Transition in Knowledge of Chinese Geography in Early Modern Europe: a Historical Investigation on Maps of China

Home , Chinese geography, Johan Nieuhof, Michele Ruggieri, Nicolas Sanson

Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(2)/2019: 45-65

Transition in Knowledge of Chinese Geography in Early Modern Europe: A Historical Investigation on Maps of China

Jingdong YU Xue-heng Institute for Advanced Studies & School of Government Nanjing University 163 Xianlin Avenue, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China [email protected]

Abstract: During the 17th and 18th centuries, European investigations into Chinese geography underwent a process of change: firstly, from the wild imagination of the classical era to a natural perspective of modern trade, then historical interpretations of religious missionaries to the scientific mapping conducted by sovereign nation- states. This process not only prompted new production of maps, but also disseminated a large amount of geographical knowledge about China in massive publications. This has enriched the geographical vision of Chinese civilization while providing a new intellectual framework for Europeans to understand China. Concurrently, it has formed another route for the travel of knowledge and intercultural interactions between the East and the West. Those interactions between space and knowledge have been reflected in the production, publication and dissemination of numerous maps of China in early modern Europe. Keywords: map of China; the Jesuits; early modern Europe; travel of knowledge

Throughout the cultural exchanges that took between China and the West during the 17th and 18th centuries, maps represented not only the coalescence and conjuncture of spatial information over time, but also their function, as basic vessels for circulating and disseminating knowledge. By the end of the 16th century, with the help of maps, Michele Ruggieri (Luo Mingjian 㖻᱄฻) and Matteo Ricci (Li Madou ࡟⪠ヽ) had already contacted with Chinese literati and officialdom (Gernet, 1985: 15). In traditional researches, maps tend to be a value-free instrument. It is usually regarded as the objective representation of geographical space while little attention is paid to their subjective values and historical process of mapping (Harley, 1988). In fact, values are closely related to the presentation and representation of maps. Matteo Ricci modified the Euro- centric world map, placing China at the world’s centre, a clever manoeuvre which was recognized by the Emperor and his officials (Harley and Woodward, 1994: 172). This reflects an interactive and transcultural

© 2019 Jingdong YU - https://doi.org/10.3726/CUL022019.0004 - The online edition of this publication is available open access. Except where otherwise noted, content can be used under the terms of the Creative 45 Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0). For details go to http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ Jingdong YU / Transition in Knowledge of Chinese Geography in Early Modern… perspective of cartographic representation while most of those popular maps of China in the Europe around 18th century were the combination of western culture and eastern discoveries (Mungello, 1989: 123). Moreover, a cross-cultural travel of knowledge occurred in history during this process of cartographic interactions. This paper tries to analyse some popular maps of China in this period, investigating the disseminating process of Chinese geographical knowledge in Europe while rethinking its cartographic representation. In addition, it reviews the socio-historical process of producing European maps of China during the early 17th and 18th centuries; this enables us to understand the early exchanges between Chinese and Western civilizations from a spatial perspective.

I. EARLY GEOGRAPHY OF TRADE AND NAUTICAL MAPS

Before the 17th century, few maps of China were originally depicted in Europe. Most of the depictions about China were part of the world map (Mappa Mundi) or prevailing nautical maps (such as the portolan charts). China was usually located in a remote position on those maps, vaguely depicted with limited details. Most of these maps were made according to the cartographical principles of the classical period, which held that the earth was flat and boundless, meaning a map could be spliced together by linking many fragments of different proportions. Jerusalem, the Holy City of Christianity, was often located at the center of the whole image, while remote and unknown areas like China were frequently substituted with legendary monsters or savages concocted through the imagination. In a traditional perspective of Eurocentrism, most early European maps of China adhered to a dualist perspective characterized by Christian and barbarian division. Therefore, the absence of knowledge on Chinese geography and the wild imagination of Europeans were frequently combined with each other. After the 17th century, most popular maps of China produced in Europe came from the Flemish Region, which covers the Netherlands, Belgium and other traditional lowland countries. In 1584, Abraham Ortelius published The Map of China (Chinae, olim Sinarum regionis, nova descriptio, 1584, Fig. 1) drawn by Ludovico Georgio (also called Luis Jorge de Barbuda), which was in fact the first western map of China. In the earlier editions of Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the depiction of

