The Forbidden City celebrates its 600th birthday this year. VCG
This year, the Forbidden City turns 600 years old. This is not only a big event for Chinese people, but also a cultural milestone for the entire world.
今年是紫禁城建成600年。这不仅是中国人民的大事，也是全世界的文化里程碑。
Over the last six centuries, many cultural exchanges have taken place inside the high walls of the world’s largest palace complex.
过去的600年间，在这个全球最大的宫殿群的高墙之内，发生了许多文化交流的故事。
In the 13th century, when the West got its first glimpse of ancient China through Italian merchant Marco Polo’s writing, the country had little contact with the outside world. But Italian priest Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), the first Westerner to make his way to the imperial court, changed this during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
13世纪时，西方通过意大利商人马可·波罗之笔，得以首次一窥古代中国的面貌，当时的中国与外界鲜有交流。但明朝(1368-1644)时，作为首位叩开宫廷大门的西方人，意大利传教士利玛窦(1552-1610)改变了这一局面。
Ricci made contributions to the fields of science and astronomy in China. He worked together with Chinese scientist Xu Guangqi to translate the first six books of Euclid’s Elements into Chinese and taught it to Chinese scholars.
利玛窦在中国为科学及天文学领域做出了贡献。他与中国科学家徐光启合作，将《几何原本》的前六本译成中文，传授给中国学者。
He also brought new knowledge about map-making and taught people that the world was round with the first European-style world map in Chinese.
他还带来了地图绘制的新知识，并通过首张中文的欧式世界地图告诉人们地球是圆的。
Numerous foreigners followed in Ricci’s footsteps. Giuseppe Castiglione, also known as Lang Shining (1688-1766), was one of them.
无数外国人追随利玛窦的脚步来到中国。郎世宁(1688-1766)便是其中之一。
Castiglione, a talented painter, was sent to China to work for a church in 1715 and was later invited to the imperial court to produce paintings for Qing Dynasty’s Emperor Kangxi.
1715年，才华横溢的画家郎世宁来到中国的一个教堂工作，后来他受邀入宫为清朝康熙帝作画。
When Castiglione served in the imperial court, he designed many murals in the Forbidden City using techniques that were popular in European cathedrals and theaters.
入宫任职期间，郎世宁在紫禁城中设计了不少壁画，这些壁画都使用了当时欧洲大教堂与剧院的流行画法。
Ever since, “a new ... style that combined Western realism with traditional Chinese conventions of composition and brushwork has emerged in China”, wrote the Metropolitan Museum of Art, US.
此后，“中国出现了一种结合了西方现实主义与中国传统构图和画法的全新风格”，美国大都会艺术博物馆如此写道。
The first Westerners to the imperial court also provided firsthand reports to Europe through their letters, notes and books about China. “It makes the West recognize a country with an advanced civilization evolving outside of the Biblical history of God’s interaction with man,” Zhu Yong, director of the Palace Museum Cultural Communication Institute, told China Daily.
这些首批入宫的西方人还通过他们的信件、笔记以及关于中国的著作向欧洲提供了第一手资料。“这让西方意识到，在《圣经》人神互动的历史之外，还有一个拥有先进文明的国家在不断发展，”故宫文化传播研究所所长祝勇在接受《中国日报》采访时如此表示。
Their stories are just a small piece of the puzzle of cross cultural communication between China and the outside world. But it demonstrates “the Forbidden City had provided a bridge for communication between China and the rest of world”, noted China Daily.
他们的故事不过是中国与外界跨文化交流中的冰山一角。但这体现了“故宫为中国提供了与外界沟通的桥梁，”《中国日报》报道指出。
