The Transcultural Power of Image: Giulio Aleni’s Life of Christ, and its Diffusion between Europe and China

The text attributed to the Jesuit Giulio Aleni (艾儒略Ai Rulüe, 1582–1649), 天降生出像经解Tianzhu jiangsheng chuxiang jingjie, "Imagines exprimentes vitam, et mortem Christi Domini cum declarationibus sinicis" - an illustrated book inspired by the Evangelicae historiae imagines of Jerónimo Nadal, but written, carved and printed by Chinese publishers with the addition of notes in Chinese as well as some syncretistic elements - shows an active double role within the dynamics of the Society of Jesus: on the one hand, used in China as an instrument of propaganda of the Christian faith and on the other, widespread in Europe in the libraries of the Jesuit Order as a concrete proof of their work of evangelization. The paper analyzes the visible "image translation" in the opera of Aleni and maps the diffusion of the text, in order to reflect on the effective cross-cultural agency of the book and its images, in Europe and in China.