The case of rén 仁 in early Chinese-European dictionaries: Implications for the comparative study of a specific entry

1.The comparative study of significant terms in Sino-European dictionaries

The study of sinological lexicographic sources has primarily relied on qualitative analysis. Scholars examining various dictionaries have generally used a synthetic approach, aiming to extract the information they deemed most relevant — particularly to make assumptions about the authorship or dating of these sources.

Some recent studies have examined certain dictionaries in a more comprehensive way, even producing digitized and edited versions that have been published in print, greatly enhancing the accessibility for other scholars.11.A great example of this kind of studies is Coblin (2006)Coblin, W. South 2006 Francisco Varo’s Glossary of the Mandarin Language: An English and Chinese Annotation of the Vocabulario de La Lengua Mandarina. Nettetal: Monumenta Serica Institute.Coblin, W. South 2006 Francisco Varo’s Glossary of the Mandarin Language: An English and Chinese Annotation of the Vocabulario de La Lengua Mandarina. Nettetal: Monumenta Serica Institute.. More recently, new research projects have sought to expand this quantitative, comprehensive approach by using the methodologies and tools of Digital Humanities. These efforts aim to digitize the data included in the dictionaries into databases that allow for virtually limitless ways of viewing and interconnecting the data within one or more sources, to an extent that was unimaginable in the pre-digital and print-only era.

The importance of a comprehensive and quantitative approach, as opposed to a synthetic and qualitative one, is fundamental in the study of dictionaries: to put it simple, the more data we collect, the more confidently we can conduct analyses and make statements.22.To the best of our knowledge, no specific methodology has been theorized for the qualitative or quantitative analysis of Sino-European dictionaries, with the exception of Zwartjes (2018Zwartjes, Otto 2018 “Missionary Dictionaries”. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics ed. by Mark Aronoff. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 3 Feb. 2025, from https://​oxfordre​.com​/linguistics​/view​/10​.1093​/acrefore​/9780199384655​.001​.0001​/acrefore​-9780199384655​-e​-388. Zwartjes, Otto 2018 “Missionary Dictionaries”. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics ed. by Mark Aronoff. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 3 Feb. 2025, from https://​oxfordre​.com​/linguistics​/view​/10​.1093​/acrefore​/9780199384655​.001​.0001​/acrefore​-9780199384655​-e​-388. ; 2019aZwartjes, Otto 2019a “Missionary Traditions in South America’. The Cambridge World History of Lexicography ed. by John Considine. Chapter 26, 555–578. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zwartjes, Otto 2019a “Missionary Traditions in South America’. The Cambridge World History of Lexicography ed. by John Considine. Chapter 26, 555–578. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. , bZwartjes, Otto 2019b “Missionary Traditions in Mesoamerica”. The Cambridge World History of Lexicography ed. by John Considine. Chapter 27, 579–596. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zwartjes, Otto 2019b “Missionary Traditions in Mesoamerica”. The Cambridge World History of Lexicography ed. by John Considine. Chapter 27, 579–596. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. and cZwartjes, Otto 2019c “Missionary Traditions in East Asia”. The Cambridge World History of Lexicography ed. by John Considine. Chapter 29, 614–633. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zwartjes, Otto 2019c “Missionary Traditions in East Asia”. The Cambridge World History of Lexicography ed. by John Considine. Chapter 29, 614–633. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ), which, however, adopts a more general perspective for all missionary dictionaries (not only for the sinological sources). There are examples of what we call ‘qualitative analysis’ that surely inspired us, like Chan (2002)Chan, Albert 2002 Chinese Materials in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, 14th–20th Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue. London: Routledge.Chan, Albert 2002 Chinese Materials in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, 14th–20th Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue. London: Routledge. and Yang (2001)Yang, Fu-Mien P. 楊福綿 2001 “The Portuguese-Chinese Dictionary of Matteo Ricci: A Historical and Linguistic Introduction”. Revised version of Yang (1989). Dicionário Português-Chinês ed. by J. W. Witek, 171–209. Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional; Macau: Instituto Português do Oriente; San Francisco, CA: Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, University of San Francisco.Yang, Fu-Mien P. 楊福綿 2001 “The Portuguese-Chinese Dictionary of Matteo Ricci: A Historical and Linguistic Introduction”. Revised version of Yang (1989). Dicionário Português-Chinês ed. by J. W. Witek, 171–209. Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional; Macau: Instituto Português do Oriente; San Francisco, CA: Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, University of San Francisco., see next note for further details. But, in general, no one advocated for a clear methodology to deal with these materials. In this sense, both with this article and another forthcoming publication (Raini 2025bRaini, Emanuele 2025b (forthcoming). “Early Manuscript Chinese-European Dictionaries: A Glimpse into the Cross-Linguistic Minds of Their Authors”. Polyglossia, Teaching and Contact across Early Modern Europe and Asia ed. by D. Montini et al. (= Polyglot Encounters in Early Modern Britain Series ). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.Raini, Emanuele 2025b (forthcoming). “Early Manuscript Chinese-European Dictionaries: A Glimpse into the Cross-Linguistic Minds of Their Authors”. Polyglossia, Teaching and Contact across Early Modern Europe and Asia ed. by D. Montini et al. (= Polyglot Encounters in Early Modern Britain Series). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.), we aim to draw attention to the need for outlining methodological principles and guidelines for the study of this type of sources. But quantitative analyses require massive, lengthy, and systematic work, and this is not always feasible.

Thus, the value of qualitative analyses must also be acknowledged: when we talk about ‘significant/relevant terms’ we mean that it is useful to detect some categories of terms, among the entries of a dictionary, which could work as ‘relevant indicators’ and provide us clues on the possible dating, authorship, and more.33.An excellent example of this kind of qualitative analysis can be found, among others, in the description of sinological dictionaries made by Yang Fu-Mien (2001)Yang, Fu-Mien P. 楊福綿 2001 “The Portuguese-Chinese Dictionary of Matteo Ricci: A Historical and Linguistic Introduction”. Revised version of Yang (1989). Dicionário Português-Chinês ed. by J. W. Witek, 171–209. Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional; Macau: Instituto Português do Oriente; San Francisco, CA: Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, University of San Francisco.Yang, Fu-Mien P. 楊福綿 2001 “The Portuguese-Chinese Dictionary of Matteo Ricci: A Historical and Linguistic Introduction”. Revised version of Yang (1989). Dicionário Português-Chinês ed. by J. W. Witek, 171–209. Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional; Macau: Instituto Português do Oriente; San Francisco, CA: Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, University of San Francisco. or Chan (2002Chan, Albert 2002 Chinese Materials in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, 14th–20th Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue. London: Routledge.Chan, Albert 2002 Chinese Materials in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, 14th–20th Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue. London: Routledge.: 544–545). Both scholars where Chinese and Jesuits, and their approach to the analysis of missionary dictionary could benefit of their profound knowledge of Chinese history and culture, as well as their theological expertise. Chan and Yang, in their analyses of Sino-European dictionaries, focused on examining groups of terms by categories they considered particularly informative, such as toponyms, ethnonyms, terms related to administrative offices, religious and philosophical terms, and dialectal expressions, etc. Building on such examples, both in this study and in the aforementioned forthcoming publication (Raini 2025bRaini, Emanuele 2025b (forthcoming). “Early Manuscript Chinese-European Dictionaries: A Glimpse into the Cross-Linguistic Minds of Their Authors”. Polyglossia, Teaching and Contact across Early Modern Europe and Asia ed. by D. Montini et al. (= Polyglot Encounters in Early Modern Britain Series ). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.Raini, Emanuele 2025b (forthcoming). “Early Manuscript Chinese-European Dictionaries: A Glimpse into the Cross-Linguistic Minds of Their Authors”. Polyglossia, Teaching and Contact across Early Modern Europe and Asia ed. by D. Montini et al. (= Polyglot Encounters in Early Modern Britain Series). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.), we have sought to propose a more clearly defined taxonomy of informative term categories.

