This course explores the contribution of savants and proto-scientists, a few of them residing in Rome like Athanasius Kircher,SJ, to the production and transmission of knowledge about East Asia during the XVII century.   Selected topics in the history of science will be explored during the second semester.  

The student will know the contribution of Jesuit savants, like Athanasius Kircher, Jean Baptiste du Halde, and others, to the production and circulation of knowledge about China in early modern Europe; he/she will be able to place this body of knowledge within the larger context of the scientific debates of the time, mainly those concerning cosmology, diversity, technological mastery and scientific primacy.