Meiguijing jiuri jingli 玫瑰經九日敬禮

Neibu ziliao internal circulation 內部資料

Song nianzhu guicheng 誦念珠規程 : JapSin I, 43b / João da Rocha 羅儒望.
Reproduction of original text in: Yesuhui Luoma dang'anguan Ming-Qing Tianzhujiao wenxian 耶穌會羅馬檔案館明清天主教文獻 / Edited by Nicolas Standaert [鐘鳴旦] [and] Adrian Dudink [杜鼎克]. 

Local access dig.pdf. [Rocha-SongNianzhu.pdf]

"Rocha is known for two works, one a translation of a catechism in the form of a dialogue written in 1561 by Marco Jorge, the title of which Rocha rendered as Tianzhu shengjiao qimeng (1619) ... the second known as the Method of the Rosary, Nien-chu kuei-ch'eng (Nianzhu guicheng, ca. 1620) .... illustrated with fifteen woodblock prints. Tung Ch'i-ch'ang (Dong Qichang) or someone of his school is said to have been responsible for adapting the pictures, made originally by Girolamo Nadal in 1595, for Rocha's book. The latter is extremely rare but a copy, probably an original, is preserved in the Vatican Library. Pasquale M. d'Elia in 1939 reproduced all fifteen illustrations, together with Nadal's on facing pages." Cf. Dictionary of Ming Biography, p. 1145.

Citation source: Albert Chan, S.J., Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome, pp. 71-72.
Jap-Sin I, 43b
Song nianzhu guicheng 誦念珠規程.
By Luo Ruwang 羅儒望 (João da Rocha, 1565–1623).
Thirty-six folios (Arabic numbers: 72–107). Chinese bamboo paper, one volume. No date or place of publication.

The Latin catalogue has: “Rosarium ignoto auctore.” The word “ignoto” was struck out by the archivist, who added a note: “P. Gaspar Ferreira S.J. ut patet e comparatione textus inventus cum eo, qui inventus in Bibl. Apost. Vatican., Racc. Gen. Orient. III 214 Tom I. | Jap Sin 115 f. 165v Figueredo testatur anno 1628 hoc Rosarium cum catechismo P^is Da Rocha esse simul eodem volumine colligatum | Ita P. Paulus Brunner, S.J., Prov. Camp. 8 Maii, 1958, Treviri. | P. Teschitel, Archiv.”

The title page is missing. At the beginning of folio 1 the title is given in Chinese. Each folio gives the title as Nianzhu guicheng; the number of the folio is given at the bottom. There are eight columns in each half folio and each column contains 19 characters. Both the types and the format suggest a Ming edition.
The first three folios of this book also are written in form of a dialogue and the vernacular is used. The prayers, however, are written in simple classical Chinese.
Courant (no. 6861–II) says that the book consists of thirty-two folios with fourteen illustrations. The Jesuit Archive edition has lost the last two folios. It is to be noted that these are xylographic illustrations in the Chinese style, modeled, however, on the book of Girolamo Nadal, Adnotationes et Meditationes in Evangelia quae in Sacrosancto Missae Sacrificio toto anno leguntur (Antwerp, 1595); cf. Jap-Sin I, 187 and 188.
From comparison with Jap-Sin I, 43a, one can say that they were published together. Even the terminology used in both books is the same. I am inclined to think with D’Elia that the author is not Ferreira but da Rocha. Machado Barbosa in his Biblioteca Lusitana (Lisboa, 1749–1759), vol. II, p. 736, attributes to da Rocha another book bound together with the catechism which he called Practica de rezar o Rosario. The title agrees with that of the book we are now trying to identify, namely, the Song nianzhu guicheng. Also Couplet attributed this work to da Rocha: “de praxi recitandi Rosarium” (p. 8). The book of Ferreira, however, bears another title: Shengmu meguijing shiwuduan 聖母玫瑰經十五端 (cf.. Shengjiao rike 聖教日課, Jap-Sin I, 172, vol. I, ff. 30–43), which is not the same book as the Song nianzhu guicheng.