his given name is not known to any great degree of certainty—it is thought by scholars to be perhaps Christoph Clau or Klau. There are also some who think that his name, Clavius, may be a Latinization of his original German name. Clavius joined the Jesuit order in 1555 and he attended the University of Coimbra in Portugal, where it is possible that he had some kind of contact with the famous mathematician Pedro Nunes. Following this he went to Italy and studied theology at the Jesuit Collegio Romano in Rome, in 1579 he was assigned to compute the basis for a reformed calendar that would stop the slow process in which the Churchs holidays were drifting relative to the seasons of the year. In logic, Clavius Law is named after him and he used the decimal point in the goniometric tables of his astrolabium in 1593 and he was one of the first who used it in this way. As an astronomer Clavius held strictly to the model of the solar system. Though he opposed the model of Copernicus, he recognized problems with the Ptolemaic model. Later, a crater on the Moon was named in his honor. Rome,1588 Romani calendarii a Gregorio XIII P. M. restituti explicatio, Rome,1603 Romani calendarii a Gregorio XIII P. M. restituti explicatio. Romani calendarii a Gregorio XIII P. M. restituti explicatio, commentary on Euclid,1574 Elementorum Libri XV. Cologne,1627 Treatise of gnomonics,1581 Refutatio cyclometriae Iosephi Scaligeri, corrispondenza Edizione critica a cura di Ugo Baldini e Pier Daniele Napolitani. Pisa, Università di Pisa – Dipartimento di Matematica, Clavius complete mathematical works are available online. James M. Lattis, Between Copernicus and Galileo, Christoph Clavius, a Web platform for the works and literature of Christophorus Clavius, CNR-IIT, CNR-ILC, APUG
31.
Lisbon
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Lisbon is the capital and the largest city of Portugal, with a population of 552,700 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km². Its urban area extends beyond the administrative limits with a population of around 2.7 million people. About 2.8 million people live in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area and it is continental Europes westernmost capital city and the only one along the Atlantic coast. Lisbon lies in the western Iberian Peninsula on the Atlantic Ocean, the westernmost areas of its metro area is the westernmost point of Continental Europe. Lisbon is recognised as a city because of its importance in finance, commerce, media, entertainment, arts, international trade, education. It is one of the economic centres on the continent, with a growing financial sector. Humberto Delgado Airport serves over 20 million passengers annually, as of 2015, and the motorway network, the city is the 7th-most-visited city in Southern Europe, after Istanbul, Rome, Barcelona, Madrid, Athens and Milan, with 1,740,000 tourists in 2009. The Lisbon region contributes with a higher GDP PPP per capita than any region in Portugal. Its GDP amounts to 96.3 billion USD and thus $32,434 per capita, the city occupies 32nd place of highest gross earnings in the world. Most of the headquarters of multinationals in the country are located in the Lisbon area and it is also the political centre of the country, as its seat of Government and residence of the Head of State. Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in the world, julius Caesar made it a municipium called Felicitas Julia, adding to the name Olissipo. Ruled by a series of Germanic tribes from the 5th century, in 1147, the Crusaders under Afonso Henriques reconquered the city and since then it has been a major political, economic and cultural centre of Portugal. Unlike most capital cities, Lisbons status as the capital of Portugal has never been granted or confirmed officially – by statute or in written form. Its position as the capital has formed through constitutional convention, making its position as de facto capital a part of the Constitution of Portugal. It has one of the warmest winters of any metropolis in Europe, the typical summer season lasts about four months, from June to September, although also in April temperatures sometimes reach around 25 °C. Although modern archaeological excavations show a Phoenician presence at this location since 1200 BC, another conjecture based on ancient hydronymy suggests that the name of the settlement derived from the pre-Roman appellation for the Tagus, Lisso or Lucio. Lisbons name was written Ulyssippo in Latin by the geographer Pomponius Mela and it was later referred to as Olisippo by Pliny the Elder and by the Greeks as Olissipo or Olissipona. The Indo-European Celts invaded in the 1st millennium BC, mixing with the Pre-Indo-European population and this indigenous settlement maintained commercial relations with the Phoenicians, which would account for the recent findings of Phoenician pottery and other material objects
32.
