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July 12, 2015

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Exhibit reveals close ties between Italy and Shanghai

XU worked with Ricci in translating Euclid’s classic scientific work “Elements.”

Ricci became the first Italian to translate some Confucian classics into Latin, with assistance from Xu. Ricci also developed a system for transcribing Chinese words in the Latin alphabet.

Around the same time, Italian missionary Lazzaro Cattaneo (1560-1640) had traveled to Shanghai and assisted Ricci on composing a Mandarin language dictionary and added tones for all the words. This remains a standard feature of Sino-Western dictionaries today.

The connections between Italy and Shanghai, as well as the rich cultural influence in the past 400 years, is explored at the China Corporate United Pavilion at the Milan World Expo with an exhibition entitled “Dialogue of Civilizations Along the Silk Road: Italians in Shanghai.”

“The Italian link with Shanghai started from Xu Guangqi, the first Chinese who learned to speak Italian, so the story of this exhibition begins with him,” said Stefano Beltrame, Italian Consul General in Shanghai.

Pictures on display show a painting of Madonna wearing Qing Dynasty clothing made by Italian artist Nicola Massa (1815-1876), Milanese lady Giuseppina Croci, a vintage FIAT car advertisement poster on Avenue Joffre (Huaihai Road), pilot Arturo Ferrarin (1895-1941) with his war-vintage Ansaldo SVA plane that landed in Shanghai in 1920 and many other precious items.

“The exhibition is built on the long-time research we’ve done here through the Shanghai Italian Cultural Institute. Now we are furthering our study and digging up more interesting stories together with Tongji University and Fudan University. Behind each chapter in the exhibition there is a fascinating story that people would be interested to know,” Beltrame said.

“The historical depth is the base of China-Italy relationships at the moment and we try to show visitors what Italy is today, proud of its industry, technology and culture,” he added.

Exhibition curator Davide Quadrio used a very clean setting to display a series of panels and several TV screens to tell the story by chapters.

The exhibition will run until the end of the month and it will also take place in Shanghai in the near future.




 

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