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China was only part of the bigger region like the East Indies (Indiæ Orientalis Insularum que Adiacientium Typus, 1570). It also marked the beginning of wild imagination on the map giving way to pragmatic information gathered from trade and navigational sources. With overseas activities brought by the Age of Discovery and the opening of new sea routes, cities like Antwerp and Amsterdam had become centers of economic activity and hubs for information circulating in Europe. The business of navigation and exploration not only brought about a large amount of geographical knowledge and other relevant data to these port cities, but also integrated the early archives of China in Italy, Spain and Portugal, providing abundant materials for cartographers and the various industries involved in producing maps. In the latter, new commercial models of atlases and ideas of global trade combined, enabling the Flemish map industries to assume the leading role in Europe. Overseas business and economic trade not only contributed informational input, but also created systematic knowledge output under the motivation of providing services to travelers and publicising the information to the broader public. By the end of the 17th century, most of the new maps of China used by European businessmen and diplomats were made by Flemish cartographers. For example, in 1689, when China and Russia held their diplomatic negotiations on the northern border, Fyodor Alexeyevich Golovin, the Russian ambassador, was holding The Map of North- and East- Tartary (Nieuwe Lantkaarte van het Noorder en Ooster deel van Asia en Europa strekkende van Nova Zemla tot China, 1687) drawn by Nicolaas Witsen, a Dutch cartographer (Baddeley, 1916: 214-215).1 When those spatial materials and information were transmitted to the Netherlands and Belgium from overseas, other European regions such as France and Germany were also affected through the travel of geographical knowledge and its cartographic representation in map-making process. Paris also rose as a center of map-making in the late 17th century. In 1596, Johannes Metellus (also called Jean Matal) redrew a map of China (Regnum Chinae, 1596) according to Ludovico Georgio’s original copy (Guo, 2015: 59; Metellus, 1600). In this map, the author provided more extensive geographical information on bays, ports, rivers and coastal cities, which were also the areas where the western merchant ships probably passed. The figure of river system was extremely exaggerated in proportion while details about coastal islands and several neighboring peninsular countries were of high proportion, which suggests that Europeans knew more

47 Jingdong YU / Transition in Knowledge of Chinese Geography in Early Modern… about China’s coastal areas than its inland (Fig. 2). Later in France, this kind of cartographic method prevailed for a certain period. For example, in 1677, when Pierre Duval published his map of China (Carte du voyage des ambassadeurs de la Compagnie orientale des Provinces-Unies vers le Tartare, empereur de la Chine, 1677, Fig. 3), it was basically the same style with more accurate depiction and details since littoral area and river system continued to be focused on. Johannes Metellus’ map was originally drawn by the Portuguese (Ludovico Georgio) based on two kinds of sources. Firstly, the discovery and travel records sent back to Spain and Portugal from the eastern hemisphere like the East Indies and the Philippines. Secondly, historical archives and writings related to China like Discourse of the Navigation (Discurso de la navegacion, 1569-1577) written by Bernardino de Escalante, a Spanish geographer. Escalante had never been to China, but he organized the navigation records of Portuguese explorers and merchants and finished this book (Lach, 1994: 818-820). Duval’s map was similar in this way. However, in the late 17th century, Duval’s map was largely updated with new substantive information of Chinese geography. As we can see in the inscription of the map, it was drawn according to the newest travel records of the East India Company. Johan Nieuhof, a Dutchman who served as an envoy to China, followed the Dutch East India Company as an embassy from Guangzhou to Beijing, paying a formal visit to the emperor of China in 1655-1657 (Nieuhof, 1655). Like most of the newly drawn maps of China coming out around the middle of the 17th century, it focused on the depiction of waterways (canal, river, or narrow channel of sea) and coastlines. There was basically no detailed division of inland areas, let alone provincial borders. This turns out to be distinguishing feature of Flemish maps of China. In the same period, many maps published by Jodocus Hondius, Johannes Blaeu, Johannes Janssonius, and contemporaries were in this cartographic mode.2 It can be seen that most of China’s geographical images in early modern Europe sprang from the needs of overseas trade and economic exploration, and that the drawing of new maps was usually a simultaneous derivative of this process. As a result, spatial knowledge and geographical images of China tended to focus on the coastal areas and waterway system, with little depiction of inland areas. Concurrently, there was limited understanding of China as an overall political unit. Chinese geographical space accounted for only a fraction of total global trade and overseas undertakings.