Goa
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Goa /ˈɡoʊ. ə/ is a state in India within the coastal region known as the Konkan in western India. It is bounded by Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the east and it is Indias smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Goa is Indias richest state, with a GDP per capita two and a half times that of the country, Panaji is the states capital, while Vasco da Gama is its largest city. The historic city of Margao still exhibits the influence of the Portuguese. Goa is a former Portuguese province, the Portuguese overseas territory of Portuguese India existed for about 450 years until it was annexed by India in 1961. Goa is visited by large numbers of international and domestic tourists each year for its beaches, places of worship and it has rich flora and fauna, owing to its location on the Western Ghats range, a biodiversity hotspot. In ancient literature, Goa was known by names, such as Gomanchala, Gopakapattana, Gopakapattam, Gopakapuri, Govapuri, Govem. In the 3rd century BC, Goa was known as Aparantha and is mentioned by the Greek geographer Ptolemy, in the 13th century, the Greeks referred to Goa as Nelkinda. Other historical names for Goa are Sindapur, Sandabur, and Mahassapatam, Goas history goes back 20, 000–30,000 years. The rock art engravings exhibit the earliest traces of life in India. Upper Paleolithic or Mesolithic rock art engravings have been found on the bank of the river Kushavati at Usgalimal. Petroglyphs, cones, stone-axe, and choppers dating to 10,000 years ago have been found in places in Goa, such as Kazur, Mauxim. Evidence of Palaeolithic life is seen at Dabolim, Adkon, Shigao, Fatorpa, Arli, Maulinguinim, Diwar, Sanguem, Pilerne, difficulty in carbon dating the laterite rock compounds poses a problem for determining the exact time period. Early Goan society underwent radical change when Indo-Aryan and Dravidian migrants amalgamated with the aboriginal locals, in the 3rd century BC, Goa was part of the Maurya Empire, ruled by the Buddhist emperor, Ashoka of Magadha. Buddhist monks laid the foundation of Buddhism in Goa, between the 2nd century BC and the 6th century AD, Goa was ruled by the Bhojas of Goa. The rule later passed to the Chalukyas of Badami, who controlled it between 578 and 753, and later the Rashtrakutas of Malkhed from 753 to 963, from 765 to 1015, the Southern Silharas of Konkan ruled Goa as the feudatories of the Chalukyas and the Rashtrakutas. Over the next few centuries, Goa was successively ruled by the Kadambas as the feudatories of the Chalukyas of Kalyani, in 1312, Goa came under the governance of the Delhi Sultanate. The kingdoms grip on the region was weak, and by 1370 it was forced to surrender it to Harihara I of the Vijayanagara empire, the Vijayanagara monarchs held on to the territory until 1469, when it was appropriated by the Bahmani sultans of Gulbarga
33.
Portuguese Macau
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Portuguese Macau was the period of Macau as a Portuguese colony and later, an overseas province under Portuguese administration from 1557 to 1999. Macau was both the first and last European colony in China, Portuguese traders first settled in Macau in the 16th century. In 1557 Macau was rented to Portugal by the Chinese empire as a trading port, the Portuguese administered the city under Chinese authority and sovereignty until 1887, when Macau became a colony of the Portuguese Empire. Sovereignty over Macau was transferred back to China on 20 December 1999, the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration on the Question of Macau and the Macau Basic Law stipulate that Macau operate with a high degree of autonomy until at least 2049, fifty years after the transfer. China–Portugal relations Portuguese Empire Official website of the Portuguese Government of Macau Media related to History of Macau at Wikimedia Commons
34.
Europeans in Medieval China
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Given textual and archaeological evidence, it is thought that thousands of Europeans lived in Imperial China during the period of Mongol rule. These were people from countries traditionally belonging to the lands of Christendom during the High to Late Middle Ages who visited, traded, performed Christian missionary work, or lived in China. The most famous European visitor to China during this period was Marco Polo, preceded, respectively, by his father and uncle Niccolò and Maffeo Polo. The establishment of the Ming dynasty in 1368 and reestablishment of native Han Chinese rule led to the cessation of European merchants and Roman Catholic missionaries living in China. The Venetian merchant Marco Polo, as well as his father and uncle Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, respectively, Marco Polo wrote an account of his travels there, as did the Franciscan friar Odoric of Pordenone, the merchant Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, and the author John Mandeville. In Khanbaliq, the Roman archdiocese was established by John of Montecorvino, the Uyghur Nestorian Christian Rabban Bar Sauma was the first diplomat from China to reach the royal courts of Christendom in the West. Before the 13th century, instances of Europeans going to China or of Chinese going to Europe are virtually