Relevant or significant terms in Sino-European dictionaries can be grouped into several categories, according to different criteria. Here, we will try to exemplify the choice of significant categories for the type of sources we are dealing with. For example, since most of the dictionaries considered here were compiled between the end of the Ming dynasty (ethnically Chinese, or Han rulers) and the beginning of the Qing dynasty (non-Chinese, Manchu rulers), many of these categories reflect terminological distinctions between the two dynasties. Other categories address terminological issues tied to specific individuals or locations. Furthermore, the examination of materials compiled by missionaries should thoroughly address those categories pertaining to religion, philosophy, science, and other domains where cultural dialogue was particularly active and dynamic.

Below, let us briefly propose some categories that we consider useful for the analysis of Sino-European dictionaries, and their possible significance:

• Names and titles of dynasties: these often overlap with the name for China itself, reflecting shifts in political authority and cultural identity,

• Names, surnames and appellatives of historical figures: includes personal names or formal appellatives of emperors, members of the ruling family, officials, as well as the personal names of missionaries or other non-Chinese figures. Certain characters used as surnames sometimes have associations with prominent families or individuals, thus carrying historical information,

• Titles of official positions and institutions: terms denoting positions within the administrative structure of the state or religious institutions, which might vary considerably between dynasties,

• Toponyms: place names that help identify the geographical focus or significance of an area for the source and the author which included them, as well as providing temporal markers when certain places changed during time,

• Ethnonyms: terms referring to ethnic groups, particularly non-Han peoples. Some ethnonyms for non-Han peoples, for example, were commonly used during the Ming dynasty but were forbidden or discouraged under the Qing, reflecting changes in official policies and cultural attitudes,

• Taboo characters: characters associated with imperial personal or family names, depending on the era, were forbidden or restricted in use, or written using alternative or modified characters,

• Neologisms with confirmed dates of introduction: loanwords, newly coined terms such as technical, scientific, philosophical or religious vocabulary, as well as the semantic extension of indigenous terms resulting from their adaptation to foreign concepts, can all provide more or less precise chronological markers and help dating the dictionaries.

The list proposed above certainly does not exhaust the possible categories of qualitative analysis useful in the study of lexicographic sources; other categories and elements with high informational potential include metalinguistic terminology, dialectal terms, terminology related to flora and fauna, and so on.44.Of course, comparative analysis can also consider non-lexical or para-lexical elements of a paleographic nature, such as Chinese characters variants, which, however, deserve a separate treatment and fall outside the scope of this paper. Significant terms, even though they represent only scattered instances in a large corpus of lexical entries, allow for qualitative analysis of the sources. Investigating the definitions of sensitive terms or groups of terms allows to collect chronological clues and traces of the authors’ identity, and comparing their representation across various sources can reveal kinship links between different copies of a dictionary or even between supposedly unrelated dictionaries.

2.Significance of the philosophical/ religious field in missionary sources

In lexicographic sources produced by missionaries, terminology relating to religious, philosophical, and moral concepts can provide valuable insights. For sources with known authorship and dates, such terminology reflects how specific concepts were understood and interpreted by a particular author within a given historical context. For anonymous or undated sources, analyzing these terms can offer clues about both authorship and dating. By comparing the usage and definitions in these lexicons to those in other known sources — both lexicographic and non-lexicographic — it is possible to trace thematic and conceptual influences, potentially linking anonymous works to identifiable authors or periods.

For instance, if we find in a Chinese-European dictionary the term Shangdi 上帝 (literally ‘supreme emperor’) translated as ‘God’ (or equivalent terms in other languages), this provides a strong clue for both dating and authorship: the use of Shangdi was prohibited among Catholic missionaries already in the first half of the 17th century, and it was rescued by Protestant missionaries only in the 19th century; therefore, if a source includes this term interpreted as ‘God’ (and not specifying or distinguishing a native non-Christian meaning), it was likely compiled by Catholics before the restriction, or by Protestants in a later period.55.The terminological debate surrounding the Chinese translation of Christian concepts has been extensively examined by numerous scholars. A comprehensive and insightful overview of this discourse can be found in Brockey (2007Brockey, L. Matthew 2007 Journey to the East: The Jesuit mission to China, 1579–1724. London: Belknop Press of Harvard University Press. Brockey, L. Matthew 2007 Journey to the East: The Jesuit mission to China, 1579–1724. London: Belknop Press of Harvard University Press. : 85–91).

It is known that missionaries composed dictionaries relying on various Chinese lexicographical and literary sources, but when in the target definition of a Chinese term we find meanings clearly associated with Christianity, it is quite unlikely that these connotations were plainly taken from Chinese sources, suggesting instead an original contribution by the missionary who authored the dictionary.

What a missionary writes in relation to a Chinese character which bears philosophical or religious meanings can be highly informative about the religious affiliation of the author, because some missionary groups have favored certain Christian interpretations of Chinese terms over others.66.These terminological problems were part of the wider debate of the so-called Rites controversy, which started in the first half of the 17th century and reached its apex at the beginning of the 18th century. For a comprehensive introduction to every aspect of the question, see Mungello (1994)Mungello, David E. 1994 The Chinese Rites Controversy: Its History and Meaning (= Monumenta Serica Monograph Series ). Nettetal: Steyler Verlag.Mungello, David E. 1994 The Chinese Rites Controversy: Its History and Meaning (= Monumenta Serica Monograph Series). Nettetal: Steyler Verlag.. For instance, among the Catholic missionaries, the above-mentioned term Shangdi for ‘God’ was primarily favored by early Jesuits — though not universally among them — and was rejected by other missionary orders like Dominicans and Franciscans. Thus, its presence in an early dictionary suggests a potential Jesuit authorship.

Furthermore, if an author’s definition of a philosophical-religious term recalls or refers to certain theological or philosophical traditions, this is also useful in hypothesizing author’s affiliation, because missionaries of different orders and institutes often adhered to different scholastic traditions. Thus, when we find in a dictionary a philosophical or religious formulation which partially or fully resembles that in another dictionary, we can hypothesize either that the author refers to similar sources and a same tradition, or even that there is a genealogical link between the two works.

3. Case-study of ren 仁

We have chosen to analyze this particular character ren 仁 because it carries significant philosophical and religious nuances in its original meaning in Chinese philosophical tradition, and because it was used by missionaries to render akin Christian concepts. Ren is a central term in Chinese philosophical thought, which appears more than two hundreds of times throughout the Confucian classics.77.We roughly computed this number by a search in the digital edition of the so-called Four Books, i.e. Lunyu 论语, Mengzi 孟子, Daxue 大学 and Zhongyong 中庸, in the versions provided by the website ctext.org (last consulted on Jan 27th, 2025)

Its significance was recognized early on by the first missionaries who studied these major works of Chinese philosophy and also used the term ren in their Chinese Christian texts. For instance, Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) in his catechism Tianzhu shiyi 天主實義 (1603) uses ren more than ninety times.88.Computed on the Chinese text given in Ricci (2016)Ricci, Matteo 2016 The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven. Ed. by Thierry Meynard, S.J.; translated by Douglas Lancashire & Peter Hu Kuo-chen, S.J. Chestnut Hill, MA: Institute of Jesuit Sources, Boston College.Ricci, Matteo 2016 The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven. Ed. by Thierry Meynard, S.J.; translated by Douglas Lancashire & Peter Hu Kuo-chen, S.J. Chestnut Hill, MA: Institute of Jesuit Sources, Boston College.

In this work, as well as in Ricci’s own notes about it,99.See Ricci’s own Latin summary of Tianzhu shiyi, where he translates various instances of ren in so many ways that a thorough examination would require an entire book (cf. Ricci 2016: 375–384). ren appears as a term with various nuances, as part of Ricci’s ingenious effort to accommodate the dialogue between the two cultures.

This demonstrates that philosophical reflection on the meanings of ren and other similarly significant terms — with all their theological and doctrinal implications — began as early as Ricci’s time, displaying a high degree of complexity and depth since the very beginning, and continuing to develop in the following decades.

