About Noël Golvers

Noël Golvers studied Classical Philology (Latin Section) at the K.U. Leuven (prom. 1975); PhD (KULeuven) on the ancient geographical names of the Sabine country (from proto-history up to Medieval times) in 1983; since 1984, he is part-time (70%) lecturer Latin (linguistics and literature) at the Teacher’s Academy of the Katholieke Hogeschool Leuven, and a (now senior) researcher (50%) at the Dept. of Area Studies (Sinology) and the F. Verbiest Institute of the KULeuven. Since 1986, his current research concerns the (mainly) cultural aspects of the Jesuit Mission in China in the 17th and 18th centuries, on the basis of Western (i.e. Latin, Portuguese, Italian) written sources: this includes (1) the study of source collections in Europe and their history (contents; provenance), esp. in Belgium, Lisbon, Munich, Paris, Rome, etc.; (2) study, translation and annotation of Western key texts (both printed and manuscript) on the same Mission, such as F. Verbiest, Astronomia Europaea (Dilingae, 1687); A. Thomas, Syntaxis Mathematica (Douai, 1685) and F. de Rougemont’s manuscript diary (1676); (c) the circulation of Western books from Europe to China in the same period; (d) the transmission of European science and technology to China; (e) the production of geographical maps etc.