unknown, euthydemus I, Hellenistic ruler of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom in Central Asia during the 3rd century BC, led an expedition into the Tarim Basin in search of precious metals. Lucas Christopoulos presents an argument that the influence of Hellenistic art in China stretches back to the Qin dynasty, yet ancient ceramics from sites at Khotan bear clear influence from the Hellenistic Kingdom of Ptolemaic Egypt, with styles non-existent in Kushan art. This has led Christopoulos to assume the presence of peoples not only from the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom but also Greeks, Saka, the Eastern-Han era Chinese general Ban Chao, Protector General of the Western Regions, explored Central Asia and in 97 AD dispatched his envoys Gan Ying to Daqin. Subsequently, there were a series of Roman embassies in China lasting from the 2nd to 3rd centuries AD, historian Rafe de Crespigny speculates that they were Roman merchants instead of official diplomats. Roman golden medallions from the reigns of Antoninus Pius and his adopted son Marcus Aurelius have been found in Oc Eo, Roman coins have been found in China, but far less so than in India. It is possible that a group of Greek acrobatic performers, who claimed to be from a place west of the seas, were presented by a king of Burma to Emperor An of Han in 120 AD. It is known that in both the Parthian Empire and Kushan Empire of Asia, ethnic Greeks continued to be employed as such as musicians. Byzantine Greek historian Procopius stated that two Nestorian Christian monks eventually uncovered the way of how silk was made, from this revelation monks were sent by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian as spies on the Silk Road from Constantinople to China and back to steal the silkworm eggs. These histories also provided descriptions of Constantinople, its walls, and how it was besieged by Da shi and their commander Mo-yi. From Chinese records it is known that Michael VII Doukas of Fu lin dispatched a mission to Chinas Song dynasty that arrived in 1081. China was a destination for Radhanite Jews who brought boys, female slaves and eunuchs from Europe according to the 9th-century Book of Roads, during the subsequent Song period there was also a community of Kaifeng Jews in China. Polo related this account to Rustichello da Pisa around 1298 while they shared a Genoese prison cell following their capture in battle, although Marco Polos presence is omitted entirely, his story is confirmed by the 14th-century Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani in his Jami al-tawarikh
35.
Michele Ruggieri
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Michele Ruggieri was an Italian Jesuit priest. One of the fathers of the Jesuit China missions. Born Pompilio Ruggieri in Spinazzola, Puglia in 1543, he obtained, in Naples, a doctorate in utroque iure, that is, in civil and canon law and he entered the Society of Jesus on 27 October 1572, in Rome, taking the name Michele. Ruggieri left Europe with a group of missionaries which included Rudolph Acquaviva, arriving in India, he promptly started to study the language used on the Malabar coast and in 6 months reached such proficiency that he could hear confession. It is probably this gift for language made him an ideal choice for the beginning of the Chinese mission. Ruggieri was assigned to Macau to study the Chinese language and customs and he landed at the Portuguese trade centre and started at once to learn to read and write Chinese. In the process, and aware that several will be following him, he set up Shengmaerding Jingyuan, as such he is one of the very first Christian missionaries to have enteredMing Dynasty Mainland China. In 1584 Ruggieri published the first Chinese catechism, visiting villages in the region he baptized several families that formed the nucleus of further Christian communities in mainland China. A Chinese Jesuit Lay Brother Sebastiano Fernandez, who had grown up and been trained in Macau, unfortunately, the manuscript was misplaced in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, and re-discovered only in 1934, by Pasquale dElia. This dictionary was published in 2001. The manuscript is now preserved in the State Archives of Rome, ms.493 In November 1588 and this plan had been proposed as a means to allow Jesuits to reach Beijing and to be received by the emperor. But nothing came out of it, the Popes kept dying on him, his own health deteriorated, and eventually the weary Jesuit retired to Salerno, in Salerno, the retired Jesuit carried on intellectual work that would make China better known in Europe. He completed the Latin translation of the Four Books, wrote poetry in Chinese, Ruggieri was also a much sought after spiritual guide and confessor in the school of Salerno. Biography at the National Digital Library of China About Ruggieri and Ricci at the Vatican Radio DUNNE, G. Generation of giants, GRISONDI, F. A. M. Ruggieri, Missionario in Cina e primo sinologo europeo, Milano,1999. SHIH, Joseph, Le P. Ruggieri et le problème de lévangélisation en Chine, RUGGIERI Michele, Atlante della Cina di Michele Ruggieri S. I. a cura di Eugenio Lo Sardo, Roma, Istituto poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato,1993. ISBN 882400380X Facsimile edition of Tianzhu Shengjiao Shilu
36.