Investigating the intricate process of understanding, translating, and adapting even a single term like ren is beyond the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, lexicographic sources reveal a particular aspect of this cultural translation process: the authors of dictionaries, even knowing that the meaning(s) of a word could be extremely complex, were compelled to provide in the definition those element(s) that they considered fundamental and prominent or, in some cases, those aspects that they aimed to emphasize.

In both general and specialized modern Chinese-English dictionaries, the character ren is translated by the various terms ‘benevolence’, ‘humanity/ humaneness’, ‘kind-heartedness’, ‘human-heartedness’, ‘way of mankind’, ‘love’.1010.See, among others, XDHYCD (2002[XDHYCD] Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Yuyan Yanjiusuo Cidian Bianjishi 中国社会科学院语言研究所辞典编辑室 ed. 2002  Xiandai Hanyu Cidian: Han-Ying Shuangyu: 2002 Nian Zengbuben 现代汉语辞典: 汉英双语: 2002年增装本 [The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary: Chinese-English Bilingual: Revised in 2002]. Beijing 北京: Waiyu Jiaoyuxue yu Yanjiu Chubanshe 外语教学与研究出版社.[XDHYCD] Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Yuyan Yanjiusuo Cidian Bianjishi 中国社会科学院语言研究所辞典编辑室 ed. 2002 Xiandai Hanyu Cidian: Han-Ying Shuangyu: 2002 Nian Zengbuben 现代汉语辞典: 汉英双语: 2002年增装本 [The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary: Chinese-English Bilingual: Revised in 2002]. Beijing 北京: Waiyu Jiaoyuxue yu Yanjiu Chubanshe 外语教学与研究出版社.: 1622); Guo, Zhang & Liu (2002Guo, Shangxing 郭尚兴, Zhang Wei 张伟 & Liu Fang 刘芳 eds. 2002 Han-Ying Zhongguo zhexue cidian 汉英中国哲学辞典 [A Dictionary of Chinese Philosophy with English Annotations]. Kaifeng 开封: Henan Daxue Chubanshe 河南大学出版社.Guo, Shangxing 郭尚兴, Zhang Wei 张伟 & Liu Fang 刘芳 eds. 2002 Han-Ying Zhongguo zhexue cidian 汉英中国哲学辞典 [A Dictionary of Chinese Philosophy with English Annotations]. Kaifeng 开封: Henan Daxue Chubanshe 河南大学出版社.: 154–155); Mou (2009Mou, Bo 2009 Chinese Philosophy A-Z. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Mou, Bo 2009 Chinese Philosophy A-Z. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. : 123–125).

Early Mandarin-European dictionaries show a richer and more complex range of meanings attached to ren by the missionaries, as we will detail in the following paragraphs.

The ren case-study aims to illustrate and, in part, to test the introductory premise outlined here: is it possible, through the comparative analysis of a specific, highly significant term, to obtain clues or evidence for dating and attributing authorship to a dictionary? How can information from the analysis of one term be cross-referenced with insights gained from other terms? Additionally, how can this analytical methodology be used to trace connections among various sources (e.g. to construct a stemma)?

We limited our study to a few major lexicographic sources, so to exemplify the methodology and check its effectiveness. There is around a century between Matteo Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi (1603) and Basilio Brollo’s dictionaries (1694Brollo, Basilio 1694 Dictionarium Sinico-Latinum. Ms. Rinuccini 22, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Florence.Brollo, Basilio 1694 Dictionarium Sinico-Latinum. Ms. Rinuccini 22, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Florence. and 1698); as we will demonstrate, Brollo’s definition(s) of ren show(s) a clear process of stratification, having incorporated elements from all previous dictionaries, as well as Brollo’s original expansions, yet still preserving connections to Ricci’s interpretation of ren. We investigate this layering process by examining the definitions associated with ren in other Mandarin-European dictionaries compiled in the century which goes from the time of Ricci, who was the first to compile a Chinese-European dictionary, to the time of Brollo, who represented the summa of the lexicographical expertise of Catholic missionaries in China up to the early 18th century.

4. Ren in early Jesuit dictionaries

To establish chronological reference points and to understand how different missionary groups chose different approaches ab origine, we can begin by examining translations of the term ren (and its compounds) in the oldest extant Chinese-European dictionaries, which can be approximately dated between the end of 16th and the first decades of the 17th century, and which can likely be attributed to specific authors. Following a timeline consistent with the history of missions in China, we will start with the dictionaries created by the first Jesuits between the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

It is well-known that Matteo Ricci created two dictionaries: a Portuguese-Chinese dictionary (between 1583 and 1588) with Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607) and a Chinese-European dictionary with Lazzaro Cattaneo (1560–1640) and the Macanese brother Bastião Fernandez Zhong Mingren (1562–1622), completed in 1598 and often referred to as the Bello Vocabulario. This second dictionary was considered to be lost, but recent studies have brought to light a manuscript Mandarin-Portuguese dictionary, preserved in Rome National Library (shelf. Ms. Or. 173), which was likely compiled before 1620 and can be considered a refined version of the Bello Vocabulario (Raini 2025aRaini, Emanuele 2025a (forthcoming). “Mysteries of a ‘Bello Vocabulario’: Investigation into an Anonymous Chinese-Portuguese Dictionary”. Proceedings of the Conference ‘Literature, Religion and Humanities: Cross-cultural Processes in Modern China’ (Rome, 2022) ed. by Gabriele Tola & Meiting Huang. Taipei: Monumenta Serica Sinological Research Center.Raini, Emanuele 2025a (forthcoming). “Mysteries of a ‘Bello Vocabulario’: Investigation into an Anonymous Chinese-Portuguese Dictionary”. Proceedings of the Conference ‘Literature, Religion and Humanities: Cross-cultural Processes in Modern China’ (Rome, 2022) ed. by Gabriele Tola & Meiting Huang. Taipei: Monumenta Serica Sinological Research Center.). In this dictionary, under the entries pronounced gîn [rén], we find: “仁 Piedade. Amendoa de qualquer caroço, ou pivide” (Ms. Or. 173, p. 71 = f. 36r). Under this main entry, we also find the following compound terms containing ren 仁:

• Làn gîn [lǎnrén] 欖仁 pinhao de cantao [‘Cantonese pine nut?’],

• Quā gîn [guārén] 瓜仁 pivides de pateca [‘seeds of watermelon?’],

• Hím gîn [xìngrén] 杏仁 amendoas de albicorques [‘almonds of apricots’],

• Gîn tĕ [réndé] 仁德 Piedade [‘piety’].

Since Ms. Or. 173 can be considered the oldest known Mandarin-European dictionary, and given its certain Jesuit authorship (Raini 2025aRaini, Emanuele 2025a (forthcoming). “Mysteries of a ‘Bello Vocabulario’: Investigation into an Anonymous Chinese-Portuguese Dictionary”. Proceedings of the Conference ‘Literature, Religion and Humanities: Cross-cultural Processes in Modern China’ (Rome, 2022) ed. by Gabriele Tola & Meiting Huang. Taipei: Monumenta Serica Sinological Research Center.Raini, Emanuele 2025a (forthcoming). “Mysteries of a ‘Bello Vocabulario’: Investigation into an Anonymous Chinese-Portuguese Dictionary”. Proceedings of the Conference ‘Literature, Religion and Humanities: Cross-cultural Processes in Modern China’ (Rome, 2022) ed. by Gabriele Tola & Meiting Huang. Taipei: Monumenta Serica Sinological Research Center.), we can observe that, during the earliest period of the Jesuit mission in China, the fathers of the Society understood the character ren as having two main meanings: one philosophical, which primarily equated ren with the concept of piedade [‘piety’],1111.For a better comprehension of the concept of ‘piety’ found in these definitions, it is important to note the presence in Ms. Or. 173 of another entry, under the same pronunciation gîn: the character rén 儿, followed by the Portuguese definition homé pio [‘pious man’]. This is probably a misreading of the traditional Chinese lexicographical etymology of the character rén 儿, as found in ancient sources such as the Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字, where it is stated: “儿仁人也” (i.e., ‘rén 儿 is the same of rén 仁 and rén 人’), which could have been interpreted by the Jesuit author as ‘rén 儿 means a person with rén 仁’, ending up in an entry like ‘pious man’. Besides this probable mistake, the use of the expression ‘pious man’, from a Christian perspective, suggests that the Jesuit authors understood ‘piety’ not only as ‘piety-benevolence’ toward other people but also as ‘piety-devotion’ to God, in contrast to ‘impiety’. For the other entries related to the concept of ‘impious’, refer to the sections below on the Dominicans and Brollo (see Tables 4 and 7). and another more concrete, relating ren to the meaning of ‘kernel, seed’ or the ‘inner part of fruits’. This twofold definition of ren will be a constant also in all the other dictionaries considered in this paper.

