{"id":1752,"date":"2019-11-30T13:08:03","date_gmt":"2019-11-30T13:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/dcc\/?p=1752"},"modified":"2019-11-30T13:08:03","modified_gmt":"2019-11-30T13:08:03","slug":"the-epitaph-of-joachim-alphonse-goncalves-1781-1841","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/dcc\/2019\/11\/30\/the-epitaph-of-joachim-alphonse-goncalves-1781-1841\/","title":{"rendered":"The Epitaph of Joachim Alphonse Gon\u00e7alves (1781-1841)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Latinitas Sinica: Journal of Latin Language and Culture <\/em>is published in Hong Kong by Michele Ferrero as part of the activities of the Latinitas Sinica<\/a> foundation, whose mission is the support of the learning and teaching of Latin Language in China. I was pleased to find in Issue 6<\/a>, published in 2018, an article by Leopold Leeb<\/a>, the distinguished Austrian Sinologist and professor at Renmin University in Beijing, called “Latin Tombstones in China and the History of Cultural Exchange” (pp. 41-106). It includes the epitaph of the Portuguese missionary and lexicographer Joachim Alphonse Gon\u00e7alves (1781-1841), who is close to my heart because I am overseeing a project<\/a> to digitize his large Latin-Chinese dictionary. The goal of the project is to turn it into a mobile application and publish it on DCC’s sister site, Dickinson Classics Online<\/a>, which is aimed at a Chinese-speaking audience.  A group of students from Wyoming Seminary<\/a> (an independent private school here in Pennsylvania) has recently come on to help in the editing of the data, supervised by their teacher Liz Pendland. I thought they in particular might like to learn a little more about the man behind the dictionary.<\/p>\n

First, a bit of context from Prof. Leeb (p. 43):<\/p>\n

The tombstones of Catholic missionaries were usually written in Latin. They are precious historical documents. Famous cemeteries are the ones in Beijing. In 1610,
\nafter the death of Ricci, a piece of ground was given to the Church, located outside the Fuchengmen, the so-called \u201eTenggong Zhalan\u201c\u6ed5\u516c\u6805\u680f (or \u201cChala\u201c), where Ricci,
\nSchall, Verbiest and many others are buried. The cemetery was enlarged in 1654, but the French Jesuits (Bouvet, Regis and others) were buried at a new site after 1732,
\nnamely at the Zhengfusi \u6b63\u798f\u5bfa, a few miles to the west. These cemeteries were destroyed in 1900, but restored thereafter. More than 800 missionaries had tombs and
\nsteles at Zhalan, before the Zhalan area was confiscated and the tombs were ordered to be moved to Xibeiwang \u897f\u5317\u6c6a, Beijing. However, many steles are lost, and only
\n63 have been preserved. These 63, among them the tomb-stones of Ricci, Schall, Verbiest, and Buglio, are still at Zhalan. The stones from Zhengfusi have been moved
\nto the Stone Museum at Wutasi \u4e94\u5854\u5bfa. Other Catholic cemeteries are the Dafangjing \u5927\u65b9\u4e95 cemetery at Hangzhou \u676d\u5dde, where Yang Tingyun\u2019s \u6768\u5ef7\u7b60 son erected a
\ncemetery for the foreigners. In 1676, Fr. Intorcetta \u6bb7 enlarged that cemetery. Aleni\u2019s tomb is at the \u201cCross Mountain\u201d\u201c\u5341\u5b57\u5c71\u201dnear Fuzhou. Jesuits from Shandong are
\nburied at Chenjialou \u9648\u5bb6\u697c, west of Ji\u2019nan. Some Franciscans are buried at a cemetery near Linqing \u4e34\u6e05 (here also della Chiesa\u2019s tomb was found). At
\nHuangshakeng \u9ec4\u6c99\u5751, west of Canton, some Franciscan missionaries are buried. Bishop Luo Wenzao and some foreign missionaries were buried at Yuhuata \u96e8\u82b1\u53f0
\noutside the Jubao Gate \u805a\u5b9d\u95e8 of Nanjing, but this cemetery was destroyed by the Taipings. Xu Guangqi \u5f90\u5149\u542f has his tomb in a park at Xujiahui \u5f90\u5bb6\u6c47, Shanghai.  The different mission societies had cemeteries in their respective areas of work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And now, the Latin text of Goncalves’ tombstone, as edited and translated into English by Prof. Leeb:<\/p>\n

