Maillard de Tournon: The First Papal Legate to China (1702–1710) and His Unknown Manuscripts

Abstract

The Istoria della spedizione del Cardinale Carlo Tommaso Maillard de’ Tournon is a collection of manuscripts produced for and circulated within the Roman Curia in the early 18th century. It contains letters and reports from Maillard de Tournon, the first papal legate to China, and records his mission and the early efforts of the Holy See to establish direct contact with the Qing court, bypassing the patronage system and locally entrenched religious orders (the Jesuits in particular). For various reasons, these manuscripts were never fully published and, in spite of their interest, remain relatively unknown to scholars. This article introduces these manuscripts, edited by Giovanni Giacomo Fatinelli, procurator of Maillard de Tournon in Rome, and demonstrates their value in allowing a greater understanding of the relationship between the Holy See and China, as well as the general relationship between the Holy See and Catholic missionaries throughout the world.

1. Introduction

The Istoria della spedizione del Cardinale Carlo Tommaso Maillard de’ Tournon Visitatore e Commissario Generale alle Missioni della Cina, ed altri Regni delle Indie Orientali (hereafter Istoria della spedizione)1 is a collection of manuscripts, edited in the early 18th century by Giovanni Giacomo Fatinelli (1653–1736), concerning the first papal legate, Charles Thomas Maillard de Tournon (Duo Luo 多羅, 1668–1710), who visited China during the reign of Emperor Kangxi (康熙, 1654–1722) of the Qing dynasty. The manuscripts, with an original and a full copy totaling six volumes, are now preserved in the Casanatense Library (Biblioteca Casanatense) in Rome, Italy. The manuscripts introduce, present, describe, and analyze Maillard de Tournon’s mission to China.

The staff of the Casanatense Library began to compile new catalogues of their manuscript holdings in the mid-20th century (Caputo 1949; Ceccopieri 1988a), including those relating to the Catholic missions in China (Ceccopieri 1988b, 1996, 2022). In the 1950s and 1960s, a portion of the documents were microfilmed by Fr. Francis Rouleau S.J., who then sent them to the library of the Ricci Institute for Chinese–Western Cultural History, which was first at the University of San Francisco, but is now at Boston College (USA).2 Eugenio Menegon later contributed an inventory of the discovered manuscript documents and books related to China’s Catholic mission during the 17th and 18th centuries. The work of Menegon has provided a useful tool allowing interested scholars to find new material, although Menegon limited himself only to a crude description of the items in his inventory (Menegon 2000, pp. 31–55).

These manuscripts, though interesting and valuable, have remained relatively unknown and under-used for a variety of reasons (Menegon 2000, p. 31). Due to the quantity of the material and the variety of languages contained in the manuscripts, scholars require not only a profound knowledge of Catholic missionary activities in China, but also several European languages in their Early Modern versions. In addition to items in Latin, they contain sections in Old Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Thus far, few scholars have studied this material. Foremost among those who have are Fortunato Margiotti, the co-editor of the series Sinica Franciscana, and Giacomo Di Fiore, author of La Legazione Mezzabarbar in Cina (Di Fiore 1989). More recently, I have also drawn upon the documents relating to Maillard de Tournon, seeking to reveal different aspects of the first papal legation to China, and the resulting narrative resulted in somewhat of a counterpoint to other historiographies, particularly those that favor Jesuit sources.

In the context of increased contact between China and the Holy See, the systematic study of these manuscripts has both historical and practical significance. In fact, Tournon’s testimony has both “psychological” and documentary value, providing facts and details that had long remained obscure or unknown, particularly pertaining to the final part of his mission following his visit to Beijing. This article presents the sources and origins of the Istoria della spedizione, introduces the contents of the manuscripts themselves, and provides several examples of their scholarly value and potential for future work.

