entrusted with the guardianship of his younger brothers. Interrupting his studies, he withdrew to Broglio, and by careful management disencumbered the family possessions. In 1847 he founded the journal La Patria, and addressed to the grand duke a memorial suggesting remedies for the difficulties of the state. In 1848 he was elected Gonfaloniere of Florence, but resigned on account of the anti-Liberal tendencies of the grand duke. As Tuscan minister of the interior in 1859 he promoted the union of Tuscany with Piedmont, which took place on the 12th of March 1860. Elected Italian deputy in 1861, he succeeded Cavour in the premiership. As premier he admitted the Garibaldian volunteers to the regular army, revoked the decree of exile against Mazzini, and attempted reconciliation with the Vatican; but his efforts were rendered ineffectual by the non possumus of the pope. Disdainful of the intrigues of his rival Rattazzi, he found himself obliged in 1862 to resign office, but returned to power in 1866. On this occasion he refused Napoleon III.'s offer to cede Venetia to Italy, on condition that Italy should abandon the Prussian alliance, and also refused the Prussian decoration of the Black Eagle because Lamarmora, author of the alliance, was not to receive it. Upon the departure of the French troops from Rome at the end of 1866 he again attempted to conciliate the Vatican with a convention, in virtue of which Italy would have restored to the Church the property of the suppressed religious orders in return for the gradual payment of £24,000,000. In order to mollify the Vatican he conceded the exequalur to forty-five bishops inimical to the Italian régime. The Vatican accepted his proposal, but the Italian Chamber proved refractory, and, though dissolved by Ricasoli, returned more hostile than before. Without waiting for a vote, Ricasoli resigned office and thenceforward practically disappeared from political life, speaking in the Chamber only upon rare occasions. He died at Broglio on the 23rd of October 1880. His private life and public career were marked by the utmost integrity, and by a rigid austerity which earned him the name of the “iron baron.” In spite of the failure of his ecclesiastical scheme, he remains one of the most noteworthy figures of the Italian Risorgimento.
See Tabarrini and Gotti, Lettere e documenti del barone Bettino Ricasoli, 10 vols. (Florence, 1886–1894); Passerini, Genealogia e storia della famiglia Ricasoli (ibid. 1861); Gotti, Vita del barone Bellino Ricasoli (ibid. 1894). (H. W. S.)
RICCATI, JACOPO FRANCESCO, Count (1676–1754), Italian mathematician, was born at Venice on the 8th of May 1676, and died at Treviso on the 15th of April 1754. He studied at the university of Padua, where he graduated in 1696. His favourite pursuits were scientific, and 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; but he declined, preferring the leisure and independence of life in Italy. Riccati’s name is best known in connexion with his problem called Riccati’s equation, published in the Acta Eruditorum, September 1724. A very complete account of this equation and its various transformations was given by J. W. L. Glaisher in the Phil. Trans. (1881).
After Riccati’s death his works were collected by his sons and published (1758) in four volumes. His sons, Vincenzo (1707–1775) and Giordano (1709–1790), inherited his talents. The former was professor of mathematics at Bologna, and published, among other works, ai treatise on the infinitesimal calculus, Giordano was distinguished both as a mathematician and an architect.
RICCI, MATTEO (1552–1610), Italian missionary to China, was born of a noble family at Macerata in the March of Ancona on the 7th of October 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 to Portugal. His comrades were Rudolfo Acquaviva, Nicolas Spinola, Francesco Pasio and Michele Ruggieri, all afterwards, like Ricci himself, famous in the Jesuit annals. They arrived at Goa in September 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,—as by Melchior Nunes of the Jesuit Society operating from Sanchian[1] in 1555; by Gaspar da Cruz, a Dominican, in that or the following year; by the Augustinians under Martin Herrada, 1575; and in 1579 by the Franciscans led by Pedro d’Alfaro. In 1571 a house of the Jesuits had been set up at Macao (where the Portuguese were established in 1557), but their attention was then occupied with Japan, and it was not till the arrival at Macao of Alessandro Valignani on a visitation in 12582 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 Kwang-tung and Kwang-si then had his residence, and by his favour were able to establish themselves there for some years. Their proceedings 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, including dialling and the projection of maps. They conciliated some influential friends, and their reputation spread widely in China. This was facilitated by the Chinese system of transfer of public officers from one province of the empire to another, and in the later movements of the missionaries they frequently met with one and another of their old acquaintances in office, who were more or less well disposed. Eventually troubles at Chow-king compelled them to seek a new home; and in 1589, with the viceroy’s sanction, they migrated to Changchow in the northern part of Kwang-tung, 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 favourable conditions to Nan-king, 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 Nan-king. The fame of the presents which they carried had, however, reached the court, and the Jesuits were summoned north again, and on the 24th of January 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 estimation 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. This in itself was a great burden, as Chinese composition, if wrong impressions are to be avoided, demands extreme care and accuracy. As head of the mission, which now had four stations
- ↑ The island (properly Chang-chuen) on which the Portuguese had a temporary settlement before they got Macao, and on which F. Xavier died in 1552.