Another Mandarin-Portuguese manuscript dictionary that shares many similarities with Ms. Or. 173 — and which is probably a later revised copy of it — is preserved at the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu (shelf. Jap. Sin. IV-7). It was very likely compiled between 1625 and the end of the Ming dynasty (1644).1212.Albert Chan (2002)Chan, Albert 2002 Chinese Materials in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, 14th–20th Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue. London: Routledge.Chan, Albert 2002 Chinese Materials in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, 14th–20th Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue. London: Routledge. identified several internal clues helpful in dating this manuscript. A terminus post quem is established by the entry Jingjiao bei 景教碑, the Chinese name for the Christian stele of Xi’an discovered by the Jesuits in 1625, glossed as: huma pedra em que esta gravada a noticia da S. Ley est em Xensi [‘a stone on which the news of the Holy Law is engraved, located in Shaanxi’]. Many terms either not used or prohibited during the Qing dynasty can also serve as ante quem indicators, suggesting a date before 1644, i.e. the beginning of the Qing dynasty (see Chan 2002Chan, Albert 2002 Chinese Materials in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, 14th–20th Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue. London: Routledge.Chan, Albert 2002 Chinese Materials in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, 14th–20th Centuries: A Descriptive Catalogue. London: Routledge.: 544–545). In this dictionary, the entry for gîn [rén] 仁 gives the single translation ‘piedade’ ([‘piety’], but it is immediately followed, in smaller characters, by: [仁]義 [rényì] [cūm tao]1313.These first two syllables of the definition are difficult to interpret. We could interpret them in two different ways: as Romanized syllables corresponding to a Chinese word, for example gongdao 公道 (‘justice, way of justice’); as a Latin expression — like many others which can be found among the Portuguese definitions in the dictionary — maybe Cum ta(nt)a (i.e. with much…). Both assumptions bear a certain amount of speculation. ‘piedade e justiça.’1414.Jap. Sin., IV-7, f. 35v, under the main entry “gîn 仁”, in smaller characters. Note that the Romanization of the character yi 義 is not provided. It then provides the following compound terms with concrete meanings:

• Làn gîn [lǎnrén] 欖仁 pivides de pinhoens [‘seeds of pine nuts’],

• Hím gîn [xìngrén] 杏仁 amendoas de albicroques [‘almonds of apricots’],

• Quā gîn [guārén] 瓜仁 1515.Jap. Sin., IV-7, f. 97r,, the compound occurs only after quā [guā] 瓜. pividas [‘seeds?’].

Compared to Ms. Or. 173, the dictionary Jap. Sin. IV-7 remains largely consistent with its predecessor in reflecting a Jesuit understanding of ren’s philosophical-religious meaning focused on ‘piety’; it also gives similar concrete compound terms, with only slight differences.

So, to summarize, in the earliest dictionaries compiled by the Jesuits, the religious meanings of ren do not show many semantic nuances: the character was primarily translated as ‘piety’, given in Ms. Or. 173 as a kind of ‘virtue’ (rende). It is worth noting that this translation aligns with the one found in a later Jesuit translation of Confucian classics entitled Sapientia Sinica (1662), where ren is also predominantly translated in Latin as pietas [‘piety’].1616.For an overview on the different translation of Chinese terms made by Jesuit editors of Sapientia Sinica and its later augmented edition, i.e. the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (1668), see Paternicò (2017)Paternicò, Luisa Maria 2017 “Translating the Master: The Contribution of Prospero Intorcetta to the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus”. Monumenta Serica 65:1/2.87–121. Paternicò, Luisa Maria 2017 “Translating the Master: The Contribution of Prospero Intorcetta to the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus”. Monumenta Serica 65:1/2.87–121. . We will also wish to thank Luisa Paternicò for kindly providing us with a digital copy of Sapientia Sinica. However, Jap. Sin. IV-7 introduces also the term renyi, with a philosophical meaning connected both with ‘piedade’ [‘piety’] and ‘justiça’ [‘justice’], thereby slightly expanding the semantic range covered by the philosophical-religious compounds of ren. The following table recollects the analyzed entries.

As for the concrete meanings of ren found in the earliest Jesuit Mandarin-Portuguese dictionaries, this character was understood as a general term for the nut seed and the inner part of a fruit (i.e. the kernel); both dictionaries share xingren 杏仁, guaren 瓜仁 and lanren 欖仁, but Ms. Or. 173 provides a slightly richer definition for the last term, by specifying pinhao de Cantao [‘Cantonese pine nut?’], a geographical detail that do not appear in any other dictionary we have examined here.1717.While this cannot be further explored here, it raises an interesting question about why this dictionary might be linked to Canton, which could be a useful clue in identifying its author. For various hypotheses on the authority of this manuscript, see Raini (2025a)Raini, Emanuele 2025a (forthcoming). “Mysteries of a ‘Bello Vocabulario’: Investigation into an Anonymous Chinese-Portuguese Dictionary”. Proceedings of the Conference ‘Literature, Religion and Humanities: Cross-cultural Processes in Modern China’ (Rome, 2022) ed. by Gabriele Tola & Meiting Huang. Taipei: Monumenta Serica Sinological Research Center.Raini, Emanuele 2025a (forthcoming). “Mysteries of a ‘Bello Vocabulario’: Investigation into an Anonymous Chinese-Portuguese Dictionary”. Proceedings of the Conference ‘Literature, Religion and Humanities: Cross-cultural Processes in Modern China’ (Rome, 2022) ed. by Gabriele Tola & Meiting Huang. Taipei: Monumenta Serica Sinological Research Center.. The following table summarizes the concrete meanings of ren in these two Jesuit sources.

5.Ren in early Dominican dictionaries

Following a chronological principle, let us now consider the Mandarin-European dictionaries (primarily Mandarin-Spanish) compiled by the Dominican friars from the late 1630s, first in Manila and later in mainland China.