2. The Editor

The editor of the Istoria della spedizione, Giovanni Giacomo Fatinelli, son of Giovanni Battista and Angela Fatinelli,3 was born into a noble family in the Republic of Lucca in central Italy. He studied the utroque iure (canon and civil law), where he obtained a doctoral degree (Asso 1995, p. 320). However, what made him famous was his becoming the procurator of Maillard de Tournon in Italy, the announcement appearing even in the Giornale de’ letterati d’Italia (Journal of the Italian literati), a well-known journal among the Italian literati at the time (Maffei et al. 1710, p. 508). In 1701, Maillard de Tournon had been nominated by the Holy See to become the Patriarch of Antioch, Apostolic Visitor, and first legatus a latere (a legate sent “from the pope’s side”) to China. A year later, he left Rome and started his journey to the East with the intention of establishing more formal contact (“corrispondenza”) between Rome and Beijing, to supervise the activity of the missionaries and to develop diplomatic, cultural, and human contact.4 However, due to language barriers, cultural differences, and the obstruction of the Portuguese Padroado (patronage system), the ice-breaking visit of Maillard de Tournon ended in failure, and the legate himself died in Macao in 1710 at the age of 41 (Zhang 2022, p. 200).

We are not sure when exactly Fatinelli became the procurator of Maillard de Tournon, but what is clear is that he was concerned with the problems of the Catholic mission in China, especially the long-lasting Chinese Rites Controversy (Li 2019). In 1700, Fatinelli edited a book (Fatinelli 1700) titled The History of the Cult of the Chinese, or Various Writings between French Apostolic Vicars, Other Missionaries, and the Jesuits Fathers About the Cults of the Chinese (Historia cultus Sinensium, seu varia scripta de cultibus Sinarum, inter vicarios apostolicos Gallos aliosque missionarios, & patres Societatis Jesu controversis).5 In this book, he collected the documents brought back from the Far East by Nicolas Charmot (Meng Nige 孟尼閣, 1655–1714), a missionary from the Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP), among which there were also letters of Charles Maigrot (Yan Dang 顏璫, 1625–1730), apostolic vicar of Fujian in China. In 1694, Charmot was sent by Maigrot to Rome to persuade Pope Innocent XII to review the Chinese Rites Controversy, to forbid Chinese Christians from venerating Confucius and their own ancestors, and to stop the use of the words Tian (天) and Shangdi (上帝) when referring to the name of the Christian God. At first, the Roman Curia approved and supported the concept of “inculturation” promoted by the Jesuits and ignored Maigrot’s suggestions. However, three years later, the papal Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, often known as Propaganda Fide) opened a new round of consultation and, subsequently, reversed their attitude toward the Chinese Rites in 1697 (Criveller 2012, p. 14).

Between the 17th and 18th centuries, the policies of the Holy See toward China changed regularly, often being swayed quite easily. One of the reasons was probably related to the rising anti-Jesuit sentiment in European society. For example, Fatinelli accused the Jesuits of discrediting the Roman Church by feeding not only its morally laxer aspects, but also the practices closest to paganism (Asso 1995, p. 320). In Fatinelli’s hometown, the Republic of Lucca, the Jesuits had repeatedly sought the pope’s support to establish a college, but this was in vain. The ambassador of Lucca to the Holy See said that the Jesuits were keen to interfere in its internal affairs through education, and, therefore, the government refused their request, communicating that the local residents were mainly merchants and had no need for overly advanced education. Furthermore, the pope urged the Jesuits to restrain and restrict their own activities to what they were already doing (Sforza 1887, pp. 55–74).

In 1709, the pope received the envoy of Emperor Kangxi, Joseph Antoine Provana S.J. (Ai Ruose 艾若瑟, 1662–1720), who drafted five memoranda for Clement XI, informing him about the difficulties in the China missions and urging him to reach an agreement with Kangxi (de Saldnaha 2002, pp. 410–21; Liu 2008, p. 63). However, it is likely that under the influence of Fatinelli,6 the pope was skeptical toward Provana’s requests (Texeira 1994, pp. 259–69; Meynard 2018, pp. 119–27). Provana’s memoranda were refuted one by one by Fatinelli in a congregation of the Holy Office in the presence of the pope (Di Fiore 2007). It was also rumored that Fatinelli had the support of Giuseppe Maria Tommasi (1649–1712), a prominent liturgical expert, known as the “Prince of the Roman liturgists” (Principe dei liturgisti Romani), in the Holy See.7 Although Fatinelli’s criticism of Provana was limited to circulation within the Holy Office, it eventually reached the ears of some Jesuits. Among them was Luigi Vincenzo Mamiani della Rovere (1652–1730), procurator of the assistant to Portugal of the superior general of the Society of Jesus and responsible for the Eastern missions. He decided to publish a book anonymously in order to instigate a debate with Fatinelli (della Rovere 1709), calling him an “impostor, forger, reckless, satirist, slanderer”.8 This was all in vain (della Rovere 1730); no matter how the Jesuits argued, they could not change the pope’s mind or shake his confidence in Fatinelli. When Clement XI learned that Maillard de Tournon had died in Macao, he commissioned Fatinelli to collect the letters and reports of the Legate and edit the history about his mission to China, leading to the compilation of the manuscripts being discussed here.

