The papal legation sent in 1705 to settle the Chinese Rites Controversy was a disaster. The legate, Tournon, elevated as cardinal shortly before dying of illness in Macao in 1710, was diplomatically maladroit. His mission was doomed from the start. The controversy concerned whether traditional rituals honouring Confucius and dead ancestors could be practised by Chinese converts, and whether the word Tian (heaven) could be designated to represent the Christian God. The great majority of Jesuits in China, together with many Franciscans and Augustinians, made accommodations for these practices, following ‘the way of Father Matteo Ricci’, but they were bitterly opposed by the Dominicans and priests of the Paris Foreign Missions. Although received amicably by the Emperor Kangxi, Tournon and his partisans soon antagonised the Qing court. After they were ordered to leave Beijing, Tournon accused the Jesuits of undermining his mission. The Fathers, on the other hand, felt unfairly treated by Tournon, thinking that his was a fact-finding mission, not knowing that the decision had already been made against their position in Rome. The Acta Pekinensia is the result of this quarrel. The Jesuits were determined to clear their name by a detailed recording of the events surrounding the Tournon legation. Composed in Latin, the Acta is organised chronologically, describing the events of Tournon's long visit in Beijing, his audiences and the disastrous imperial reaction. It also documents Kangxi's decree that all missionaries must abide by the way of Ricci and the reactions of the different missionaries to this exigency. In addition to Stumpf's detailed summary, which included reports of conversations between the imperial court and Tournon's party, correspondence and other documents of those years were also copied into this large work. The Acta Pekinensia is in fact the single most voluminous manuscript in the Japonica-Sinica section of the Roman Archive of the Society of Jesus and possibly the single most important document of the Chinese Rites Controversy. Although it has a clear partisan stance in defence of the Jesuit position, the Acta is an invaluable source for the study of missionary politics, the Rites Controversy and the functioning of the imperial Qing court. An international team headed by the editors has transcribed and translated this manuscript from Latin into English. The extensive footnotes have identified the persons involved, from western missionaries to the Qing ruling class, as well as Chinese Christians. The publication of this second volume is a most welcome contribution to the field as we look forward to the completion of the entire project.