Imagining China: The View from Europe, 1550-1700  

November 5, 2009

Thursday 10:00am - 5:00pm

Detail:

Curator(s): Timothy Billings
 

How did early modern Europeans imagine China? As knowledge from trade and travel about this vast kingdom to the East moved slowly westward, the fantastical picture of China derived from such medieval travelers as Marco Polo and John Mandeville began to take on greater accuracy. But China remained vividly present in the European imagination as a land of curiosities; as a kingdom of exemplary civility among non-Christian peoples; as an empire of unimaginable antiquity but also of dynamic contemporary change; and above all, as the source of priceless commodities, both natural and artificial, that might bring good health and great fortune if only they could be acquired.

at Folger Great Hall