Various sources acknowledge the compilation of a Mandarin-Spanish character-dictionary by the Spanish Dominican Francisco Díaz (1606–1646), with several manuscript copies preserved in various libraries and archives (see Raini 2017Raini, Emanuele 2017 “A Preliminary Analysis of the Romanization in the Vocabulario da letra China”. Chinese Missionary Linguistics ed. by Davor Antonucci & Pieter Ackerman (= Leuven Chinese Studies, 34), 109–136. Leuven: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute, KU Leuven.Raini, Emanuele 2017 “A Preliminary Analysis of the Romanization in the Vocabulario da letra China”. Chinese Missionary Linguistics ed. by Davor Antonucci & Pieter Ackerman (= Leuven Chinese Studies, 34), 109–136. Leuven: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute, KU Leuven.: 111–116; Zwartjes 2024Zwartjes, Otto 2024 Missionary Grammars and Dictionaries of Chinese: The Contribution of Seventeenth Century Spanish Dominicans. (= Studies in the History of Language Sciences, 131). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Zwartjes, Otto 2024 Missionary Grammars and Dictionaries of Chinese: The Contribution of Seventeenth Century Spanish Dominicans. (= Studies in the History of Language Sciences, 131). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. : 170–177). The oldest known copy is held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford (shelf. Ms.Marsh 696); this manuscript covers more than 5,000 Chinese single-character entries listed alphabetically, grouping homophonous characters under their shared pronunciation given in a Portuguese-based Romanization.1818.The system is that shaped by Nicholas Trigault (1577–1628), found also in the main entries of another copy of Diaz’s dictionary preserved at the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow (shelf. Ms. sin. 13) see Raini (2017Raini, Emanuele 2017 “A Preliminary Analysis of the Romanization in the Vocabulario da letra China”. Chinese Missionary Linguistics ed. by Davor Antonucci & Pieter Ackerman (= Leuven Chinese Studies, 34), 109–136. Leuven: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute, KU Leuven.Raini, Emanuele 2017 “A Preliminary Analysis of the Romanization in the Vocabulario da letra China”. Chinese Missionary Linguistics ed. by Davor Antonucci & Pieter Ackerman (= Leuven Chinese Studies, 34), 109–136. Leuven: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute, KU Leuven.: 120–125). The same Romanization is employed in the code Ms.Marsh 613, analyzed in this paper, see below, paragraph 5. Most of the entries include a translation or definition in a European language, though several hundred entries do not; roughly two-thirds of the compiled definitions are in Spanish, and the remaining third in Portuguese. Various clues suggest that this manuscript dates back to the 1630s-1640s, and that it was probably compiled in Manila (Zwartjes 2024Zwartjes, Otto 2024 Missionary Grammars and Dictionaries of Chinese: The Contribution of Seventeenth Century Spanish Dominicans. (= Studies in the History of Language Sciences, 131). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Zwartjes, Otto 2024 Missionary Grammars and Dictionaries of Chinese: The Contribution of Seventeenth Century Spanish Dominicans. (= Studies in the History of Language Sciences, 131). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. : 171; Raini 2025bRaini, Emanuele 2025b (forthcoming). “Early Manuscript Chinese-European Dictionaries: A Glimpse into the Cross-Linguistic Minds of Their Authors”. Polyglossia, Teaching and Contact across Early Modern Europe and Asia ed. by D. Montini et al. (= Polyglot Encounters in Early Modern Britain Series ). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.Raini, Emanuele 2025b (forthcoming). “Early Manuscript Chinese-European Dictionaries: A Glimpse into the Cross-Linguistic Minds of Their Authors”. Polyglossia, Teaching and Contact across Early Modern Europe and Asia ed. by D. Montini et al. (= Polyglot Encounters in Early Modern Britain Series). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.: n. 36).

Among the characters pronounced jîn [rén], we find the following entry:

仁 Piedad misericordia almendras yema del ojo i de guebo de nuez etc.(Ms. Marsh 696, f. 83r.)

We see that the information given for ren in this earliest copy of Diaz, compared to the definitions found in the earliest Jesuit dictionaries, retains the philosophical-religious sense of ‘piedad’ [‘piety’] and expands it also to ‘misericordia’ [‘mercy’]. The rest of the definition lists some Spanish expressions with a concrete meaning, which, although lacking the correspondent Chinese characters and pronunciation, can reasonably be associated with the following Chinese terms they likely refer to:

• almendras → xìngrén 杏仁 [‘almond’],

• yema del ojo → yánrén 眼仁 [‘eyeball, or eye pupil’],

• [yema] de guebo → luǎnrén 卵仁 [‘egg yolk’],1919. Luanren 卵仁 is a dialectal term used only in Southern Min (Xu and Miyata 1999Xu, Baohua 许宝华 & Ichiro Miyata 宮田一郎 eds. 1999 Hanyu Fangyan Da Cidian 汉语方言大辞典 [Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects]. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju 中华书局.Xu, Baohua 许宝华 & Ichiro Miyata 宮田一郎 eds. 1999 Hanyu Fangyan Da Cidian 汉语方言大辞典 [Great Dictionary of Modern Chinese Dialects]. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju 中华书局.: V. 4, 4828), the language spoken by the first Chinese encountered by the Dominicans in Manila and by those in the Province of South Fujian, where the Dominicans settled down one of their first mainland missions. We are able to infer the reconstruction of this term because we find it in other Dominican dictionaries (see below).

• [yema] de nuez → táorén 桃仁 [‘walnut kernel’].

Keeping Marsh 696 as our earliest reference for the Dominican dictionaries, we will now consider a few other lexicographic sources closely connected with the early Spanish Dominicans. Two of them are word-dictionaries, different from Díaz’s character-dictionary but very likely linked with Díaz and his confrere Juan Bautista de Morales (1597–1664) (Raini 2025bRaini, Emanuele 2025b (forthcoming). “Early Manuscript Chinese-European Dictionaries: A Glimpse into the Cross-Linguistic Minds of Their Authors”. Polyglossia, Teaching and Contact across Early Modern Europe and Asia ed. by D. Montini et al. (= Polyglot Encounters in Early Modern Britain Series ). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.Raini, Emanuele 2025b (forthcoming). “Early Manuscript Chinese-European Dictionaries: A Glimpse into the Cross-Linguistic Minds of Their Authors”. Polyglossia, Teaching and Contact across Early Modern Europe and Asia ed. by D. Montini et al. (= Polyglot Encounters in Early Modern Britain Series). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.; Zwartjes 2024Zwartjes, Otto 2024 Missionary Grammars and Dictionaries of Chinese: The Contribution of Seventeenth Century Spanish Dominicans. (= Studies in the History of Language Sciences, 131). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Zwartjes, Otto 2024 Missionary Grammars and Dictionaries of Chinese: The Contribution of Seventeenth Century Spanish Dominicans. (= Studies in the History of Language Sciences, 131). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. : 152), while the other two are properly ‘copies’ or ‘versions’ of Francisco Díaz’s character-dictionary (somehow descendants of Marsh 696). Chronologically, all of these sources fall between the first “Jesuit period” (late 16th century) and the late 17th century.

The two word-dictionaries, although lacking a clear compilation date or author’s signature, can be reliably dated to the central decades of the 17th century,2020.Both dictionaries, the head-syllable tá (dà, for ‘big, great’) respectively give the compounds “[tá] mîm Reyno de China” (i.e. Dà Míng 大明 ‘Kingdom of China’, Marsh 613, f. 162v) and “[tá] mîng kuĕ. el Reyno de china” (i.e. Dà Míng guó 大明國 ‘The Kingdom of China’, Libr. Sin. 30b, f. 52v). Since the above expressions were (of course) forbidden during the Qing dynasty, this is a strong chronological clue that these two dictionaries must have been compiled before the end of the Ming (i.e. 1644). Nevertheless, we have a problem for the Berlin codex, because the ductus of its copyist is 100% identical to that of another codex preserved in Berlin (shelf. Libr. Sin. 29), which is a Spanish-Mandarin dictionary by the later Dominican missionary Francisco Varo (1627–1687), which was reportedly compiled around 1670. Thus, Libr. Sin. 30b must also have been compiled or copied around or after 1670 (perhaps by Varo himself?). To explain the presence of the entry [tá] mîng kuĕ in a codex compiled during the Qing, we can conjecture that it was perhaps a faithful copy of an earlier Ming source. In any case, this clue recognizes the content of these two dictionaries as representative of the Dominican understanding of Chinese language in late-Ming and early Qing timespan. and their Dominican authorship can be ascertained.2121.Marsh 613 bears a final dedication which addresses Saint Dominic as “patri nostro Dominico” (i.e. ‘our father Dominic’), see Raini (2025b)Raini, Emanuele 2025b (forthcoming). “Early Manuscript Chinese-European Dictionaries: A Glimpse into the Cross-Linguistic Minds of Their Authors”. Polyglossia, Teaching and Contact across Early Modern Europe and Asia ed. by D. Montini et al. (= Polyglot Encounters in Early Modern Britain Series ). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.Raini, Emanuele 2025b (forthcoming). “Early Manuscript Chinese-European Dictionaries: A Glimpse into the Cross-Linguistic Minds of Their Authors”. Polyglossia, Teaching and Contact across Early Modern Europe and Asia ed. by D. Montini et al. (= Polyglot Encounters in Early Modern Britain Series). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.. As for Libr. Sin. 30b, we already discussed its likely Dominican authorship in the previous note. The first manuscript (shelf. Ms. Marsh 613) is kept in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, while the second (shelf. Libr. Sin. 30b) is in the Berlin State Library. Both are Mandarin-Spanish word-dictionaries arranged alphabetically by pronunciation, given in Romanized form.2222.A detailed analysis of the Romanization systems used in any of the analyzed dictionaries is beyond the scope of this paper, but it is worth to say that Marsh 613 uses a Spanish system for the first 19 folios and, from folio 20 onward, it shifts to a Portuguese Romanization identical to that used in Marsh 696. Instead, Libr. Sin. 30b uses a Spanish Romanization system consistently throughout the whole text. This clue suggests that the Oxford manuscript could be dated to an earlier period, around the 1640s — when the ‘interferences’ between the Spanish and Portuguese linguistic sources were more frequent — while the Berlin codex could have been compiled in a slightly later period, consistently with the ‘Varo’ hypothesis (see above, note 20).

