This included welcoming Christian missionaries and priests. One such person was the missionary, Matteo Ripa, of the Propaganda Fide, from the Kingdom of Naples, who worked as a painter and copper-engraver at the imperial court of the Kangxi Emperor between 1711 and 1723. He returned to Naples from China with four young Chinese Christians, all teachers of their native language; they formed the nucleus of what would become the "Chinese Institute" of Naples, sanctioned by Pope Clement XII in 1732 to teach Chinese to missionaries and thus advance the propagation of Christianity in China.