According to Fatinelli, the birth of the Istoria della spedizione was, on the one hand, due to the exhortation of Pope Clement XI and on the other hand, due to the influence of other works, especially El Pastor de Noche Buena (The Shepherd of the Good Night), written by Spanish bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (1600–1659).9 Palafox y Mendoza was the bishop of the diocese of Puebla in Mexico and sought to protect Native Americans from the Spanish conquest, forbidding Europeans from forcing natives to convert to Catholicism. Such a move, however, was opposed by the Jesuits. Palafox y Mendoza wrote to Rome twice, in 1647 and 1649, complaining of the Jesuits’ method of preaching. Finally, Pope Innocent X issued an edict in 1648, admonishing the Jesuits to respect the bishop’s authority (Cervera and Esquivel 2018, pp. 245–84). As the Italian translator of El Pastor de Noche Buena, Fatinelli bluntly stated that Palafox y Mendoza and Maillard de Tournon were highly similar in their experiences (Fatinelli 1772).10 It was after this that he made up his mind to edit the history of Tournon’s legation (see Fatinelli 1772, especially the preface).

In Rome, Fatinelli also received help from his uncle, Fatinello Fatinelli (?–1719),11 becoming the Canon of the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, and subsequentially found a job in the Apostolic Penitentiary. On 18 April 1720, he was appointed diplomatic agent of the Republic of Lucca to the papal court and renewed his office at the end of each three-year period until his death. In 1721, Pope Clement XI died suddenly, and the internal turmoil in the Roman Curia forced Fatinelli to abandon the publication of the Istoria della spedizione in full, leaving the fate of the manuscripts hanging in the balance (Asso 1995, pp. 320–21).

3. The Manuscripts

On 12 September 1733, the aged Fatinelli donated his manuscripts related to Maillard de Tournon to the Casanatense Library in Rome (Zhang 2022, p. 6). The library is located in the center of Rome, right next to the Jesuit Collegio Romano. Dating back to 1701, it was founded by Cardinal Girolamo Casanate (1620–1700) and administered by the Dominicans of the convent of Saint Mary of Minerva (De Gregorio 1993). In 1870, the library came under the control of the Italian state and 14 years later, in 1884, the Dominicans were excluded, and the Casanatense Library was put under the control of a lay librarian (Menegon 2000, p. 31).

In the Casanatense Library, manuscripts are identified by simple numbers. The codices’ numbers are different from microfilm numbers (Menegon 2000, p. 37). In the Casanatense collections, the codex numbers of the original version of the Istoria della spedizione are 1623, 1624, and 1625, while the corresponding microfilm numbers are 1591, 1592, and 1593; additionally, the copy version numbers are 1636, 1637, and 1638, and the corresponding microfilm numbers are 1601, 1602, and 1603, as summarized in

Table 1. The collection of Istoria della spedizione in the Casanatense Library.

Manuscript	Microfilm	Title/Topic
1623	1591	Fatinelli, Istoria della spedizione del Cardinale Carlo Tommaso Maillard de’ Tournon Visitatore e Commissario Generale alle Missioni della Cina, ed altri Regni delle Indie Orientali, vol. 1, 292 ff.
1624	1592	Fatinelli, Istoria della spedizione del Cardinale Carlo Tommaso Maillard de’ Tournon Visitatore e Commissario Generale alle Missioni della Cina, ed altri Regni delle Indie Orientali, vol. 2, 277 ff.
1625	1593	Fatinelli, Istoria della spedizione del Cardinale Carlo Tommaso Maillard de’ Tournon Visitatore e Commissario Generale alle Missioni della Cina, ed altri Regni delle Indie Orientali, vol. 3, 382 ff.
1636	1601	G.G. Fatinelli, Istoria della spedizione del Card. C. T. Maillard de’ Marchesi di Tournon alle Missioni della Cina, Pars I, II, 224 ff.
1637	1602	G.G. Fatinelli, Istoria della spedizione del Card. C. T. Maillard de’ Marchesi di Tournon alle Missioni della Cina, Pars III, 179 ff.
1638	1603	G.G. Fatinelli, Istoria della spedizione del Card. C. T. Maillard de’ Marchesi di Tournon alle Missioni della Cina, Pars IV, 261 ff.