None of these two dictionaries provide Chinese characters, giving only the Romanized Mandarin pronunciation, so it is necessary to reconstruct the corresponding Chinese characters by linking the pronunciation to the meanings in the Spanish definitions.

In the main entry for jîn [rén], the manuscript Ms.Marsh 613 provides the following Spanish glosses related to the single character ren [仁]: ‘Piedad, Pepíta; de gueso de fruta’,2323.The entry is found in Ms.Marsh 613, f. 79v. thus confirming the double identity (abstract and concrete) of the meaning of this character. On the other hand, in Libr. Sin. 30b, no definition related to the single character ren 仁 is given under the main entry jîn [rén].

In both dictionaries, following the monosyllabic entry jîn [rén], we find sub-entries for compound terms where ren is the initial element, all carrying philosophical-religious meanings. To identify additional compounds where ren appears as the second element — overlapping with those reconstructed from the definition in Marsh 696 — we need to consult the entries under the pronunciation of their first syllable. Indeed, throughout the manuscripts we can find many compounds of ren related to its concrete meanings of ‘seed, kernel, nucleus’, etc. Despite the absence of Chinese characters, the various ren-related entries in both sources substantiate nearly all the terms inferred from the Spanish definitions of ren in Marsh 696. To avoid redundancy and clarify the comparison, we do not list these entries here but instead provide the complete list of these terms in the final tables of this section (see below, Tables 4 and 5).

Let us now introduce the other two manuscript Mandarin-Spanish character-dictionaries of the Díaz’s lineage: the first one is kept at the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow (shelf. Ms. Sin. 13),2424.This manuscript must be dated before the 1680s, since at that time it was already brought to Europe, see Raini (2017Raini, Emanuele 2017 “A Preliminary Analysis of the Romanization in the Vocabulario da letra China”. Chinese Missionary Linguistics ed. by Davor Antonucci & Pieter Ackerman (= Leuven Chinese Studies, 34), 109–136. Leuven: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute, KU Leuven.Raini, Emanuele 2017 “A Preliminary Analysis of the Romanization in the Vocabulario da letra China”. Chinese Missionary Linguistics ed. by Davor Antonucci & Pieter Ackerman (= Leuven Chinese Studies, 34), 109–136. Leuven: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute, KU Leuven.: 111–112). the second is at the Munich State Library (shelf. Cod. Sin. 3).2525.The manuscript should have been completed around 1684 (Raini 2017Raini, Emanuele 2017 “A Preliminary Analysis of the Romanization in the Vocabulario da letra China”. Chinese Missionary Linguistics ed. by Davor Antonucci & Pieter Ackerman (= Leuven Chinese Studies, 34), 109–136. Leuven: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute, KU Leuven.Raini, Emanuele 2017 “A Preliminary Analysis of the Romanization in the Vocabulario da letra China”. Chinese Missionary Linguistics ed. by Davor Antonucci & Pieter Ackerman (= Leuven Chinese Studies, 34), 109–136. Leuven: Ferdinand Verbiest Institute, KU Leuven.: 116). Recently, González-Linaje (2023González-Linaje, María Teresa 2023 “Chinese Culture in the Shadows: Spanish Contributions through Manuscript Dictionaries of Chinese, 17th and 18th Centuries”. Mastering Languages, Taming the World: The Production and Circulation of European Dictionaries and Lexicons of Asian Languages (16th–19th Centuries) ed. by Michela Bussotti & François Lachaud, 175–207. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient.González-Linaje, María Teresa 2023 “Chinese Culture in the Shadows: Spanish Contributions through Manuscript Dictionaries of Chinese, 17th and 18th Centuries”. Mastering Languages, Taming the World: The Production and Circulation of European Dictionaries and Lexicons of Asian Languages (16th–19th Centuries) ed. by Michela Bussotti & François Lachaud, 175–207. Paris: École Française d’Extrême-Orient.: 181–185) proved that this is a copy of Díaz’s dictionary made and augmented by the Spanish Augustinian Álvaro de Benavente (1647–1709). We also noticed that this copy lacks some sections, probably due to a mistake of the copyist/editor; for instance, we would expect to find a bunch of characters pronounced gua, guai and guang under the section with the k- initial (likely Romanized as kua, kuai/kuay, and kuang), which are instead completely lacking.

These two copies of Díaz’s character dictionary likely date slightly later than the other Dominican sources analyzed above, probably around the 1680s. Nevertheless, they remain among the earliest surviving codices of Díaz’s character dictionary if compared to other known copies.

Both codices, like Marsh 696, are character-dictionaries with monosyllabic entries and provide the Chinese characters only for the main entries; their definitions of ren share the same core with that in Marsh 696:

However, unlike Marsh 696, they also include compounds of ren (both have jîn gāy/gái, and Ms.Sin. 13 has also po̐ jîn) within the Spanish definitions, though presented only in Romanized form, along with Spanish expressions that can be traced back to the respective Chinese words. Finally, another compound of ren (jîn çh’u̇̂) is found in Cod. Sin. 3, under a different entry (see below, Table 4). The following table breaks down all the philosophical-religious elements found in the Dominican entries for ren, organizing them into separate cells and aligning corresponding parts of each definition to facilitate the comparison.

To summarize the data in Table 4, the earliest dictionaries compiled by the Dominicans provide philosophical-religious meanings for ren that include those already found in Jesuit dictionaries, while also adding additional interpretations: beside ‘piety’, which is often seen as a ‘virtue’ (rende 仁德) and associated with ‘justice’ (yi 義) in the compound renyi 仁義 (translated as ‘agradeçimiento’ [‘gratitude’], we also find ‘mercy’ and ‘compassion’] as translations for renci 仁慈 and (?) renxin 仁心. Another disyllabic term, ren’ai 仁愛 makes its appearance, seemingly translating actions most associated with piety, such as ‘showing compassion’, ‘expressing mercy’, or ‘loving with kindness’.

Three rather interesting elements appear in the two later sources:

1. the appearance of buren 不仁 ‘impious’ (in Ms. Sin. 13), which is a novelty compared to earlier dictionaries,

2. the formulation (in Cod. Sin. 3) of ren as ‘virtue in general’,

3. the appearance (also in Cod. Sin. 3) of the concept of ren as ‘to benefit [people] with charity’.

It is no surprise that these elements appear in the latest Dominican sources examined, reflecting a new phase in the semantic evolution of the term ren in missionary usage. These expressions also appear in later works (see the section on Brollo below), indicating connections and lines of transmission between different dictionaries.

