Chinese Culture and Western Europe in the Eighteenth Century

Western missionaries needed to study the classical Chinese texts, known as the Four Books and Five Classics, to adapt to Chinese society and understand it. The earliest translation of the Four Books into Latin and sent back to Italy was done by Matteo Ricci in 1593. In 1626, a Belgian missionary named Nicolas Trigault translated the Five Classics into Latin, and they were printed in Hangzhou, making it the earliest published Western translation of Chinese classics.