Giovanni Battista Sidoti versus Arai Hakuseki : agli incroci della civiltà cattolica europea e della cultura giapponese del primo Settecento

The essay aims to analyze the figure of the priest and missionary Giovanni Battista Sidoti in contrast with that of Arai Hakuseki, a Confucian scholar and politician, and also a scholar of the Tokugawa dynasty. The comparison and intellectual debate that followed took place in the first decades of the 18th century, a historical period that saw the decline and difficulties of the Catholic missions and at the same time a timid opening up of Japanese politics and of the culturalscientific world towards the West. [Publisher's text]

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