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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Ricci grew up in Macerata during a period of what?

2. Toward the end of his life, what irony struck Ricci about the Chinese?

3. What are mnemonic devices?

4. From whom was Macerata in constant danger from attack?

5. Where are the memory palaces that Ricci creates to be built?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Ricci do to the second idiograph and how did the meaning change?

2. What were some of the outside influences affecting Ricci's home city of Macerata?

3. Who was Alessandro Valignano and what did he think about the possibility of Asians and Japanese converting to Christianity?

4. Describe the training of Matteo Ricci before he arrived in China.

5. What did Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, think of mnemonic devices?

6. According to Spence, how did Ricci use the four images and four Chinese characters?

7. What were Ricci's rules for picking a location to store the information?

8. Where was the Memory Palace to be built?

9. What had the Japanese done to make Ricci's life difficult?

10. What did Ricci need the new image associated with the first picture "The Apostle in the Waves" to represent?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Sexual immorality caused Ricci great concern. Discuss the ways in which both the Jesuits and the Chinese challenged Ricci's view of sexual morality and the ways he chose to combat it.

Essay Topic 2

In the third picture, Ricci uses the story of Lot and the city of Sodom as an analogy to the rule and death of Pope Paul IV. Using these two characters and their stories, discuss the theme that power and weakness rise and fall together and political abuses of power destroy public morality and respect for tradition.

Essay Topic 3

The Chinese practiced three major religions: Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. In his efforts to Christianize the Chinese, Ricci uses the beliefs from these three religions to show the similarities to his Catholicism. Explain the basics of all four religions and discuss their similarities and differences to each other.

(see the answer keys)

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