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Fig. 1 Chinae, olim Sinarum regionis, nova descriptio. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE SH 18 PF 224 DIV 4 P 4 D.

Fig. 2 Regnum Chinae. Source: Johannes Metellus, Speculum orbis terrae auctore. Ursellis: Ex officina typographica Cornelius Sutor, 1600. The Renaissance Exploration Map Collection, Stanford University Libraries, http://purl.stanford.edu/fz395hx5971.

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Fig. 3 Carte du voyage des ambassadeurs de la Compagnie orientale des Provinces-Unies vers le Tartare, empereur de la Chine, les années 1655, 1656 et 1657, tirée de celle de Jean Nieuhoff. We can notice that the orientation of the map has changed from earlier style of west at the top to north at the top. Details are more abundant along the river system from the capital Beijing to the southern port Canton which might be the starting and terminal point of the Dutchmen’s voyage. Names of provinces have been marked roughly as well as their borders. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, CPL GE DD-2987 (7171). Johannes Nieuhof, Het gezantschap der Neêrlandtsche Oost-Indische Compagnie, aan den grooten Tartarischen Cham, den tegenwoordigen keizer van China. Amsterdam: Jacob van Meurs, 1665.

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II. THE HISTORICAL MAPS OF CHINA OF THE JESUITS IN THE 17TH CENTURY

In the mid-late 17th century, there was another route that served to spread the geographical knowledge from China to Europe, namely, the cultural route developed by missionary activities. With the development of Jesuit missionary expeditions in China, starting with Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci, some traditional Chinese maps (such as Guang yu tu ᔙ 䕵ൌ) had been brought back to Europe. At the end of the 16th century, Michele Ruggieri returned to Rome with a number of cartographic manuscripts drawn by the Jesuits and several volumes of Chinese classics like the Great Learning (daxue ཝᆮ) and others archives including certain maps. In the middle of the 17th century, Martino Martini (Wei Kuangguo 㺑ॗു) also brought local chronicles and traditional Chinese maps back to Amsterdam (Dewulf, Paraamstra and van Kempen, 2012: 100-106). These traditional Chinese maps were reedited by European cartographers in order to form a new map of China with details of inland provinces. This transition was clearly reflected in the map of China drawn by the French. Nicolas Sanson, the father of cartography in modern France, published a Flemish style map of China in 1655 (Sinarum regio et insulae Labadii, Sebadibae, Barussae, Sindae & c., 1655) in which Dutch cartographers’ engraved plate was still used. Thus, the main theme of this map included the coastal areas and southern islands such as the Indochina Peninsula, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, with relatively few inland details (see Fig. 4). However, in 1656, when Sanson published another Map of the Kingdom of China (La Chine Royaume, 1656, Fig. 5), the main content of the cartographic units, parameter standards, historical knowledge and geographic information presented was drastically different from the previous one, which represented another form of Chinese geography in Europe. As for the original manuscript of the map, Sanson explained in the inscription of the cartouche:

Cette Carte n’est qu’un abrégé d’une autre très belle, fort grande, et fort particulière; qui est dans le Cabinet de S. A. R. Monseigneur le Duc d’Orléans: la ou Matheo Neroni son Auteur assure qu’elle a été dressé dans Rome en 1590, et tirée de quatre divers Livres, imprimés dans la Chine; et don’t le P. Michel Ruggieri Jesuite donna l’explication à ce Neroni. Je n’ai peu mettre dans cet abrégé que les

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Villes du premier et du second rang; n’ayant eu assez de place pour tout le reste. This map was a simplification of another huge and particularly exquisite map collected by the Duke of Orleans, which was drawn by Matteo Neroni in Rome in 1590. He drew it based on the four Chinese books explained to Neroni by Jesuit priest Luo Mingjian (Père Michele Ruggieri). My simplified version only retains the most important and secondary important cities since there is no space to mark the rest places one by one. 3

