"GIORNALE" BY MATTEO RIPA AS A HISTORICAL SOURCE
“Giornale” by Matteo Ripa, the memoirs of the Italian missionary, is one of the most important sources on the history of China in the XVIII century. After the death of the author the text was edited and reprinted by the Jesuits, who as a result shifted the semantic emphasis so that the anti-Jesuit moods of Matteo Ripa disappeared completely from the text. It was in this version that the memoirs became known to a wide range of researchers. The comparison with the original text allows us to conclude that the editors deliberately made changes that distorted the meaning of those events described by Father Matteo.