La Cina nelle Relazioni universali di Giovanni Botero. Tra religione, civiltà e ragione

We shall focus on the representation of China, its idolatry and religions, which appears in the pages of the Relazioni Universali (1591-1596). Giovanni Botero’s great universal work will be examined in a diachronic manner. The image of religious beliefs in China will be outlined starting from the internal nature of the work itself, that is from Part III, Part V, and finally Girolamo Brusoni’s updates published in Venice in 1659. A comparison of the Relazioni Universali and the sources used in compiling it, and the indication of omissions and alterations, cuts and arbitrary combinations, tend to highlight the manipulations and changes that the image of the religion of China underwent in the Italian culture between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.