Valentina Bottanelli

Postdoctoral Researcher

Research interests

Protestant literature in Chinese in XVII and XVIII century.

Education, academic and professionali experience

Since November 202, Bottanelli has been a postdoctoral researcher at the Fondazione per le scienze religiose Giovanni XXIII. Her research focuses on intercultural encounters in religious and philosophical texts between China, East Asia, and Europe, with particular attention to Protestant literature in Chinese in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Methodologically, her research is based on a direct, philologically oriented approach to written sources and on the study of their materiality.

She is a member of the steering committee of the series Testi, ricerche e fonti (Marietti 1820), of the editorial boards of Fscire Research and Papers (V&R) and Bologna Studies in Religious History (Brill), and of the editorial staff of Cristianesimo nella Storia.

In February 2026 she received the Seal of Excellence Horizon MSCA-2025-PF for the project ReConNeCT: “REformed CONfucius: Protestant translations and transnational NEtworks of Chinese Thought (1625-1725)” (University of Amsterdam).

From 1 March 2024 to 31 October 2025 she was a research fellow at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia on the PRIN PNRR 2022 project Images of China from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment" (SSD. L-OR/23, M-STO/07), and a member of the project Jesuits between Science and Technology: From Kircher to Boscovich.

In October 2024 she defended her doctoral dissertation (PhD) at the Fondazione per le scienze religiose with a thesis on Chinese liturgical texts of the Church of the East in the Tang period (supervisor Prof. Daniel Canaris, readers Prof. Chiara Tommasi and Prof. Lijuan Lin).

Since April 2023 she has been collaborating with the University of Sydney on the project, with various appointments as Research Assistant: Transforming the East: Jesuit Translations of the Confucian Classics.

Featured pubblications

Monographs

V. Bottanelli, Trinity, Substance, Matter: the Transmission and Adaptation of thr Christian Creed in Tang China, Leiden-Boston, Brill, forthcoming.

Articles

F. Borghesi, V. Bottanelli, Chinese Poetry and Travel Writing: Michele Ruggieri S.J. (1543–1607) between Tradition and Adaptation, in «Italian Poetry Review» 20, 2025, pp. 201-223. 

V. Bottanelli, A catalogue of translations of Xi’An nestorian Stele, in «Cristianesimo nella storia», 46 (2025), pp. 69-100.

F. Borghesi, V. Bottanelli. Sinica Europaea. Due progetti sulla diffusione dell’immagine della Cina in Europa, in «Intorcettiana», VI/12, Luglio-Dicembre 2024, pag. 60-65.
Available in open access.

Chapters in books

V. Bottanelli, Cross confession contamination in Early Modern China and Dutch Batavia: Justus Heurnius’ Chinese-Latin Compendium Doctrinae Christianae, in  G. Braghi,  A. Carluccio,  G. Favaretto, (eds.), Acts of the Thirteenth Annual REFORC Conference, Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, forthcoming.

V. Bottanelli, La versio latina della Dottrina Morale di Confucio in Heurnius: uno studio linguistico e confessionale, in A. Balbo, E. Della Calce, S. Mollea (eds.), Classica Serica, Pisa, Pacini Editore, Documenta Orientalia, 2026, pp. 67-92. 

V. Bottanelli, A. Giazzon, Chinese and the Enlightenment’s Linguistic Studies: Philippe Masson, Justus Heurnius, and the Hebrew Origin of Chinese, in M. Catto (ed.), Enlightened by China, Representations and myths in 18th century Europe, Roma, Viella, 2025, pp. 101-116.
Available in open access.

V. Bottanelli, Una Mimosa per l'Imperatore. Per una scienza globale della missione gesuita in Cina, in N. Guasti, A. Cevolini (eds.), I gesuiti tra scienza, tecnica e religione. Da Kircher a Boscovich, Alessandria, Edizioni dell'Orso, 2025, pp. 127-142.

V. Bottanelli, Celso Constantini e la De Clero Indigena: rifondare la Chiesa in Cina tra tempi di pace e ombre di guerra, in N. Buonasorte, A. Melloni (eds.), «Quam pulchri super montes pedes annuntiantis et praedicantis pacem». Settanta saggi di esegesi, teologia, storia per i settant’anni dell’arcivescovo Matteo card. Zuppi, Bologna, EDB, 2025, pp. 433-441.

V. Bottanelli, Cristologia antiochena e teologia cinese: il simbolo nella dottrina Jingjia, in C. Bianchi, A. Melloni, M. Proietti (eds.), Il Concilio e il Credo (325-2025). Storia e trasmissione dei simboli di Nicea e di Costantinopoli, Bologna, EDB, 2025, pp. 641-650.

V. Bottanelli, Il Simbolo niceno nelle tradizioni siriache della tarda antichità, in C. Bianchi, A. Melloni, M. Proietti (eds.), Il Concilio e il Credo (325-2025). Storia e trasmissione dei simboli di Nicea e di Costantinopoli, Bologna, EDB, 2025, pp. 151-162.