According to the latest research, the four Chinese books mentioned in Sanson’s text could be the Civil and Military Government System of Ming Dynasty (Daming yitong wenwu zhusi yamen guanzhi ཝ᱄ж㎧ᮽ↜䄮ਮ㺏䮶 ᇎ㼳, 1579) since the original manuscript of Ruggieri’s Atlas of China (Atlante della Cina di Michele Ruggieri) came from it (Wang, 2013). The Civil and Military Government System of Ming Dynasty was reprinted in 1579 as part of the legal political corpus The System of the August Ming (Huangming zhishu ⲽ᱄㼳ᴮ, 1579εin four volumes (vol. 16-19). Those four volumes could be the quatre divers Livres mentioned by Sanson. Or at least Michel Ruggieri had already read them when he gave explanations to Matheo Neroni. In fact, many Jesuits like Ruggieri who had been to China started to depict their own map of China based on new materials. For example, Michael Boym (Bu Mige ঒ᖂṲ, Atlas Imperii Sinarum, 1650-1656) also made his map of China according to the same cartographic resource of Michele Ruggieri (Wang, 2014). As a European cartographer who ought to have more erudite and professional background, Sanson tended to selectively edit those original manuscripts. Therefore, he compared the Roman map of China with other contemporary versions:

J’ai eu la Chine du P. Martinius, et veu quelque chose de celle que le P. Bouyn veut donner au jour, et qu’il croit être la meilleure de toutes. La Chine du P. Martinius est en Seize différents Cartes, pour autant de provinces; mais qui ne sont pas plus amples; quelquefois moins que celle de Neroni; et quand j’ai voulu conférer ces Cartes les unes avec les autres, J’y ai trouvé une très grande différence, et dans les noms, et dans les nombres des Fu, qui sont les plus grandes Villes, et les Ceu qui sont les secondes; encore plus dans tout le reste: soit pour le plan de la Carte, soit pour la position des places.

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Ce qui me fait croire que ce Cartes sont tirées de divers Auteurs du Pays, et qu’il sera difficile d’en juger le meilleur. Nous en dirons quelque chose quand nous en aurons l’occasion. I have a map of China from Father Martino Martini, and I have seen the one about to be published by Father Michael Boym, which he thinks should be the best one. The former has sixteen provincial maps in total, but it is not as large as, and sometimes much smaller than Neroni’s map. When I tried to compare those maps, I found that there were huge differences in the number and names of Fu (major cities), Ceu (secondary cities) and other places. Either the entire plan or the positions of places were different. This made me believe that these maps came from different authors in different places. It is difficult to judge which should be the better. We can only adapt ourselves to changing circumstances.4

Another comparison occurred in the Atlas of Asia (L'Asie, en plusieurs cartes, 1658), Sanson attached a long article dedicated to the investigation of different Jesuits’ maps and their historical geography of China. In this article, he mentioned three latest maps of China drawn by Jesuits: one was Michele Ruggieri’s map; the other was Martino Martini’s; and the third one belonged to Michael Boym. For Sanson, these three Jesuits all had their own experiences of living in China. It was supposed to be consistent in terms of the plan, position, number and names of provinces and cities, rivers and lakes, etc. However, there were unexpected differences among the three maps, which highlighted the importance of distinguishing materials and historical clues in the process of map-making. Sanson clearly noticed the cartographical differences between Michele Ruggieri’s Atlante della Cina and Martino Martini’s Novus Atlas sinensis (1655) since they were depicted on two different Chinese materials. The former came from The Civil and Military Government System of Ming Dynasty while the latter drived from Guang Yu Kao ᔙ䕵㘹 and Guang yu tu ᔙ䕵ൌ (Masini, 2005: 69-70). This could be the explanation for differences of toponymy among these Jesuits’ maps of China. However, historical materials from China along with European cartographic methods helped the formation of a new model of map-making. In the middle and later periods of the 17th century, the maps of China drawn by Nicolas Sanson and his son Guillaume Sanson were mostly based on this model, that is, Cartographers’ editing based on the comparison and selection of Jesuits’ historical materials and

