JESUITICA: Clerical dress

May 5, 2009 in General, News

ricci_01.jpgMatteo Ricci SJ, a very innovative Jesuit missionary who lived in China from 1582 until his death in 1610, described Jesuit dress at the court of the Ming Emperor: “We have let our beards grow and our hair down to our ears; we have adopted the special dress that the literati wear, which is of purple silk, and the hem of the robe and collar and the edges are bordered with a band of blue silk a little less than a palm wide.”