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Mariangelo Accorso (Latin: Mariangelo Accursio or Mariangelus Accursius; 1489 or 1490 – 1544 or 1546) was an Italian writer and critic. He was born at L'Aquila (Abruzzo), then part of the kingdom of Naples.<br/><br/> Accorso was a great favourite with Charles V, at whose court he resided for thirty-three years, and by whom he was employed on various foreign missions. To a perfect knowledge of Greek and Latin he added an intimate acquaintance with several modern languages.<br/><br/> In discovering and collating ancient manuscripts, for which his travels abroad gave him special opportunities, he displayed uncommon diligence. His work entitled <i>Diatribae in Ausonium, Solinum et Ovidium</i> (1524) is a monument of erudition and critical skill.
Leon Battista Alberti (February 14, 1404 – April 25, 1472) was an Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer; he epitomised the Renaissance Man.
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator, social justice activist, and anarcho-syndicalist. Sometimes described as the 'father of modern linguistics', Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy.<br/><br/> Chomsky has spent most of his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is currently Professor Emeritus, and has authored over 100 books.
Roger Bacon, OFM (c. 1214 – c. 1292), also known by the scholastic accolade Doctor Mirabilis (Latin for 'wonderful teacher'), was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods.<br/><br/> He is sometimes credited (mainly since the 19th century) as one of the earliest European advocates of the modern scientific method inspired by Aristotle and by later scholars such as the Arab scientist Alhazen. His linguistic work has been heralded for its early exposition of a universal grammar.
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, political commentator, social justice activist, and anarcho-syndicalist. Sometimes described as the 'father of modern linguistics', Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy.<br/><br/> Chomsky has spent most of his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is currently Professor Emeritus, and has authored over 100 books.
(Muhammad) Marmaduke Pickthall (7 April 1875 – 19 May 1936) was a Western Islamic scholar, noted for his English translation of the Qur'an.<br/><br/> A convert from Christianity, Pickthall was a novelist, esteemed by D. H. Lawrence, H. G. Wells, and E. M. Forster, as well as a journalist, headmaster, and political and religious leader. He declared his conversion to Islam after delivering a talk on ‘Islam and Progress' on November 29, 1917, to the Muslim Literary Society in Notting Hill, West London.<br/><br/> In 1920 he went to India with his wife to serve as editor of the Bombay Chronicle, returning to England only in 1935, a year before his death at St Ives, Cornwall. It was in India that he completed his celebrated translation, 'The Meaning of the Glorious Koran'.
James Legge (Chinese: 理雅各, Lǐyǎgè; December 20, 1815 – November 29, 1897) was a noted Scottish sinologist, a Scottish Congregationalist, representative of the London Missionary Society in Malacca and Hong Kong (1840–1873), and first professor of Chinese at Oxford University (1876–1897). In association with Max Müller he prepared the monumental Sacred Books of the East series, published in 50 volumes between 1879 and 1891.
Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS (19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was an English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia and Africa as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures.
Matteo Ricci, SJ (October 6, 1552 – May 11, 1610; simplified Chinese: Lì Mǎdòu; courtesy name: Xītài) was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission. Painted in 1610 by the Chinese brother Emmanuel Pereira (born Yu Wen-hui), who had learned his art from the Italian Jesuit, Giovanni Nicolao. The age is incorrect: Ricci died during his fifty-eighth year. The portrait was taken to Rome in 1616 and displayed at the Jesuit house together with paintings of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier. It still hangs there.
Father Ferdinand Verbiest (9 October 1623 – 28 January 1688) was a Flemish Jesuit missionary in China during the Qing dynasty. He was born in Pittem near Tielt in Flanders, later part of the modern state of Belgium. He was known as Nan Huairen (南懷仁) in Chinese.<br/><br/> He was an accomplished mathematician and astronomer and proved to the court of the Kangxi Emperor that European astronomy was more accurate than Chinese astronomy. He then corrected the Chinese calendar and was later asked to rebuild and re-equip the Beijing Ancient Observatory, being given the role of Head of the Mathematical Board and Director of the Observatory.<br/><br/> He became close friends with the Kangxi Emperor, who frequently requested his teaching, in geometry, philosophy and music. Verbiest worked as a diplomat and cartographer, and also as a translator, because he spoke Latin, German, Dutch, Spanish, Hebrew, and Italian. He wrote more than thirty books.
Matteo Ricci, SJ (October 6, 1552 – May 11, 1610; simplified Chinese: Lì Mǎdòu; courtesy name: Xītài) was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission.<br/><br/> Xu Guangqi (simplified Chinese: 徐光启; traditional Chinese: 徐光啟; pinyin: Xú Guāngqǐ; April 24, 1562 – November 8, 1633), who later adopted the baptismal name Paul (simplified Chinese: 保禄; traditional Chinese: 保祿), was a Chinese scholar-bureaucrat, agricultural scientist, astronomer, and mathematician in the Ming Dynasty.
Alexander de Rhodes was born in Avignon, France. He entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Rome on 24 April 1612 to dedicate his life to missionary work. He arrived in Indochina about 1619. A Jesuit mission had been established in Hanoi in 1615; Rhodes arrived there in 1620. He spent ten years in and around the Court at Hanoi during the rule of Trịnh Tùng and Trịnh Tráng.<br/><br/> While he was in Vietnam, he wrote the first Vietnamese Catechism and he published the first Portuguese-Latin-Vietnamese dictionary. This dictionary was later used widely by many Vietnamese scholars to create the new Vietnamese writing system, largely using the Roman alphabet - still used today and now called Quốc Ngữ (national language).
Joseph Marie Amiot was born at Toulon. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1737 and was sent in 1750 as a missionary to China. He soon won the confidence of the Qianlong Emperor and spent the remainder of his life at Beijing. He was a correspondent of the Académie des Sciences, official translator of Western languages for Emperor Qianlong, and the spiritual leader of the French mission in Peking. He died in Peking in 1793, two days after the departure of the British Macartney Embassy. He could not meet Lord Macartney, but exhorted him to patience in two letters, explaining that 'this world is the reverse of our own'. He used the Chinese name Qian Deming while he was in China.