Portuguese India
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The first viceroy, Francisco de Almeida, established his headquarters in Cochin. Subsequent Portuguese governors were not always of viceroy rank, after 1510, the capital of the Portuguese viceroyalty was transferred to Goa. Until the 18th century, the Portuguese governor in Goa had authority over all Portuguese possessions in the Indian Ocean, from southern Africa to southeast Asia. Portugal lost effective control of the enclaves of Dadra and Nagar Haveli in 1954, and finally the rest of the territory in December 1961. In spite of this, Portugal only recognised Indian control in 1975, after the Carnation Revolution, the first Portuguese encounter with the subcontinent was on 20 May 1498 when Vasco da Gama reached Calicut on Malabar Coast. Anchored off the coast of Calicut, the Portuguese invited native fishermen on board, one Portuguese accompanied the fishermen to the port and met with a Tunisian Muslim. On the advice of this man, Gama sent a couple of his men to Ponnani to meet with ruler of Calicut, over the objections of Arab merchants, Gama managed to secure a letter of concession for trading rights from the Zamorin, Calicuts Hindu ruler. But, the Portuguese were unable to pay the customs duties. Later Calicut officials temporarily detained Gamas Portuguese agents as security for payment and this, however, annoyed Gama, who carried a few natives and sixteen fishermen with him by force. Nevertheless, Gamas expedition was successful beyond all expectation, bringing in cargo that was worth sixty times the cost of the expedition. Matters worsened when the Portuguese factory at Calicut was attacked by surprise by the locals, Cabral also ordered his ships to bombard Calicut for an entire day in retaliation for the violation of the agreement. In Cochin and Cannanore Cabral succeeded in making advantageous treaties with the local rulers, Cabral started the return voyage on 16 January 1501 and arrived in Portugal with only 4 of 13 ships on 23 June 1501. The Portuguese built the Pulicat fort in 1502, with the help of the Vijayanagar ruler, Vasco da Gama sailed to India for a second time with 15 ships and 800 men, arriving at Calicut on 30 October 1502, where the ruler was willing to sign a treaty. Gama this time made a call to expel all Muslims from Calicut which was turned down. He bombarded the city and captured several rice vessels and he returned to Portugal in September 1503. Francisco de Almeida left Portugal with a fleet of 22 vessels with 1,500 men, on 13 September, Francisco de Almeida reached Anjadip Island, where he immediately started the construction of Fort Anjediva. On 23 October, with the permission of the ruler of Cannanore, he started building St. Angelo Fort at Cannanore, leaving Lourenço de Brito in charge with 150 men. Francisco de Almeida then reached Cochin on 31 October 1505 with only 8 vessels left, there he learned that the Portuguese traders at Quilon had been killed
37.
Alessandro Valignano
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Alessandro Valignano was an Italian Jesuit missionary born in Chieti, part of the Kingdom of Naples, who helped supervise the introduction of Catholicism to the Far East, and especially to Japan. Valignano joined the Society of Jesus in 1566, and was sent to East Asia in 1573, Valignano was born in Chieti, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, a part of the Spanish Monarchy. He excelled as a student at the University of Padua, where he studied Christian theology, Valignanos insights into Christian message convinced many within the Church that he was the perfect individual to carry the spirit of the Counter-Reformation to the Far East. He was ordained in the Society of Jesus and, at the age of 34 and he made his profession of the fourth vow after only seven years in the Society. As Visitor, it was his responsibility to examine and whenever necessary reorganize mission structures and methods throughout India, China and he was given an enormous amount of leeway and discretion, especially for someone so young, and was answerable only to the Jesuit Superior General in Rome. His commanding presence was increased by his unusual height, enough to turn heads in Europe. Valignano formed a strategy for Catholic proselytism, which is usually called adaptationism. He put the advance of Jesuits influence above adherence to traditional Christian behavior and he attempted to avoid cultural frictions by making a compromise with local customs that other missionaries viewed as conflicting with Catholic values. His strategy was in contrast to those of mendicant orders including Franciscans and Dominicans and this action eventually contributed to the Chinese Rites controversy. Soon after Valignano arrived in Portuguese Macau in September 1578, he realized none of the missionaries stationed in Macau had succeeded in establishing himself in mainland China. In his view, to improve the Jesuits penetration rate into the country and their success at converting the locals, it was necessary first to learn to speak, read, and write the Chinese language. To this end, he wrote to the orders Superior in India, asking him to send to Macau a person who would be equal to the task, namely Bernardino de Ferraris. However, as de Ferraris was busy as the new rector of the Jesuits at Cochin, another Jesuit scholar, Valignano left Macau for Japan in July 1579, leaving behind instructions for Ruggieri, who was to arrive within days. Once Ruggieri started studying Chinese and realized the immensity of the task, he wrote to Valignano, asking him to send Matteo Ricci to Macau as well, to share the work. Forwarded by Valignano to the Orders Superior in India in 1580, Ruggieris request was fulfilled, together, the two were to become the first European scholars of China and the Chinese language. Valignano made the first visit to Japan from 1579 to 1582, in 1581, he wrote Il Cerimoniale per i Missionari del Giappone to set forth guidelines for Jesuits. In the writing, he mapped Jesuit hierarchy to that of Zen Buddhists even though he detested them and he claimed that, in order not to be despised by the Japanese, every Jesuit should behave according to the class he belonged to. As a result, Jesuit fathers served daimyōs sumptuous dishes and walked around Nagasaki with armed Japanese servants, such a luxurious life and authoritarian attitudes among Jesuits in Japan were criticized not only by rival mendicant orders but also by some Jesuits
