Original title: Descrizione della Cina
Edited by Giuseppe Marino

Matteo Ricci's Description of China is considered one of the most important works on the civilization, philosophy, history, customs, and geography of China, both for the rigor of its literary sources and for the richness and authority of the oral ones, especially the Chinese literati with whom the Italian Jesuit had dealings. The first of five books in his prolific History of the Introduction of Christianity into China (also known as the Commentarj della Cina), the Description is an ethnographic work that today can be framed within the scope of disciplines that study the cultural bridges between Europe and Asia, particularly with the Far East and China. Ricci succeeds in presenting Western readers with a China that is understandable, but at the same time represents a challenge for the European cartography of knowledge.