Zhalan Cemetery

The current setup is a restoration using original carved tombstones, following multiple episodes of desecration and turmoil during the Boxer Rebellion, the 1950s and the Cultural Revolution.

Ricci had wished to be buried in Beijing, as a rare honour for a non-Chinese foreigner and a recognition of the status of the Catholic Church in the Empire.

The imperial decision was implemented on a lot that had been recently confiscated from a disgraced eunuch, outside the Fuchengmen gate of the Beijing city fortifications.

[2] Jean-Luc Dehaene, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Sergio Mattarella, Giorgio Napolitano, Jorge Sampaio, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and Miloš Zeman are among the foreign dignitaries who have visited the cemetery with their Chinese official hosts since.

[10][11] Among the prominent early modern missionaries and scholars who were buried there are, listed in chronological order of burial:[12] Most of the above-listed Jesuits' original tombstones are still at Zhalan,[13] though not those of Longobardo, Buglio, Pereira and Pedrini.

That cemetery no longer exists, but some of its remaining tombstones are exhibited in the open-air Beijing Art Museum of Stone Carvings (Chinese: 北京石刻艺术博物馆; pinyin: Běijīng Shíkè Yìshù Bówùguǎn) at the Zhenjue Temple, including those of Jean-François Gerbillon (1654–1707), Joachim Bouvet (1656–1730), Dominique Parrenin (1665–1741), François Xavier d'Entrecolles (1664–1741), Pierre Nicolas d'Incarville (1706–1757), Michel Benoist (1715–1774) and Pierre-Martial Cibot (1727–1780).