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St. Paul's College, Macau
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St. Pauls College of Macau also known as College of Madre de Deus was a university founded in 1594 in Macau by Jesuits at the service of the Portuguese under the Padroado treaty. It claims the title of the first Western university in East Asia, St. Pauls University College of Macau was funded by Alessandro Valignano in 1594 by upgrading the previous Madre de Deus school, as a stopover to prepare Jesuit missionaries traveling east. The College was the base for Jesuit missionaries travelling to China, Japan and East Asia, after a revolt blamed on religious influence, Japan expelled the Portuguese and banned Catholicism, and the college became then a shelter for fleeing Christian priests. Jesuits abandoned it in 1762 when they were expelled by the Portuguese authorities, the buildings were destroyed in a fire in 1835. In 2005, the ruins of St. Pauls - notably the facade of the Madre de Deus church - were officially enlisted as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site - Historic Centre of Macau. Since 1557, Portuguese Macau had been the center for exchange between China and Japan, and from there to Europe via Goa. Missionary activities in Japan had begun in 1549, when Jesuit co-founder Francis Xavier was received in a friendly manner, Jesuits established congregations in Hirado, Yamaguchi and Bungo and many daimyos converted to Christianity, some to gain access to trade and arms. In 1576 Pope Gregory XIII included Japan in the Portuguese diocese of Macau, in September 1578 Alessandro Valignano arrived at Macau as a visitor of Jesuit Missions in the Indies, to examine and when necessary reorganize, answering to the Jesuit Superior in Rome. No missions had succeeded in establishing in mainland China, while in Japan they multiplied, language study had always been one of the core problems, in his view, it was necessary first to learn to speak, read, and write the Chinese language. To this end, he wrote to the Superior in India, Ricci joined him in Macau in 1582. and together, they become the first European scholars of China and the Chinese language. In 1579 Valignano made his first visit to Japan, before the Visitor arrived, seventeen of Valignanos personally appointed missionaries wrote to him complaining that language training was totally nonexistent. Lacking fluency in the Japanese language, Francis Xavier had limited to reading aloud a Japanese translation of a catechism, in 1563 Oda Nobunaga favored Jesuit missionary Luís Fróis, and generally tolerated Christianity. On 9 June 1580 Omura Sumitada ceded jurisdiction over Nagasaki and Mogi to the Society of Jesus. In 1582, from Japan, Valignano sent an embassy to the Pope and the kings of Europe sponsored by Kirishitan daimyos Sumitada, Otomo Sorin and Arima Harunobu, in 1583, the Portuguese in Macau were permitted to form a Senate and kept sovereignty. Macau prospered, and Jesuits engaged in the trade and this breach of ecclesiastical practice did not go unnoticed by other European missions in the area, or by those living via inter-Asiatic trade. Eventually, the Pope was forced to intervene, and, in 1585, Valignano made an impassioned appeal to the Pope, as Jesuit needed the funds to their many enterprises. In 1594 St. Pauls College of Macau was authorized by the Jesuit superior in Rome, at first the college included two seminaries for lay brothers, a university with faculties of arts, philosophy and theology, a primary school and a school of music and arts. The main body of the grammar and dictionary was compiled from 1590–1603, between 1597 and 1762 it had immense influence on the learning of Eastern languages and culture by missionary Jesuits, making Macau a base for the spreading of Christianity in China and in Japan
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Mainland China
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Mainland China, also known as the Chinese mainland, is the geopolitical area under the direct jurisdiction of the Peoples Republic of China. It generally includes Hainan island and excludes the special regions of Hong Kong and Macau. The term mainland China was coined by the Kuomintang after receiving control of Taiwan from Japan after World War II. By 1949, the KMT-led Republic of China government was defeated in the Chinese Civil War, there are two terms in Chinese for mainland, Dàlù, which means continent, and Nèidì, literally inland or inner land. In the PRC, the usage of the two terms are interchangeable and there is no prescribed method of reference in any jurisdiction. To emphasize equal footing in Cross-Strait relations, the term is used in official contexts with reference to Taiwan, but in its relations with Hong Kong and Macau, the PRC government refers