Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit, was the first person from the west to be allowed inside the many, many walls of ancient Peking, in 1601. Eventually he insinuated himself into the Forbidden City and the imperial court.
At the request of his patron, Emperor Wanli, Father Ricci drew a world map, a big world map, twelve and one-half feet long by five and one-half feet tall, and put the Middle Kingdom in the middle just as Wanli would have had it.
Ricci's is the earliest surviving map to alert Chinese that there was a world far beyond theirs. Chinese are still struggling with how to deal with that. This is Public Occurrences.