53 Jingdong YU / Transition in Knowledge of Chinese Geography in Early Modern… cartographic manuscripts. Another important issue is the nomenclature used to refer to the Chinese Empire. Sanson believed that Jesuits tried to use both Sinarum Regio and Scrica Regio, which already existed in the ancient Ptolemaic Period, to refer to China (Chine). However, most of the existing maps of China only included the southern region, which was only part of the Sinarum Regio and Scrica Regio. Although the northern Cathay also belonged to China, it was not drawn onto the map of China (Sanson, 1658: 76-77). This then indicated the orientation of new mapping in the next stage, that is, to fill the gap in knowledge of northern China. Jesuits’ activities and knowledge transmission in the 17th century not only brought about the ideological movement of the spread of Western learning to the East, but also transformed the European imagination of China from economic geography into historical and humanistic culture. China is not only a country that can be explored, understood and preached in, but also a civilization that enables communication, intercultural exchange and interactions. Most of the historical maps of China were integrated and reedited by erudite cartographers based on Jesuits’ materials. Despite their attribute as the result of commercial publication and map industries, historical maps and atlas of China were increasingly developed as the foundation of political geography. There are essential differences between these kinds of maps of China and Flemish maps: on one hand, historical maps abandon a universal perspective (Hofmann, 2000: 100). Although they are still a combination of various traditional manuscripts of China, the cartographers presented a historical space of the Chinese Empire, which was then a homogeneous space in which territories, divisions, political units, naturel environment and human activities were undoubtedly ensured in the historical narrative of China, making it much easier to write and read (Nordman, 1998: 45). On the other hand, map- making started to become a comprehensive project, which required statistical information and systematic gathering of knowledge in terms of astronomy, geography, economy, politics, history and even human civilization. An historical map is the representation of the relationship between geography and history with three main themes: the sovereign states (les Etats Souvrains), religious fields and language areas (Sanson, 168: 133-136).

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Fig. 4 Sinarum regio et insulae Labadii, Sebadibae, Barussae, Sindae & c. Compared to previous Flemish maps, Sanson only added up more information about longitudinal and latitudinal scale. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, CPL GE DD-2987 (10162).

Fig. 5 La Chine royaume. This is a totally different style of cartography with its focus on the inner land of China, representing a geographical information system. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE SH 18 PF 224 DIV 4 P 7 D.

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III. SCIENTIFIC CARTOGRAPHY OF THE FRENCH JESUITS

Two major problems characterize geographical information about China garnered from early traders and Jesuit historical maps. The first is that there was relatively large amount of errors among different versions of portolan charts based on records of navigation. There was a lack of unified data and scale specifications; most content ignored China’s inland regions or its entirety. The second is that historical maps collected and edited by the Jesuits were dependent on the original master copies of Chinese maps. There were not only considerable discrepancies between them in toponymy, but also tremendous mistakes in latitudinal and longitudinal information of the same places. Additionally, they knew very little about the northern part of the Chinese Empire, and neither business travel nor missionary activities could become allowed in this area, requiring more detailed geographical knowledge. Nevertheless, the main impetus for drawing a new map of China stemmed from Europe, as the French developed a new model of national cartographic project at the end of the 17th century. Nearly in the same period, Western Europe experienced a cartographic revolution. First, with the discovery of Ptolemy’s The Geography (Geographia Claudii Ptolemaei, 1406), modern cartographic methods, scientific research and low-cost printing technologies enabled the geographical knowledge system transformed into a new era (Branch, 2011). Second, the sovereign states rising in the political word had established a new spatial order. It had not only delimited national boundaries between modern polities in Europe, but also eliminated vestiges of medieval empire and feudalism, expanding this rational political space to the entire world. In this process, the mode of national cartography emerged as an historical phenomenon. Map- making had not only become an instrument for the government to consolidate its territory and borders, but also a symbol of a country’s political capability in terms of spatial monopolization. France became the center of European cartography during this period, with the national cartographic project initiated by the Royal Academy of Sciences (l’Académie royale des Sciences) in Paris. Louis XIV commissioned Jean- Dominique Cassini, an Italian astronomer, to be responsible for this scientific project. On the one hand, they carried out massive surveys and cartographic plans with new scientific technologies, forming a scientific cartography on the entire territory of France for the first time. On the

56 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(2)/2019: 45-65 other hand, the French expanded their mapping program overseas, sending Jesuits to measure latitudinal and longitudinal data while depicting areas around the world on new maps (Du and Han, 1992). China occupied a key position in Louis XIV’s overseas cartographic project. As a member of the French Jesuits’ mission to China in 1685, Guy Tachard recorded:

Depuis que le Roi a établi l'Académie Royale à Paris pour perfectionner les Sciences & les Arts dans son Royaume, ceux qui la composent, n’ont point trouvé de moyen plus propre à exécuter ce grand dessin, que d’envoyer des hommes savants faire des observations dans les Pays étrangers, afin de corriger par là Cartes Géographique, de faciliter la Navigation, & de perfectionner l’Astronomie……On cherchoit l’occasion d’envoyer encore d’autres Observateurs en divers endroits de l’Europe, à l’île de Fer d’où l’on prend le premier Méridien, aux Indes Orientales, & principalement à la Chine, où l’on savoit que depuis quatre mille ans les Arts & les Sciences fleurissent, où il y a des Livres sur toutes sortes de matières, & des Bibliothèques comparables aux plus belles de l’Europe, dans lesquelles on pourroit trouver dequoi enricher celle du Roi. Since the establishment of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris, the king has devoted himself to the development of science and arts in his kingdom. Finding no more proper way to realize this plan, he decided to send erudite scholars to do the observe in foreign places, so as to revise geographical maps, facilitate navigation and develop astronomy……Timely we send other observers to different places of Europe, such as the island of El Hierro (where we set the prime meridian), the East Indies and mainly China, where we know that arts and sciences have been blooming for four thousand years. There are different kinds of books and more exquisite libraries where we can find all we need to enrich our royal library (Tarchard, 1686: 1-2).

Furthermore, skilled cartographers such as Guy Tachard, Claude de Visdelou (Liu Ying ࢿ៿), Louis-Daniel Lecomte (Li Ming ᶄ᱄), Joachim Bouvet (Bai Jin ⲳ᱿), Jean de Fontaney (Hong Ruohan ⍠㤛㘦), and Jean-François Gerbillon (Zhang Cheng ᕫ䃖) were chosen to fulfill this task, bearing the title of King’s Mathematicians (mathematiciens du roi).

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Before their departure, Jean-Baptiste Colbert and Cassini arranged a particular conversation with the Jesuits, providing them with the latest scientific instruments, while Cassini also made the newest charts for measuring longitude and latitude (De Bossière, 1994: 21). Therefore, participating in the diplomatic negotiations between China and Russia in Nerchinsk in 1689, Jean-François Gerbillon measured the latitudes of various places during the journey to the north (Du Halde, 1735: 172). After their negotiations, the Kangxi Emperor received a map of northern China which was probably prepared by Gerbillion in advance. He then proposed a nationwide land survey and cartographic project (De Bossière, 1994: 69-70). In 1698, another French Jesuit Dominique Parrenin (Ba Duoming ᐪཐ᱄) also offered advice to the Kangxi Emperor. Parrenin pointed out that locations on traditional maps of China were inconsistent with measured data, which would affect governmental population control and land management capabilities. He suggested that a national survey should be carried out, and recommended the French mapping methodologies (Qin, 1997). For the French Jesuits, the purpose of drawing a new map of China was to innovate Chinese geography using Western systematic knowledge of these fields. The blank areas in the original maps of China made in Europe would be filled, and would act as a supplement to European knowledge of Chinese geography. Furthermore, Western cartography abandoned earlier premises for maps of China, reinterpreting it within a framework of Western knowledge. At first glance, this was another pragmatic perspective like that of the Flemish. The French Jesuits managed to make the Chinse Emperor believe that the Western-style maps were much more efficient on governance and public management. When the Baihe River near Beijing burst its banks in 1700, the Emperor commissioned the French Jesuits to conduct a survey while drawing a new map of the river and its basin in 1705. The efficiency and accuracy of this survey and its cartographic products satisfied the Kangxi Emperor. Then, two years later, the French were entrusted with another task of conducting a new survey and drawing the region of Beijing. They compared the new map with earlier maps, concluding that the new drawn was far more precise than the old one (Harley and Woodward, 1994: 180). In a deeper sense, it was also a fusion of Eastern geography and Western technology. Traditional Chinese rulers have long recognized the political significance of maps. As a part of their governance, maps were closely related to population, land and power, and there is even an old