to itself as the Central Peoples Government. Mainland area is the term to free area of the Republic of China used in the ROC Constitution. It treats the mainland as part of ROCs territory despite the lack of effective control, by 1949, the Communist Party of Chinas Peoples Liberation Army had largely defeated the Kuomintang s National Revolutionary Army in the Chinese Civil War on the mainland. This has resulted in a situation in which two co-existing governments compete for legitimacy and recognition as the government of China. The phrase mainland China emerged as a neutral term to refer to the area under control of the Communist Party of China. Until the late 1970s, both the PRC and ROC envisioned a military takeover of the other, during this time the ROC referred to the PRC government as Communist Bandits while the PRC referred to the ROC as Chiang Bandits. Later, as a military solution became less feasible, the ROC referred to the PRC as Communist China, due to their status as colonies of foreign states during the establishment of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949, the phrase mainland China excludes Hong Kong and Macau. Since the return of Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 and 1999, respectively, the territories also have their distinct identities. Therefore, mainland China generally continues to exclude these territories, because of the One country, the term is also used in economic indicators, such as the IMD Competitiveness Report. International news media often use China to refer only to mainland China or the Peoples Republic of China, in the PRC, the term 内地 is often contrasted with the term 境外 for things outside of the mainland region. Examples include Administration of Foreign-funded Banks or the Measures on Administration of Representative Offices of Foreign Insurance Institutions, Hainan is an offshore island, therefore geographically not part of the continental mainland. Nonetheless, Hainanese people still refer to the mainland as the mainland. In some coastal provinces such as Guangdong, Fujian and Jiangsu, in contrast, the pro-Taiwan independence Democratic Progressive Party prefer to use the term China instead, referring to the PRC, to imply that Taiwan is separate from China
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Classical Chinese
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Classical Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese that evolved from the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Literary Chinese was used for almost all formal writing in China until the early 20th century, Literary Chinese is known as kanbun in Japanese, hanmun in Korean, and cổ văn or văn ngôn in Vietnamese. It is often referred to as Classical Chinese, but sinologists generally distinguish it from the language of the early period. During this period the dialects of China became more and more disparate and this situation, the use of Literary Chinese throughout the Chinese cultural sphere despite the existence of disparate regional vernaculars, is called diglossia. It can be compared to the position of Classical Arabic relative to the various regional vernaculars in Arab lands, or of Latin in medieval Europe. The Romance languages continued to evolve, influencing Latin texts of the period, so that by the Middle Ages. Christian missionaries coined the term Wen-li for Literary Chinese, though composed from Chinese roots, this term was never used in that sense in Chinese, and was rejected by non-missionary sinologues. Chinese characters are not alphabetic and only palely reflect sound changes, the tentative reconstruction of Old Chinese is an endeavor only a few centuries old. With the progress of time, every dynasty has updated and modified the official Phonology Dictionary, by the time of the Yuan Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, the Phonology Dictionary was based on early Mandarin. In practice, all varieties of Chinese combine these two extremes, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese readers of Classical Chinese use systems of pronunciation specific to their own languages. Poetry and other rhyme-based writing thus becomes less coherent than the reading must have been. However, some modern Chinese varieties have certain characteristics that are closer to the older pronunciations than others. Another phenomenon that is common in reading Classical Chinese is homophony and it was written to show how Classical Chinese has become an impractical language for speakers of modern Chinese because Classical Chinese when spoken aloud is largely incomprehensible. However, such homophones are far more common in Literary Chinese than in English, romanizations have been devised giving distinct spellings for the words of Classical Chinese, together with rules for pronunciation in various modern varieties. However none of these systems has seen extensive use, an essay in Classical Chinese, for example, might use half as many Chinese characters as in vernacular Chinese to relate the same content. In terms of conciseness and compactness, Classical Chinese rarely uses words composed of two Chinese characters, nearly all words are of one syllable only and this phenomenon exists, in part, because polysyllabic words evolved in Chinese to disambiguate homophones that result from sound changes. Because Classical Chinese is based on the examples of ancient Chinese literature. Classical Chinese has more pronouns compared to the modern vernacular, in particular, whereas Mandarin has one general character to refer to the first-person pronoun, Literary Chinese has several, many of which are used as part of honorific language
