Born in
Douai (then part of the
County of Flanders in the
Spanish Netherlands, now part of
France), he became a Jesuit in 1594. Trigault left Europe to do missionary work in Asia around 1610, eventually arriving at
Nanjing, China in 1611. He was later brought by the Chinese Catholic
Li Zhizao to his hometown of
Hangzhou where he worked as one of the first
missionaries ever to reach that city and was eventually to die there in 1628. ,
Augsburg, 1615. In late 1612, Trigault was appointed by the China Mission's Superior,
Niccolo Longobardi as the China Mission's
procurator (recruitment and
PR representative) in Europe. He sailed from Macau on February 9, 1613, and arrived in Rome on October 11, 1614, by way of India, the
Persian Gulf and Egypt. His tasks involved reporting on the mission's progress to
Pope Paul V, successfully negotiating with the
Jesuit Order's General Claudio Acquaviva the independence of the China Mission from the Japan Mission, and traveling around Europe to raise money and publicize the work of the Jesuit missions. It was during this trip to Europe that Trigault edited and translated (from Italian to Latin)
Matteo Ricci's "China Journal", or
De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas. (He, in fact, started the work aboard the ship when sailing from Macau to India). The work was published in 1615 in
Augsburg; it was later translated into many European languages and widely read. In April 1618, Trigault sailed from Lisbon with over 20 newly recruited Jesuit missionaries, and arrived in Macau in April 1619. Trigault produced one of the first systems of
Chinese Romanisation (based mostly on Ricci's and Pantoja's earlier work) in 1626, in his work
Xiru Ermu Zi (). Trigault wrote his book in
Shanxi province. Aided by a converted Chinese, he also produced the first Chinese version of ''
Aesop's Fables'' (況義 "Analogy"), published in 1625. In the 1620s, Trigault became involved in a dispute over the correct Chinese terminology for the Christian God and defended the use of the term
Shangdi that had been prohibited in 1625 by the Jesuit Superior General
Muzio Vitelleschi. André Palmeiro, the Society of Jesus inspector assigned the task of investigating and reporting on the circumstances of Trigault's death in 1628, on information from Trigault's confessor
Lazzaro Cattaneo, stated that a mentally unstable Trigault had become deeply depressed after failing to successfully defend the use of the term, and had committed
suicide. ==Publications==