D.O.M
\nHIC JACET REVER. D. JOAQUIMUS ALFONSUS GONSALVES LUSITANUS
\nPRESBYTER CONGREGATIONIS MISSIONIS ET IN REGALI SANCTI JOSEPHI
\nMACAONENSI
\nCOLLEGIO PROFESSOR EXIMIUS REGALIS SOCIETATIS ASIATICAE
\nSOCIUS EXTER
\nPRO SINENSIBUS MISSIONIBUS SOLICITUS PERUTILIA OPERA<\/strong> SINICO
\nLUSITANO
\nLATINOQUE SERMONE COMPOSUIT ET IN LUCEM EDIDIT MORIBUS
\nSUAVISSIMIS DOCTRINA PRAESTANTI INTEGRA VITA QUI PLENUS
\nDIEBUS IN DOMINO QUIEVIT SEXAGENARIO
\nMAIOR QUINTO NONAS OCTOBRIS ANNO MDCCCXLI.
\nIN MEMORIAM TANTI VIRI EJUS AMICI LITTERATURAEQUE CULTORES
\nHUNC LAPIDEM CONSECRAVERE
\n[my emphasis]<\/p>\n

“Here lies the Reverend Father Joachim Alphonsus Gonsalves, from Portugal, a priest
\nof the Congregation of the Missions professor in the royal College of St. Joseph in
\nMacao, also a member of the Royal Asiatic Society, who composed and published
\nmany very useful works for the missions, works in the Chinese, Portuguese, and Latin
\nlanguage. He was a very gentle teacher and a man of integrity, who died in the age of
\n65 and rests now in the Lord. He died on 9 October 1841. In the memory of such a
\ngreat man his friends and students have consecrated this stele.”
\nLeeb provides the following note:<\/p>\n

Gonsalves, Joachim Alphonse, CM \u6c5f\u6c99\u7ef4, 1781-1841, Portuguese Lazarist, who joined the Lazarist seminary in Rihafoles, Portugal, in 1799. In 1801 he professed vows, came to Macau in 1813. He was appointed to go to Beijing, but did not get permission, due to the strict policies of Jiaqing Emperor. He taught for many years at the Sao Jos\u00e9 (St. Joseph) Seminary in Macau, where he trained young priests. He became a linguist and encyclopedist and compiled at least six bilingual dictionaries, a Chinese-Portuguese Dictionary \u300a \u6c49 \u8461 \u5b57 \u5178\u300b , a Vocabularium
\nLatino-Sinicum\u300a\u62c9\u6c49\u8f9e\u6c47\u300b(1836), a Lexicon magnum Latino-Sinicum\uff08\u300a\u62c9\u4e01-\u6c49 \u8bed\u5927\u8bcd\u5178\u300b (1841) etc. He died 3 October 1841 in Macau. Since 1872 his tomb is in the church of the San Jose Seminary, where the tombstone inscription has been preserved. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As we work on bringing Goncalves’ perutila opera <\/em>to a new generation, it is pleasing to read of a tangible memorial to his life. If you are interested in Latin in China, please check out Latinitas Sinica<\/em><\/a> and their interesting journal!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Latinitas Sinica: Journal of Latin Language and Culture is published in Hong Kong by Michele Ferrero as part of the activities of the Latinitas Sinica foundation, whose mission is the support of the learning and teaching of Latin Language in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/dcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/dcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/dcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/dcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/dcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/dcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/dcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/dcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/dcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}