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Guangdong
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Guangdong is a province on the South China Sea coast of the Peoples Republic of China. The provincial capital Guangzhou and economic hub Shenzhen are among the most populous, the population increase since the census has been modest, the province at 2014 end had 107,240,000 people. Since 1989, Guangdong has topped the total GDP rankings among all divisions, with Jiangsu and Shandong second. According to state statistics, Guangdongs GDP in 2014 reached RMB6,779 billion, or US$1.104 trillion, since 2011, Guangdong has the highest GDP among all provinces of Mainland China. The province contributes approximately 12% of the PRCs national economic output, Guangdong also hosts the largest import and export fair in China called the Canton Fair in Guangdongs capital city Guangzhou. Guǎng means expanse or vast, and has associated with the region since the creation of Guang Prefecture in AD226. Guangdong and neighbouring Guangxi literally mean expanse east and expanse west, together, Guangdong and Guangxi are called Loeng gwong. During the Song dynasty, the Two Guangs were formally separated as Guǎngnán Dōnglù and Guǎngnán Xīlù, one should note that Canton, though etymologically derived from Cantão, refers only to the provincial capital instead of the whole province, as documented by authoritative English dictionaries. The local people of the city of Guangzhou and their language are commonly referred to as Cantonese in English. Because of the prestige of Canton and its accent, Cantonese sensu lato can also be used for the phylogenetically related residents, Chinese administration and reliable historical records in the region began with the Qin dynasty. After establishing the first unified Chinese empire, the Qin expanded southwards and set up Nanhai Commandery at Panyu, the region was independent as Nanyue between the fall of Qin and the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. Under the Wu Kingdom of the Three Kingdoms period, Guangdong was made its own province, for example, internal strife in northern China following the rebellion of An Lushan resulted in a 75% increase in the population of Guangzhou prefecture between 740s–750s and 800s–810s. As more migrants arrived, the population was gradually assimilated to Han Chinese culture or displaced. Multiple women originating from the Persian Gulf lived in Guangzhous foreign quarter, together with Guangxi, Guangdong was made part of Lingnan Circuit, or Mountain-South Circuit, in 627 during the Tang dynasty. The Guangdong part of Lingnan Circuit was renamed Guangnan East Circuit guǎng nán dōng lù in 971 during the Song dynasty, Guangnan East is the source of Guangdong. As Mongols from the north engaged in their conquest of China in the 13th century, the Battle of Yamen 1279 in Guangdong marked the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. During the Mongol Yuan dynasty, large parts of current Guangdong belonged to Jiangxi and its present name, Guangdong Province was given in early Ming dynasty. Since the 16th century, Guangdong has had extensive links with the rest of the world
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Guangzhou
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Guangzhou, traditionally romanised as Canton, is the capital and most populous city of the province of Guangdong in southern China. Guangzhou is currently, the third city in mainland China, behind Beijing and Shanghai, holds sub-provincial administrative status. In 2015 the citys area was estimated to have a population of 13,501,100. Some estimates place the population of the area of the Pearl River Delta Mega City as high as 44 million without the Hong Kong SAR and 54 million including it. Guangzhou is ranked as a Beta+ Global city, in recent years, there has been a rapidly increasing number of foreign residents and illegal immigrants from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe, as well as from Africa. This has led to it being dubbed the Capital of the Third World, the migrant population from other provinces of China in Guangzhou was 40 percent of the citys total population in 2008. Long the only Chinese port accessible to foreign traders, the city fell to the British during the First Opium War. No longer enjoying a monopoly after the war, it lost trade to ports such as Hong Kong and Shanghai. In modern commerce, Guangzhou is best known for its annual Canton Fair, for the three consecutive years 2013–2015, Forbes ranked Guangzhou as the best commercial city on the Chinese mainland. Guǎngzhōu is the pinyin romanisation of the Chinese name 廣州, which was simplified in mainland China to 广州 in the 1950s, before acquiring its current name, the town was known as Panyu, a name still borne by one of Guangzhous districts. The origin of the name is uncertain, with 11 various explanations being offered. The city has sometimes been known as Guangzhou Fu or Guangfu after its status as the capital of a commandery. From this latter name, Guangzhou was known to medieval Persians such as Al-Masudi, under the Southern Han, the city was renamed Xingwang. Under the Qing, it was known to its inhabitants as simply The Provincial Capital. The Chinese abbreviation for Guangzhou is 穗, after its nickname Rice City, the former name City of the Immortals came from the same story. The more recent City of Flowers is usually taken as a reference to the areas greenery. The English name Canton derived from Portuguese Cantão or Cidade de Cantão, although it originally and chiefly applied to the walled city, it was also used in English in reference to Guangdong generally. It was adopted as the Postal Map Romanization of Guangzhou and remained in use until the gradual adoption of pinyin
