Introduction: Entering the Language Continuum -- 1. Silence, Script, and “New Understandings” -- 2. Figures, Hieroglyphs, and Ciphers -- 3. Ships, Bricks, and the Majesty of Writing: The New Century -- Conclusion.

"This detailed, chronological study investigates the rise of the European fascination with the Chinese language up to 1615. By meticulously investigating a wide range of primary sources, Dinu Luca identifies a rhetorical continuum uniting the land of the Seres, Cathay, and China in a tropology of silence, vision, and writing. Tracing the contours of this tropology, The Chinese Language in European Texts: The Early Period offers close readings of language-related contexts in works by classical authors, medieval travelers, and Renaissance cosmographers, as well as various merchants, wanderers, and missionaries, both notable and lesser-known. What emerges is a clear and comprehensive understanding of early European ideas about the Chinese language and writing system."--Publisher note.

Local access dig.pdf. [Luca-Chinese language European texts.pdf]

Abstract
I argue that cosmological methods, and the debates they inspired, were a major source of innovation in phonological scholarship during the late Ming. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scholars strove to document the scope of possible sounds existing in the universe. Realizing the Chinese script was insufficient to fully record them, they explored new notation systems to comprehensively describe sound. Although competing contemporaneous approaches called for analyzing phonology according to regional or historical differences, Ming cosmologists asserted a significant alternative that they believed overcame limits of place and time. This case study suggests a need to rethink the impact of Ming scholars on Chinese intellectual history and on the history of writing in China.

摘要
象數學是明末音韻和文字學很重要的一部分。十六、十七世紀的學者試圖通過象數的方法記錄宇宙裡所有可能存在的聲音。因為漢字無法完全記錄所有的聲音，學者便開始探討漢字以外的方法來記錄聲音。這篇論文對以前被忽略的晚明學者在中國語言學史的作用做了重新思考。

Keywords: philology, history of linguistics, evidential learning, transcription, rhyme, numerology, history of science.
Local access digital pdf. [Vedal-Phonetic Notation.pdf]

"Through the comparative analysis of the extant copies in both manuscript and printed form, and at the same time trying to separate the contribution to the original work given by other scholars who possessed it, the present study aims at reconstructing the evolution course of Martini's grammar from the older Grammatica Sinica to the refined and annotated copy of the Grammatica Linguae Sinensis. This last version is included into this study in annotated transcript and English translation"--Page 4 of cover.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 275-290).

Local access dig.pdf. [Paternico-Martini Grammatica.pdf]

“….Four religious engravings that were owned by Ricci have been preserved in a most curious way, by being included in the “ink cake” album Chengshi moyuan 程氏墨苑 (The Ink Garden of Mr. Cheng), published shortly after 1605 by the famous ink master Cheng Dayue 程大約 (1541-1616?). With his fine sense of publicity Ricci had given them to Cheng to be reproduced both on his ink cakes and in this “sales catalogue”. Significantly, the four images (the disciples of Emmaus, Saint Peter sinking in the water, Sodom, and the Virgin with Child) were given a place in Cheng’s section of “Buddhist and Taoist subjects” (zihuang 緇黃). The reproduction of the Western prints is amazingly exact. Most interesting is the fact that the picture of the Virgin with Child according to its inscription was made “In Sem[inario] Jap[onico] 1597”, a clear sign of the connection with the Jesuit workshops in Japan.” ---Cf. Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, vol. 1, p. 811. See also p. 866 (below).

“….The second variant is found in some of the works in Classical Chinese that Ricci wrote towards the end of his life, notably a work entitled Xizi qiji 西字奇跡 (The Miracle of Western Letters), published in Beijing in 1605. It is a booklet of six folios, containing three short Biblical stories hand-written by Ricci in Chinese characters, and accompanied by their romanisation. The romanisation used here is more mature and generally consistent and also indicates the tones of each character.” --Cf. Standaert, N., Handbook of Christianity in China, v.1, p.866.

n.17: These same stories, supplemented with four pictures and an additional article entitled “Transmission by Writing Presented to Master Cheng Youbo” were later included in …. Chengshi moyuan 程氏墨苑 (Mr. Cheng’s Ink Garden)….” n.18 Cf. Coblin (1997), p. 263.

See also Trigault, Xiru ermu zi 西儒耳目資.
Alt. version dig.pdf. [Ricci-Xizi qiji RGO_III 231-12].
Also included in: Li Madou Zhongwen zhuyi ji 利瑪竇中文著譯集.
Local access dig.pdf. [Ricci-Xiziqiji.pdf]