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Chinese saying which goes, “A country’s territory should be mapped. The map includes the people and land in the territory”. In 1686, the Kangxi Emperor also said in his work Records of the Unity of the Great Qing (Da Qing Yi Tong Zhi ཝ␻ж㎧ᘍ) that “Mountains or rivers, lands or people, all could be governed within one hand once a map has been depicted, and I will personally read it during any gap in my busy schedule.” Since 1708, the French Jesuits had helped to apply Western-style cartographic technology to the mapping of the Chinese Empire, based on French national model of cartographic project. Joachim Bouvet, Jean Baptiste Regis (Lei Xiaosi 䴭ᆓᙓ), and Petrus Jartoux (Du Demei ᶒᗭ㗄), etc., presided over and completed the Chinese version of the Cassini project, which gave birth to the first scientific map in modern Chinese history— which was also the most accurate map of China at that time—Kang xi huang yu quan lan tu (ⲽ䕵ޞ㿳ൌ, Fig. 6).5

Fig. 6 Kangxi huang yu quan lan tu ⲽ䕵ޞ㿳ൌ. This is a digital assemblance of 40 copper plates. Source: Luís Saraiva and Catherine Jami, eds., Visual and Textual Representations in Exchanges Between Europe and East Asia 16th - 18th Centuries. New Jersey: World Scientific Publishing, 2018, p. 252. Wang Qianjin and Liu Ruofang, eds., Qingting sanda shice quantuji ␻ᔭпཝሜ③ޞൌ䳼, 3 vols., Beijing: Waiwen chubanshe, 2007.

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After the completion of Kang xi huang yu quan lan tu, all parts of this map were successively delivered to the Jesuit order of Paris. In 1720, Father Jean-Baptiste du Halde (Du Hede ᶒ䎡ᗭ), who was then in charge of the editing of the map in Paris, invited Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, the King’s ordinary Geographer (Géographe ordinaire du roi) at that time, to help him rearrange and combine them into one large map (Carte générale de la Chine Dressée sur les Cartes particulières que l'Empereur Cang-hi a fait lever sur les lieux par les RR. PP. Jésuites missionaires dans cet empire, 1730, Fig. 7). The official full image was eventually published in 1735 and included in Du Halde’s Description geographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie chinoise (ѣ㨥ᑓുޞᘍ Du Halde, 1735, Fig. 8). At that time, the accuracy of this new map of China surpassed all previous maps of China in Europe, almost attaining the accuracy of modern maps. Furthermore, there was clear progress in the descriptions of inland and northern areas compared to 17th century maps of China.

Fig. 7 Part of the Carte générale de la Chine Dressée sur les Cartes particulières que l'Empereur Cang-hi a fait lever sur les lieux par les RR. PP. Jésuites missionaires dans cet empire. We can see from the title that D’Anville edited these maps on the basis of French Jesuits’ survey in China. It shows clearly the details of each provinces’ geographical, territorial and administrative information. Other maps could be consulted in D’Anville’s Nouvel Atlas de la Chine published in 1737. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE C-9949; CPL GE DD-2987 (7144 B); GE DD-2035 (RES).

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IV. CONCLUSION

In early modern Europe, the Flemish region was the first place in producing new maps of China. Due to the overseas exploration and foreign trade, geographical descriptions of China rapidly abandoned imaginings from paganism and barbarism, turning to more practical data on natural geography, trade, and transport. Maps of China by Ortelius, Sanson and Du-Val were all seriously distorted; the coastlines, peninsulas and islands were more clearly depicted, and represented as larger in size, than the inland regions (see Fig. 1, 2, 3, 4). The limited information that was represented about inland areas had two significant features: firstly, it focused on the description of river systems, especially those conducive to navigation; secondly, there was little information on mountains, roads, divisions or place names, especially in figure 2 and figure 3. Differences between the coastal and inland maps show that geographical information about China obtained in early Europe was mostly based on feedback from exploration and trade mission. Maps served not only as navigational guides, but also as beacons for economic activities in the Age of Discovery.

Fig. 8 Carte la plus generale et qui comprend La Chine, la Tartarie Chinoise, et le Thibet Dressée sur les Cartes particulieres des RR PP Jesuites. This is actually the first image in volume 1 of Du Halde’s Description de la Chine. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE DD-2366 (1).

