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jamestomasino's review against another edition
3.0
While historically interesting, it really didn't give me either the depth of the man nor the insights into his methods that I was really looking for. It is a solid biography, though, if that's what you're looking for.
laura_trap's review against another edition
3.0
I learned a great many historical anecdotes from his book, but none of them were what I was expecting to learn from this book. This was part biography, part 'hey did you know this weird little side story in this era of history?', which isn't terrible but it made this entire venture seem a bit disorganized. Also, tone it down on the academic jargon. It was definitely well researched, which I appreciated but at times so dense that it didn't seem worth it to continue. That being said, this was an era of history that I knew little about, so I felt I absorbed so much new information. The book's primary focus, to me, was the Jesuit's missionary practices in the late sixteenth century concerning China and India, with a sprinkling of Japan in there as well. But Matteo was interesting but flat, and after the initial descriptions of medieval European memory practices, a smattering of Matteo's education on such practices, and even less about his hopeful educating of the Chinese of such practices, there was practically nothing else on memory practices for the rest of the book. Informative, but disorganized in presentation and focus.
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