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it is always impossible to do full justice to the subject proposed for research to the participants. Run by the Macau Ricci Institute, this symposium is no exception. Yet to give some hint of what was discovered and nevertheless remains hidden in the archives of history, this section includes the final remarks given by Henrique Leitão, Researcher at the Centre for the History of Science at the University of Lisbon. They are highly interesting: despite the fact that even scholars have still a lot to study about Tomás Pereira, historians of science would not attach great importance to his scientific contributions. As a missionary in China, they remain insignificant: his "grandeur" does not come from any achievement in music, organ building, mathematics, astronomy or diplomacy. His "grandeur" remains, like that of any other Jesuit missionary in China, "hidden" in his motivation to accept to be "dislocated". For what reason? This reading could give an answer.
The Editor |