.

In Table 1, we can see that both the original and the copy of the Istoria della spedizione are divided into three volumes, recording the different stages of Maillard de Tournon’s mission. The original version is in poor condition and is full of handwritten corrections in the hand of the original author, making it quite difficult to follow. Regarding the copy, the manuscript is in good condition, and the text is coherent and legible. In terms of content, the two versions are almost identical, and where corrections have been made, the editor has provided explanations written in the margins. The examples drawn upon in this article were taken from the copy. The Dominican Father Giandomenico Agnani (1681–1746), then Director of the Casanatense Library, wrote the following explanation on the title page:

In the present copy, there are some additions and alterations from the hand of the author, which are not present in the original. This copy had to pass as an original in some way. If the Holy See wants, as it is too easy, the printing of this very interesting history, it would do well to consider this copy with the original, noting the additions and small corrections made by the author. Moreover, it should be checked to find out the extent to which these corrections, alterations and additions, all small, had been suggested by Giovanni Battista Marcello Angelita,12 Commissioner of the Holy Office, Canon of the Sacred Heart, who holds other writings pertaining to China.13

In the first volume (1636), Fatinelli introduced the background to the Chinese Rites Controversy and the early life of Maillard de Tournon, and described the difficulties and challenges from the perspective of the legate himself during the first stage of his trip. It is worth noting that a small part of the manuscript is highly similar to Fatinelli’s Relazione del Viaggio dall’Isola di Teneriff … sino à Pondisceri … di Monsignor C. T. M. di T., published in Rome in 1704 (See Fatinelli 1704). In this part, he mentions that Pope Clement XI, with good intentions, chose properly to consecrate Maillard de Tournon on 21 December 1701, since this day was both his 33rd birthday and the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle, and Tournon’s middle name happened to be Thomas. According to Catholic tradition, St. Thomas was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ who had been to India and even to China (Zhang 2022, p. 103). As Fatinelli confirmed, the pope attached great importance to sending a legate to China on his behalf, also reflected in the fact that “there had not been such a solemn celebration in St. Peter’s Basilica for centuries” (BC, Ms. 1636, f. 108r). In contrast to the accounts of previous scholars who sustained that the appointment of Tournon as vicar in the Far East with the faculty of legatus a latere was kept secret and any publicity avoided so as not to let the courts of France, Spain, and Portugal know anything about this mission (Dell’Oro 1998, p. 325), the manuscript shows clearly that the pope’s decision was not only “supported by all of Rome, but also welcomed all over Europe”. (See Fatinelli 1704, especially the preface). Before his departure, Tournon even met King Philip V of Spain in Naples, where he obtained Spanish protection for his mission to the Orient, and permission for his passage through the territories under the control of the Spanish Crown in the East Indies (BC, Ms. 1636, f. 110v). For this reason, the papal legation arrived in China via Manila, Philippines (BC, Ms. 1636, f. 200r). Welcomed by Philip V with great esteem, Tournon presented and described his mission and objectives, and the king himself took pains to forewarn him regarding the position of the Society of Jesus in the matter of the Chinese Rites Controversy. The Jesuits, in their efforts to avoid any unfavorable judgements on the part of the pope, had already written letters to almost all of the bishops of Europe and cardinals in the Roman Curia, explaining their position and petitioning for support (BC, Ms. 1636, f. 111r). Tournon’s mission, whereby the pope sent personnel to the East directly through the papal Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, bypassing the patronage system, was a first. The direct consequences were the opposition of the secular powers in various countries and the opening up of a dispute between different European states and the Holy See. The manuscript therefore demonstrates that, in fact, it was in the context of full public knowledge, and amidst a delicate atmosphere of tension, that Maillard de Tournon embarked on his Oriental journey, rather than in secrecy.