61 Jingdong YU / Transition in Knowledge of Chinese Geography in Early Modern…

The situation changed dramatically in 1656 with Sanson’s Map of the Kingdom of China. On the one hand, the continental part was less distorted and gradually approached the outline of modern maps of China. On the other hand, mountains, forests, deserts and provincial boundaries, cities and counties, were added in the details of descriptions of the inland areas, and the Great Wall also appeared on the map (see Fig. 5). According to Sanson’s own explanation, the leap in map quality was due to the master copies brought to Rome by the Jesuits, mostly from their early missionary activities in China. In contrast to the Flemish map-makers, Jesuit investigations of Chinese geography did not have an economic rationale. Instead, their goal was to understand China from a religious and civilizational perspective. Accordingly, we observe China’s political system, historical heritage, administrative divisions, and naming systems clearly reflected in late 17th century maps. Most of these maps were drawn by Jesuits, reflecting the change in knowledge level from that of natural geography, to that of human and historical geography. The maps depict China as an independent and complete political unit, with cartouches or written descriptions containing substantial information about Chinese history and civilization. Most of the early Jesuit maps of China took traditional Chinese maps (like Guang yu tu ᔙ䕵ൌ) as their main sources. The inland areas of the southwest and northwest, and those to the north of the Great Wall, were not clearly delineated, resulting in gaps when the maps were printed. The French Jesuits tried to solve this problem; in the details provided in Kang xi huang yu quan lan tu, and D'Anville’s new map of China, we can observe an abundance of content that has been added to the areas of Sichuan, Tibet, Xinjiang, and to the north of the Great Wall (see Fig. 7 and Fig. 8). The French Jesuits in the late 17th and early 18th centuries used a new cartographical model. This context was characterized by the rise of the modern European nation-states, and developments from the Enlightenment, with the art of governing (l’art de gouverner) under a combination of knowledge and power, beginning to become central to political society. Maps have since become the main means of spatial measurement and national administrative control, providing a reference for spatially understanding both the state, and the wider world. In contrast, the art of governing has also gradually developed through scientific knowledge gleaned from investigation, surveys, gathering statistics,

62 Cultura. International Journal of Philosophy of Culture and Axiology 16(2)/2019: 45-65 consistent use of scale, and recognized cartographical techniques. Rationalism thus began to become the guiding principle of national cartography during the Enlightenment. The new map of China was no longer a copy of an original master manuscript, but rather knowledge production based on scientific measurement, which represented a kind of scientific, rational, universal, and homogeneous space for knowledge. This moved in accordance with trends towards viewing the nation-state as defined by territorial space. In this process, maps were not only the result of producing spatial knowledge, but also the evidence of a society centered around the transformation of knowledge. At the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, Jesuits’ maps had played an important role in the diplomacy of the Qing Empire. Large-scale surveys and mapping of China led by the French Jesuits expedited the first scientific map of China, which was considered the most accurate map of Asia at that time (Needham, 1959: 497-590). In diplomatic negotiations between China and Russia in 1689, although the traditional concept of China as land under heaven (Tianxia ཟс) still dominated the consciousness of its ruling class, the Qing Empire also consciously made use of maps. The spatial knowledge reflected in European maps challenged the traditional Chinese order, not only by externally visualizing a space conceived as held within the Kangxi Emperor’s imagination, but also—after the Treaty of Nerchinsk—by introducing territorial borders as a container for national jurisdiction. The image of China underwent a transformational process from one based on trade-orientated geography, to an historical and human geography, to scientific rationality and sovereign diplomacy. New maps also provide conceptual space where they enable communication, exchange and cross-cultural interaction.

Notes

Grammatically proofread by Stephen Roddy, University of San Francisco.

1 Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, CPL GE DD-2987 (7372 B). 2 Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, CPL GE DD-2987 (7147). Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE SH 18 PF 224 DIV 4 P 5 D. Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, CPL GE DD-2987 (7148). 3 Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE SH 18 PF 224 DIV 4 P 7 D. Boleslaw Szczesniak, “Matteo Ricci’s maps of China.” Imago Mundi, vol.

63 Jingdong YU / Transition in Knowledge of Chinese Geography in Early Modern…

11, no. 1, (1954), p. 127. 4 Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans, GE SH 18 PF 224 DIV 4 P 7 D. 5 Chinese records about this project can be found in Shengzu Ren Huangdi shilu 㚌⾌ӷ ⲽᑓሜ䤺, Qing shilu ␻ሜ䤺, Beijing: Zhonghua shuju ed., 1986, (283), 10b-12b.

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