Finally, we compare in the same way all expressions and entries related to ren in its concrete meanings, as shown in the following table:

Regarding the concrete meanings, the Dominicans retain terms such as ‘seed’ and ‘fruit kernel’, which were already present in Jesuit dictionaries. It is very interesting that the compounds guaren 瓜仁, xingren 杏仁, and lanren 欖仁 — referring to various specific types of fruit seeds or kernels already listed in the Jesuit sources — appear only in the two word-dictionaries (with the addition of taoren 桃仁), and not in the later copies of Díaz’s character-dictionaries. This suggests a possible connection between the word-dictionaries of the Dominicans and the Jesuits.

The dialectal term luanren 卵仁 notably appears in all the Dominican dictionaries analyzed, even in the late 17th century, by which time the Dominican mission had already expanded beyond the Southern Min-speaking regions. It can be seen as a distinctive feature of the Dominican lexicographic legacy.

Finally, the three copies/versions of Díaz’s character-dictionary include an entry not found in either the Jesuit dictionaries or the other two Dominican sources: ‘yema del ojo’, which thus can be seen as a distinguishing feature of this lineage of dictionaries.

6. Ren in Brollo’s dictionaries

As already mentioned, the Italian Franciscan Basilio Brollo authored two Mandarin-Latin character-dictionaries: the first organized graphically by radicals (ca. 1694Brollo, Basilio 1694 Dictionarium Sinico-Latinum. Ms. Rinuccini 22, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Florence.Brollo, Basilio 1694 Dictionarium Sinico-Latinum. Ms. Rinuccini 22, Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, Florence.), and the second alphabetically by Romanized pronunciation (ca. 1698).

There are several copies of Brollo’s dictionaries preserved in various libraries and archives around the world. In this section, we will consider only two of them: one representing the radical-based version and the other the alphabetical version. Our selection criteria are based on confirmed authorship or chronological primacy: the two copies analyzed here were, with reasonable certainty, handwritten by Basilio Brollo himself or, at least, we can recognize them among the earliest extant copies of Brollo’s dictionaries.

The manuscript representing the first version, organized by radicals, is kept at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence (shelfmark: Rinuccini 22). A comparison with Brollo’s autograph letters and reports confirms that the handwriting is indeed that of the Franciscan author.2626.The calligraphic comparisons were carried out by the present authors, who assume full responsibility for the hypotheses expressed. Additionally, the manuscript includes an internal date (1694), making it the oldest dated known copy available.

The other manuscript, likely the earliest draft of the alphabetical version, is kept at the Vatican Apostolic Library (shelfmark: Borg. Cin. 423). It is more complex to ascertain the authorship through the handwriting analysis for this copy, as it is a working draft: even if it is compatible with Brollo’s handwriting, it shows a different flow from the more polished versions, such as Rinuccini 22. However, the ‘work-in-progress’ nature of this manuscript should guarantee that its content is faithful to Brollo’s original project of the alphabetical dictionary.

While completely transcribing the codex Rinuccini 22, we observed that the definitions of the character ren in this dictionary and in Borg. Cin. 423 are largely mutually consistent. They present a complex and stratified formulation that appears to incorporate previous traditions while adding new elements. Being these sources character-dictionaries, we find the various ren-related elements included in the definition of the single character entry, mainly expressed in Latin or with the indication of the Romanized pronunciation, as shown in the following table:

As we can see, the above definitions, like those in other dictionaries, include both concrete and religious aspects. The concrete meanings are relatively clear and straightforward, so we will address them briefly first. The philosophical aspects, however, involve numerous exegetical implications, warranting a more in-depth discussion in the second part of this section.

In presenting the concrete meanings of ren, Brollo offers a definition that reiterates most of the elements already present in the previous dictionaries, but with a more generic and simplified formula. The two main meanings found in the works of the Jesuits and Dominicans remain: the concept of ‘fruit kernel’, translated as fructum nucleus, and that of ‘seed’, which appears with a definition encompassing all disyllabic terms related to it, cucurbitarum et alia huiusmodi semina. In Borg. Cin. 423 we also should note the Chinese gloss Kuò hŏ̇ chūng xĕ̇ (guo he zhong shi 果核中實, i.e. [‘the solid part of fruit nucleous’], which is a quote from the Chinese dictionary Zihui 字彙 (1615),2727.Mei (1615Mei, Yingzuo 梅膺祚 1615  Zihui 字彙. Online copy consulted (Chinese University of Hong Kong Library: https://​repository​.lib​.cuhk​.edu​.hk​/en​/item​/cuhk​-3258745Mei, Yingzuo 梅膺祚 1615 Zihui 字彙. Online copy consulted (Chinese University of Hong Kong Library: https://​repository​.lib​.cuhk​.edu​.hk​/en​/item​/cuhk​-3258745: V. 2, fourth entry under the radical rén 人). surely one of Brollo’s Chinese sources. This formula likely refers to the disyllabic term guaren 瓜仁, and et alia huiusmodi semina could refer to the various disyllabic terms related to seeds. Brollo also reiterates the meaning oculi pupilla [‘eye pupil/eyeball’], appeared as a disyllabic entry yanren 眼仁 in some of the Dominican dictionaries. However, Brollo does not include any reference to the ‘egg yolk’ (luanren 卵仁), which was a dialectal term contained only in the Dominican dictionaries.

Let us now proceed and recap all the philosophical-religious meanings of ren given in Brollo: basically, he incorporated all the semantic nuances of ‘piety’ and ‘mercy’ found in earlier Jesuit or Dominican dictionaries and introduces another important meaning: ‘charity’.

We can expand a bit, looking at other instances of ren-related compounds found in other entries of Rinuccini 22: the first consists in the well-known binomial ren’ai 仁愛, which appears under the entry ngái 愛 (Rinuccini 22, f. 221),2828.This term is absent in Borg. Cin. 423. and is defined as Charitas, Pietas. As we already said, this term was absent in the Jesuit dictionaries but began appearing in the Dominican ones. Brollo adopted it and expanded its definition beyond ‘piety’ to include ‘charity’.

There is another instance of ren in Rinuccini 22, this time under the entry châng 常 (Rinuccini 22, f. 185). In the definition of this character, Brollo mentions the five Confucian constants, or Confucian virtues (i.e. wuchang 五常), which include ren, translated here by Brollo as charitas. This choice contrasts sharply with the approach taken by the Jesuits in their discussion of wuchang in the previously mentioned Sapientia Sinica (Da Costa and Intorcetta 1662Da Costa, Inácio and Prospero Intorcetta 1662 Sapientia Sinica. Jianchang.Da Costa, Inácio and Prospero Intorcetta 1662 Sapientia Sinica. Jianchang.: pars I, ff. 8, 11), they translate ren as ‘pietas’, which is consistent with the translation found in early Jesuit dictionaries. The following table (Table 7) compares the philosophical meanings of ren given by Brollo in his two dictionaries.

7. Parallel interpretations of ren in Ricci and Brollo

Brollo does not simply include the concept of charity, but also expands it by providing other two significant elements: 1. the expression omnium virtutum nexus; 2. the etymological explanation of the composition of the character ren 仁.