In the second volume (1637), Fatinelli included Maillard de Tournon’s letters and reports and presented the history from the time the Legate arrived in Beijing until his “exile” to Macao. This part of the manuscript reveals a new and different perspective to what we know from Jesuit sources (Malatesta 1994, pp. 211–46), particularly the Acta Pekinensia,14 recorded by the German Jesuit astronomer and technician Kilian Stumpf (Ji Li’an 紀理安, 1655–1720). Stumpf came to China in 1694 and, after being summoned to the court in July 1695, the Emperor appointed him director of the new imperial glassworks to be set up in the compound of the French Jesuit Northern Church (Beitang). During Tournon’s visit to Beijing, Stumpf was appointed by the Jesuit Visitor as procurator for the mission to handle negotiations with the papal legate. However, Stumpf’s position and persistence regarding the Chinese Rites Controversy seriously irritated Tournon, who eventually refused to have further dealings with him (Stumpf 2015, pp. XIX–XX). Thus, the Istoria della spedizione, edited by Giovanni Giacomo Fatinelli, is significant because it is the only source to include a contrasting viewpoint to that of the Jesuits that covers the whole period of Tournon’s mission. He did have access to and drew on sources from the Jesuit archive, but also included the perspectives of Tournon and the Roman Curia. One good example is the question of why Kangxi’s enthusiasm for this legation was so short-lived. According to the Istoria della spedizione, Maillard de Tournon and his entourage arrived in Beijing on 4 December 1705 and stayed in the French Jesuit Northern Church. The legate was bedridden due to illness so he had to write to Kangxi explaining the reason for his coming to China. On 27 December, Kangxi asked the Portuguese Jesuit Thomas Pereira (Xu Risheng 徐日昇, 1645–1708) and the Italian Jesuit Claudio Filippo Grimaldi (Min Mingwo 閔明我, 1639–1712)15 to translate the legate’s letter. However, Pereira showed a dismissive look in front of Kangxi. Soon, he put down the translation work and walked away. When he returned, he brought Henkama (赫世亨, c. 1645–1708) with him, the man in charge of the publishing house, the Wuying Dian (武英殿), who stopped the translation work altogether. By the next day, Kangxi’s attitude had suddenly changed, and he became overtly suspicious of Tournon’s motives for his visit. The legate firmly believed that this change in attitude and suspicion were a direct result of the interference of the Portuguese (BC, Ms. 1637, f. 8v). In addition, the legate talked about being poisoned, which caused further deterioration to his already weak body. Behind the whole incident, the legate pointed directly to Pereira, who, he argued, intended to “punish” all missionaries who did not come to China through the Portuguese Padroado. Maillard de Tournon admitted that his every movement during his stay in the capital was monitored by the emperor’s favorite son Yinzhi (胤禔, 1677–1732), a supporter of the Portuguese Jesuits and a close associate of Pereira (BC, Ms. 1637, f. 47v). The manuscript also contains two different kinds of letters that the legate sent back from Beijing to Rome, with quite different tones. In addition to the official letters approved by the Qing court, there are also some “private” letters, which discuss, for example, the financial issues of the Jesuit Society in China (BC, Ms. 1637, ff. 64r–82r) and the reasons why the legate decided to ban the Chinese Rites in Nanjing (BC, Ms. 1637, ff. 128v–29v). These examples of hitherto unknown and contrasting perspectives are illustrative of why this manuscript deserves more attention from interested scholars.

In the third volume (1638), Fatinelli covered Maillard de Tournon’s stay in Macao and other events that occurred after his death that are little known to most scholars. The manuscript reports that, on 30 June 1707, the legate arrived in Macao, and the Chinese officials accompanying him asked the Portuguese authorities to arrange accommodation for Maillard de Tournon. However, he was only allocated one small room, simply containing a single bed and a small table. Helpless, the legate and his entourage could only temporarily settle in the convent of the Franciscans. However, the Portuguese authorities immediately sent troops to surround the convent and did not allow anyone to approach the legate, not even the clergy of Macao. This action caused an uproar. After much coordination, Maillard de Tournon was allowed to rent a slightly larger house for three hundred guilders per year, and this residence eventually became the “prison” where he stayed until the end of his life (BC, Ms. 1638, ff. 3r–3v). Here, Maillard de Tournon met Matteo Ripa (Ma Guoxian 馬國賢, 1682–1746)16 and other missionaries newly arrived from Rome, and was promoted to cardinal, receiving his cardinal’s hat from the Apostolic See (Zhang 2022, pp. 190–93). This red hat, using the words of Voltaire, served only to let him die with dignity (Voltaire 1752, p. 412).

