RICCATI, JACOPO FRANCESCO, COUNT , Italian mathematician, was born at Venice on May 28, 1676, and died at Treviso on April i 5, 1754. He studied at the Univer sity of Padua, where he graduated in 1696. His authority on all questions of practical science was referred to by the senate of Venice. He corresponded with many of the European savants of his day, and contributed largely to the Acta Eruditorum of Leipzig. He was offered the presidency of the academy of science of St. Petersburg (Leningrad), but he declined, preferring the leisure and independence of life in Italy. Riccati's name is best known in connection with his problem called Riccati's equation, published in the Acta Eruditorum., Sept. 1724. A very complete account of this equation and its various transformations was given by J. W. L. Glaisher in the Phil. Trans. 0880.
His works were collected and published by his sons (1758, 4 vols.) RICCI, MATTEO (1552-161o), Italian missionary to China, was born of a noble family at Macerata in the March of Ancona on Oct. 7, 1552. After some education at a Jesuit college in his native town he went to study law at Rome, where in 1571, in opposition to his father's wishes, he joined the Society of Jesus.
In 1577 Ricci and other students offered themselves for the East Indian missions. Ricci, without visiting his family to take leave, proceeded tc Portugal. His comrades were Rudolfo Ac quaviva, Nicolas Spinola, Francesco Pasio and Michele Ruggieri, all afterwards, like Ricci himself, famous in the Jesuit annals. They arrived at Goa in Sept. 1578. After four years spent in India, Ricci was summoned to the task of opening China to evangelization.
Several fruitless attempts had been made by Xavier, and since his death, to introduce the Church into China, but it was not till the arrival at Macao of Alessandro Valignani on a visita tion in 1582 that work in China was really taken up. For this object he had obtained the services first of M. Ruggieri and then of Ricci. After various disappointments they found access to Chow-king-fu on the Si-Kiang or West River of Canton, where the viceroy of the two provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi then had his residence, and by his favour were able to establish themselves there for some years. Their Droceedines were very cautious and tentative ; they excited the curiosity and interest of even the more intelligent Chinese by their clocks, their globes and maps, their books of European engravings, and by Ricci's knowledge of mathematics, dialling and the projection of maps. Eventually troubles at Chow-king compelled them to seek a new home; and in 1589, with the viceroy's sanction, they migrated to Chang-chow in the northern part of Kwangtung, not far from the well-known Meiling Pass.
During his stay here Ricci was convinced that a mistake had been made in adopting a dress resembling that of the bonzes, a class who were the objects either of superstition or of contempt. With the sanction of the visitor it was ordered that in future the missionaries should adopt the costumes of Chinese literates, and, in fact, they before long adopted Chinese manners altogether.
Chang-chow, as a station, did not prove a happy selection, but it was not till 1595 that an opportunity occurred of travelling northward. For some time Ricci's residence was at Nan-changfu, the capital of Kiang-si ; but in 1598 he was able to proceed under III favourable conditions to Nanking, and thence for the first time to Peking, which had all along been the goal of his missionary ambition. But circumstances were not then propitious, and the party had to return to Nanking. The fame of the presents which they carried had, however, reached the court, and the Jesuits were summoned north again, and on Jan. 24, 1601, they entered the capital. Wan-li, the emperor of the Ming dynasty, in those days lived in seclusion, and saw no one but his women and the eunuchs. But the missionaries were summoned to the palace; their presents were immensely admired, and the emperor had the curiosity to send for portraits of the fathers themselves.
They obtained a settlement, with an allowance for subsistence, in Peking, and from this time to the end of his life Ricci's esti mation among the Chinese was constantly increasing, as was at the same time the amount of his labours. Visitors thronged the mission house incessantly; and inquiries came to him from all parts of the empire respecting the doctrines which he taught, or the numerous Chinese publications which he issued. As head of the mission, which now had four stations in China, he also devoted much time to answering the letters of the priests under him, a matter on which he spared no pains or detail. In May 1610 he broke down, and after an illness of eight days died on the 11th of that month.
Ricci's work was the foundation of the subsequent success at tained by the Roman Catholic Church in China. When the mis sionaries of other Roman Catholic orders made their way into China, twenty years later, they found great fault with the manner in which certain Chinese practices had been dealt with by the Jesuits. The controversy burned for considerably more than a century with great fierceness. (For a list of the controversial works see Cordier, Bibliographie de la Chine.) Probably no European name of past centuries is so well known in China as that of Li-ma-teu, the form in which the name of Ricci (Ri-cci Mat-teo) was adapted to Chinese usage, and by which he appears in Chinese records. The works which he corn posed in Chinese are numerous ; a list of them (apparently by no means complete, however) will be found in Kircher's China Illustrata, and also in Abel Rémusat's Nouveaux Mélanges Asia tiques (ii. 213-15).
The chief facts of Ricci's career are derived from the account brought home by P. Nicolas Trigault, De Expedition Christiana apud Sinas Suscepta ab Soc. Jesu, extracted from Ricci's commentaries and published at Augsburg and at Lyons. (H. Y.; X.)