V. Bottanelli, Misa Jingdian: il Simbolo Niceno-Costantinopolitano nella disputa sulla liturgia Cinese, in Berardi, C. (ed.), Il Simbolo nella Tradizione Antica e nella Ricezione Moderna, Milano, Nerbini, 2025, pp. 169-186.

U. Mazzone, D. Dainese, V. Bottanelli, Prospero Lambertini (Bologna, 31.3.1675-3.5.1758), in F. Citti, I. Graziani (eds.), Benedetto XIV e Bologna. Arti e scienze nell’età dei lumi, Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, Archivi e Strumenti, 2025, pp. 13-43.

V. Bottanelli, Astronomy in the Jesuit Mission to Ming China, in V. Zanini, A. Naddeo, F. Bonoli (eds.) Atti del XLI Convegno annuale-Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference, Pisa, Pisa University Press, 2022, pag. 31.

Reviews

S. N. C. Lieu, G. L. Thompson (eds.), The Church of East in central Asia and China, Turnhout, Brepols, 2020, in Cristianesimo nella Storia, pp. 880-882, 44/3, 2023.

Dictionary/encyclopedias/catalogs entries

V. Bottanelli, Cina, in Enciclopedia Francescana, Roma, Treccani, 2024.

Confereces, seminaries and workshops

January 29 – 30, 2026, paper: Translating God, Transcribing Prayer: Jesuit Linguistic Strategies in China, international conference Mapping and Translating Spaces, Cultures and Languages Experiences Connected to Empires and Missions (1500-1700), Roma.

December 12 – 13, 2025, paper: Matter. Trinity, Substance: the Transmission and Adaptation of the Christian Creed in Tang China, international workshop Historiographies of Christianity in China – A Symposium of Current Voices in the Field, Tubinga.

November 15 – 17, 2025, paper: Un lessico conteso: riuso e adattamento dei catechismi gesuitici per le comunità cinesi migranti di Manila e Batavia (XVI-XVII), international conference Le forme della Parola, Roma.

October 28 – November 4, 2025, International Workshop "Historical Legacies of Christianity in East Asia: Bridging a New Generation of Scholars and Scholarship," Warsaw (PL).

September 15 – 16, 2025, paper: Una mimosa per l’imperatore. Jesuits, Quakers, and Chinese Herbaria between the Far East and the Far West, International Conference The Jesuits between Science and Technology: From Kircher to Boscovich, Reggio Emilia.

August 24 – 30, 2025, Translating Religious Concepts along the Silk Roads, Roundtable at the Association for the History of Religions World Congress, Kraków (PL).

July 8 – 12, 2025, Paper: Divine Sovereignty and Imperial Authority: Religious and Political Discourses in Early Sino-Russian Relations; Panel: Diplomatic and Religious Relations: Russian Orthodox Church and Northern China, VIII International Congress of the European Academy of Religion 2025, Vienna (AT).

June 19 – 20, 2025, Paper: Chinese and the Enlightenment’s Linguistic Studies, International Conference Enlightened by China. Representations and Myths in 18th-Century Europe, Turin.

June 16 – 17, 2025, Paper: New Perspectives for the ‘Transforming the East’ Database, Scientific Conference Classica Serica. Latin and the East Between the Medieval and Modern Ages: A Review Between History, Literature, and Digital Perspectives, Turin.

February 13 – 14, 2025, Organizer of the Digital Methodologies for Humanities seminar, Bologna.

October 21 – 23, 2024, Paper: The Analects in Batavia: A Forgotten Translation, Conference Traveling Books, Journeying Men: Cultural Dynamics along Trade Routes to and from the East, Pisa.

July 10 – 12, 2024, Paper: Across Empires of Faith: Chinese Creeds and Religious Exchange between China, Spanish Philippines, and Dutch Batavia, International Conference Mapping and Translating Spaces, Cultures, and Languages Experiences Connected to Empires and Missions (1500-1700), Rome.

July 2, 2024, Organizer of the seminar on the Volumes The General Councils of the Eastern Christian Churches, Bologna.

June 24 – 26, 2024, Paper: The Textus-Sinici Database, Organizing and Scientific Committee of the Missionaries, Languages, East Asia (XVI-XX Century) International Conference, Bologna.

May 14 – 16, 2024, Paper: Cross-Confession Contamination in Early Modern China and Dutch Batavia: Justus Heurnius’ Chinese-Latin Compendium Doctrinae Christianae (Bodleian Library, Marsh 456), Thirteenth Annual REFORC Conference on Early Modern Christianity, Palermo.

April 12, 2024, Misa Jingdian 彌撒經典: The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in the Liturgical Dispute in China, Presentation at the The Symbol in Ancient Tradition and Its Modern Receptionconference, University of Foggia, Foggia.

June 19 – 23, 2023, Panel: Religious Encounter in Medieval and Early Modern Travel Accounts, VI International Congress of the European Academy of Religion 2023, St. Andrews (UK).

June 20 – 23, 2022, Panel: Religious Diversity in Tang China, V International Congress of the European Academy of Religion 2022, Bologna.

September 6 – 9, 2021, Presentation of Master's Thesis, Special Mention of the SISFA 2021 Graduation Award, XLI SISFA National Congress, Arezzo.