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Zhaoqing
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Zhaoqing, formerly romanized as Shiuhing, is a prefecture-level city in Guangdong Province, China. During the 2010 census, its population was 3,918,467, with 1,232,462 living in the areas of Duanzhou District. The prefectural seat—excluding Seven Star Crags—is fairly flat, but thickly forested mountains lie just outside its limits, numerous rice paddies and aquaculture ponds are found on the outskirts of the city. Sihui and the districts of the prefecture are considered part of the Pearl River Delta. Formerly one of the most important cities in southern China, Zhaoqing lost importance during the Qing and is now known for tourism. Residents from Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and the cities of the Pearl River Delta visit it for weekend excursions. It is also a manufacturing center. Zhaoqing was known to the Qin and Han as Gaoyao and it was renamed Duanzhou from its role as the seat of Duan Prefecture under the Sui. The present name, meaning Beginning Auspiciousness, was bestowed on the area by Emperor Huizong of the Song in 1118, Zhaoqing is the pinyin romanization, the earlier Postal Map form Shiuhing derives from the names Cantonese pronunciation. Gaoyao was located on the bank of the Xi River, named for its districts principal feature. When the Portuguese arrived in the 16th century, Zhaoqing was still an important center, matteo Riccis On the Christian Expedition among the Sinae tells of the early visits of Macanese-based Europeans to Zhaoqing. The Viceroy Chen Rui summoned Macaos mayor and bishop in the early 1580s, but the town sent its auditor Mattia Penella, Ricci drew the first modern Chinese map of the world in Zhaoqing in 1584. Ruggieri left for Rome in 1588 but Ricci remained until the next year, during the Fall of the Ming in the mid-17th century, Zhaoqing served as the capital of the Prince of Guis Southern Ming resistance, with the prince styling himself the Yongli Emperor. The town fell in 1650 and the relocated to Guilin and then various locations in Guangxi, Yunnan. The Jesuits Andreas Wolfgang Koffler and, later, Michał Boym stayed for some time at his court, Zhaoqing is located 110 km northwest of Guangzhou, in the west Pearl River Delta. It lies on the shores of the Xi River, which flows from west to east. A plain area lies to the south and west of Zhaoqing, with mountains to the east, the city has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate. The yearly average temperature is 22.3 °C, and annual precipitation is 1,605 mm, in the agriculture sector, the fertile plains yield paddy rice, sugar cane, aquatic products, fruits, rosin and cassia bark
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Shaoguan
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Shaoguan is a prefecture-level city in northern Guangdong Province, China, bordering Hunan to the northwest and Jiangxi to the northeast. It is home to the remains of the sixth Zen Buddhist patriarch Huineng. Its built-up or metro area made up of Zhenjiang and Wujiang urban districts was home to 688,229 inhabitants at the 2010 census, shaozhou was a prefecture under the Tang and Song. In 1589, Matteo Ricci relocated his mission house – the first ever Jesuit mission in mainland China – to Shaoguan after a fallout with the authorities in Zhaoqing, during World War II the city, then called Kukong, was the capital of Guangdong Province. In June 2009, Uyghurs and Han workers clashed at a toy factory in Shaoguan and it spans latitude 23° 05−25°31 N and longitude 112° 50−114°45 E. The city is located on the Jingguang Railway about 221 kilometres north of the capital of Guangzhou. Shaoguan is also accessible by road as it is adjacent to the G4 Beijing–Hong Kong–Macau Expressway as well as numerous other National Highways. At Shaoguan, the Wu River from the northwest and the Zhen River from the northeast join up to create the North River which flows south to Guangzhou, the downtown part of Shaoguan is located on a peninsula between the Wu and Zhen Rivers. The rivers are maintained at a constant level by a dam about 12 kilometres downstream from the city, the city has about 20 kilometres of tree-lined riverside esplanades along the banks of the rivers. There are seven bridges crossing the three rivers, winter begins dry and relatively sunny but becomes progressively cloudier and damper. Spring is the cloudiest and wettest season, with the sun shining less than 30% of the time, the annual rainfall is around 1,580 mm, much of it delivered from April thru June. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from 10.2 °C in January to 29.0 °C in July, with monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 16% in March to 54% in July, the city receives 1,617 hours of bright sunshine annually. Shaoguan has direct jurisdiction over 3 districts,2 county-level cities and 5 counties, to the south of the tower, at the other end of a pedestrian shopping street, the Dajian Monastery was founded in 660. Near Shaoguan is the town of Maba, home of relics and museum of the Maba Man, near Maba is Nanhua Temple, which was founded by Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism. Shaoguan Iron and Steel is also located near Maba, danxia Mountain is located in Renhua County, Shaoguan. Northwest of Shaoguan, at the town of Pingshi, a stretch of river known as the Nine Torrents and Eighteen Shoals is a popular place for white-water rafting
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