I gesuiti italiani a Shanghai alla metà del XIX secolo

Within the general framework of the Jesuits’ return to Shanghai and Jiangnan, this article deals with the role of some Italian missionary figures who worked there in the central decades of the 19th century, such as the five Massa brothers. It focuses in particular on their specific cultural and social contribution. Italian religious generally showed little adherence to the nation-state of origin, due to a history of which the late arrival at political-institutional unification was an essential feature. The Italian Jesuits were often close to the local populations, committed to the study of the Chinese language and to elaborating new cultural proposals that were interesting because they were ‘modern’.