During his “exile” in Macao, Maillard de Tournon felt a lot of emotion, believing that he had been treated with courtesy by the Chinese, but plotted against by his brothers in Christ. The bishop of Macao, flattering upon his first arrival, avoided seeing him on his deathbed, refusing even to acknowledge the authority that the pope had bestowed upon him. Regarding the life of the legate during the five months before his death, a book titled Relazione della preziosa morte dell’eminentissimo, e reverendissimo Carlo Tomaso Maillard di Tournon (Fatinelli 1711)17 was published anonymously in Rome in 1711. An examination of its content, however, reveals it to be sufficiently similar to that of the Istoria della spedizione, allowing us to speculate that both of them were authored by Fatinelli. At the end of the third volume of the Istoria della spedizione, the editor mentioned the “successor” to the first papal legate, Charles Ambrogio Mezzabarba (Jia Le 嘉樂, 1685–1741), who arrived in China in 1721 and presented the controversial “Eight Concessions”. Mezzabarba transported Tournon’s coffin from Macao to Rome via Brazil, and finally buried it in the chapel of the Magi in the papal Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in 1723 (BC, Ms. 1638, f. 226r).

4. Conclusions

Maillard de Tournon was the first papal legate to China in the early modern period, and his mission was significant in a number of ways. It represents the very first attempt of the Holy See to establish direct contact with the Qing court and marked a turning point in the relationship between China and the West. If Matteo Ricci started the so-called “inculturation” era, it was the failure of Tournon’s visit to China that brought this era to an end.

In 1622, Pope Gregory XV promulgated the Apostolic Decree, Inscrutabili Divinae providentiae arcano, announcing the establishment of the Propaganda Fide (Metzler 1974, p. 15), the purpose of which was to bypass the European powers who enjoyed the patronage of the missions, such as Portugal and Spain, to regain control of missionary activities, to transform the colonial church into a local church, to train local clergy, and to stop the imposition of European civilization and customs on the local people (Metzler 1974, pp. 24–30). From this point onward, the Holy See always attempted to send missionaries from different religious orders to every corner of the world and to gradually eliminate the monopoly of individual religious orders in certain countries or regions. In addition, the Propaganda Fide also emphasized the development of diocesan priests with the aim of laying the foundation for the “localization” of bishops and the “decolonization” of dioceses (Zhang 2022, p. 27). It was with this background and for these reasons that shortly after Clement XI was elected pope in 1701, he insisted on sending a legate directly through the Propaganda Fide to visit Emperor Kangxi.

The value of these manuscripts, preserved in the Casanatense Library, lies in the fact that they are internal documents of the Holy See that have not yet been published in their entirety. The editor used a large number of first-hand materials of the legation in order to inform Pope Clement XI and his cardinal nephews, the papal household (Camerlengo) of the Holy See, Annibale Albani (1682–1751) and Alessandro Albani (1692–1779), of both the changes in the Holy See’s policies toward China and of the details of Maillard de Tournon’s mission in the Far East. Yet, from the above description, we can also sense the limitation of this work. It tends to emphasize the absolute authority of the papacy, which opposed the Portuguese Padroado, and lessened the contribution and achievements of the Jesuits in China. In addition, this manuscript deeply influenced the later publication of the eight-volume Memorie Storiche dell’Eminentissimo Monsignor Cardinale di Tournon, edited by Domenico Passionei (1682–1761), which became a key document in the suppression of the Jesuits in the 18th century, prompting the Holy See to formally abolish the order in 1773 (Wright and Burson 2015).

It is likely that, in the eyes of contemporaries, this decision of Rome was too precipitate since it openly violated the interests of other European states and religious orders, thus encountering opposition by various forces, which led to the tragic end of Maillard de Tournon’s legation. In 1715, Pope Clement XI issued the decree Ex Illa Die on the Chinese Rites Controversy, which became a fixed point for all missionaries in their dealings with the emperor. Furthermore, in 1742, these decisions of the Apostolic See were also confirmed by Pope Benedict XIV with the Apostolic Constitution Ex quo singolari, which imposed obedience to the Supreme Pontiff on the part of all missionaries, prohibiting all debates (Zhang 2022, p. 206).18 Therefore, without any further mention, the Istoria della spedizione manuscripts ended up in the vast collections of the Casanatense Library in the Eternal City. Thus far, only a few chapters have been published, and most of the contents are still relatively unfamiliar to specialist scholars in the field, in spite of their unique insights into and perspectives on a key moment in the history not only of the Holy See’s relationship with China, but also for relations with and policies toward all missionaries throughout the world.