What does Brollo mean by the expression omnium virtutum nexus? In what way is ren the ‘bond (nexus) between all virtues’? In Christian tradition, the idea that all virtues are interconnected through charity can be traced back to Saint Augustine (354–430) (Aug. Epist. 167, 5, 16, in Bray 2015Bray, Nadia 2015 “La dottrina della connessione delle virtù secondo Alberto Magno”. Aliter: Controversie religiose e definizioni di identità tra tardoantico e Medioevo (= Manuscripts, Ideas, Culture ), 95–116. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.Bray, Nadia 2015 “La dottrina della connessione delle virtù secondo Alberto Magno”. Aliter: Controversie religiose e definizioni di identità tra tardoantico e Medioevo (= Manuscripts, Ideas, Culture), 95–116. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.: 98); this idea is then reinforced by the scholastic tradition (Petr. Lomb. Sent. 3, d. 36,1 [135], in Bray 2015Bray, Nadia 2015 “La dottrina della connessione delle virtù secondo Alberto Magno”. Aliter: Controversie religiose e definizioni di identità tra tardoantico e Medioevo (= Manuscripts, Ideas, Culture ), 95–116. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.Bray, Nadia 2015 “La dottrina della connessione delle virtù secondo Alberto Magno”. Aliter: Controversie religiose e definizioni di identità tra tardoantico e Medioevo (= Manuscripts, Ideas, Culture), 95–116. Roma: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.: 100), and we find the concept of charity as the unifying link between all virtues — expressed using the same wording as Brollo’s — in certain commentators and theologians of the Renaissance.2929.For example, Angelo Volpe da Montepeloso (ca. 1590–1647), in his work on Duns Scoto’s (ca. 1265–1308) theology, talks about charity in the following terms: charitatis, quae est nexus omnium virtutum (Volpe 1635Volpe, Angelo (Angelo Vulpes de Montepiloso) 1635 Sacrae theologiae summa Joannis Duns Scoti, doctoris subtil.mi et commentaria… Magistro angelo à M.te Piloso,… authore. Pars II, tomus 3: De Virtutibus & de Peccatis. Napoli: Lazarum Scorigium.Volpe, Angelo (Angelo Vulpes de Montepiloso) 1635 Sacrae theologiae summa Joannis Duns Scoti, doctoris subtil.mi et commentaria… Magistro angelo à M.te Piloso,… authore. Pars II, tomus 3: De Virtutibus & de Peccatis. Napoli: Lazarum Scorigium.: 142). We cannot determine with certainty whom Brollo is quoting, but the fact that he introduces this expression shortly after stating that ren corresponds to charity suggests that he is indicating charity as the link (nexus) between all virtues, implying that ren has the same role.

This closely parallels a passage in Matteo Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi, where the Jesuit author, in his discussion of moral virtues, uses the following phrasing:

夫德之品眾矣，不能具論，吾今為子惟揭其綱，則仁其要焉。得其綱，則餘者隨之

[‘Indeed, the virtue(s) have many grades, and it is not possible to discuss them all. Today, I will only highlight their bond: hence, ren is the most important. Obtain their bond, and all the rest will follow.’]3030.For the Chinese text, cf. Ricci (2016: 306). The present English translation is mine (Mattia Marconi).

Ricci seems to suggest that ren is the ‘key link’ (gang 綱, i.e. [‘bond, net, connection, relation’]) between all virtues. The term gang also appears elsewhere in Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi, where the author references the san gang (三綱), the ‘three bonds’ in human relationships as defined in Confucian thought. Likewise, in the later Jesuit work Sapientia Sinica, the editors comment the term gang using the expression vinculum [‘bond’] (Da Costa and Intorcetta 1662Da Costa, Inácio and Prospero Intorcetta 1662 Sapientia Sinica. Jianchang.Da Costa, Inácio and Prospero Intorcetta 1662 Sapientia Sinica. Jianchang.: pars I, f. 11). This is not only a significant factor in the comparative study of Brollo’s and other dictionaries but also offers insights into how we might reconsider certain interpretations of the character ren in Ricci’s Chinese writings.

The second element that Brollo introduces to reinforce the definition of ren as ‘charity’ is, as previously mentioned, the etymological composition of the character ren 仁: Haec littera componitur ex 亻 jîn, homo et 二 lh́, duo; quia minus quam inter duos charitas haberi non potest.

The above formulation recalls another passage in Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi, where talking against the neo-Confucian theory that all things are one, he argues that, if this were true, ren (仁) and yi (義) would cease to exist, because both require at least two people to function: “仁义相施，必待有二” [‘there must be at least two persons for ren and yi to operate’].3131.The English translation is mainly based on Ricci (2016: 186–189), with the exception of the non-translation of ren and yi, which is our choice (Marconi and Raini).

As in the previous case, where both Brollo and Ricci appear to have drawn from a shared tradition of scholastic theological treatises, here we find a connection to Saint Thomas Aquinas’ (ca. 1224–1274) Summa Theologiae:

Moreover, the very nature of friendship, according to Aristotle, implies a return of love, as well as a certain equality, which is not possible for a man with regard to himself. But, as stated earlier, charity is a kind of friendship, and consequently no one can have charity towards himself.(Batten and Gilby 2006Thomas, R. J. Batten & Thomas Gilby 2006 Summa Theologiae. Vol. 34, Charity (2a2ae. 23–33): Latin Text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Thomas, R. J. Batten & Thomas Gilby 2006 Summa Theologiae. Vol. 341, Charity (2a2ae. 23–33): Latin Text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.: 91)

We have seen that these two elements provided by Brollo in his definition of ren allow us to draw parallels between his work and that of Ricci (which began a century earlier). However, if the depth and complexity of the reflection on ren were already advanced in Ricci’s time, why do the early Jesuit dictionaries (chronologically close to the Tianzhu shiyi) define ren simply as ‘piety’, without mentioning ‘charity’? Perhaps, at Ricci’s time — especially regarding certain terms — the choices in translation were still in their early stages, while Brollo wrote his dictionary a century later, when theological and terminological debates in Chinese had reached their peak.

It is also important to remember that missionaries used Chinese sources as a basis for compiling their dictionaries, sometimes providing direct translations of what was contained in those sources. Perhaps the authors of the early Jesuit dictionaries did not think it was appropriate to include certain semantic nuances in the definition of ren that had not yet been fully established at the time, giving instead a more straightforward and simple translation based on the Chinese source. For example, in the Shuowen jiezi 说文解字, the oldest etymological dictionary of Chinese characters, the definition of ren is simply glossed as “親也” (qīn yě, i.e. [‘equals to qin’]), where qin has the primary meanings of ‘love, affection, filial piety’. The ‘piedade’ we find in early Jesuit dictionaries could be a direct and “simple” translation for qin.

8.Conclusive remarks

Through the comparative analysis of ren-related entries in early Chinese-European dictionaries, we have built a basic framework that can help in dating and attributing authorship to other similar lexicographic sources.

Having revealed through this analysis that the semantic nuance of ren as ‘charity’ seems to appear in missionary dictionaries no earlier than the late 17th century, its presence or absence in the definition of ren (or ren-related entries) in a particular dictionary becomes a useful clue for dating it.

The information collected in the analysis of one single entry can be used to trace connections among various sources. For example, the expression buren 不仁, which appears for the first and only time among the analyzed sources in the Dominican dictionary Ms. sin. 13, if found in other dictionaries suggests that they could be later copies based on this one, or sharing a common source.3232.In this regard, we briefly mention three manuscripts, all Chinese-Spanish character dictionaries, in which we have identified the presence of buren: 1. Acad. 229 (Leiden University Library); 2. Borg. Cin. 503 (Vatican Library); Chinois 9274 (National Library of France).

Similarly, the formulations ‘virtue in general’ and ‘benefit with charity’, which appear in Cod. Sin. 3, as already highlighted, help to establish both a connection between the Dominican dictionaries and those of Brollo and to date Cod. Sin. 3 among the Dominican sources compiled just before Brollo’s work.3333.See above, paragraph 5.

Also, as already mentioned, some of the ren-related compounds with concrete meanings, which are found in word-dictionaries across Jesuit and Dominican sources, reveal a connection between the two lexicographical traditions.

Furthermore, we have seen some special cases, like the dialectal term luanren 卵仁, meaning ‘egg yolk/pupil’, which is peculiar of Dominican dictionaries. Therefore, finding this term in a dictionary of unknown authorship could indicate a possible connection to an author affiliated with the Dominican tradition.3434.The same three codices mentioned above, in note 32, include also the entry for luanren, another clue for their connection to the Dominicans.

Finally, as demonstrated in paragraph 7, lexicographic sources can provide valuable perspectives for re-evaluating the interpretation — and potential translation — of key Chinese terms that missionaries employed with philosophical and religious significance in their Chinese writings.