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Print This Article 122 EASTM 24 (2005) Noёl Golvers, Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623-1688) and the Chinese Heaven: The Composition of the Astronomical Corpus, its Diffusion and Reception in the European Republic of Letters. Leuven: Leuven University Press Fer- dinand Verbiest Foundation (Leuven Chinese Studies XII), 2003. 676 pp. Keizo Hashimoto [Keizo Hashimoto is Director of the Graduate School of Sociology, Kansai Uni- versity, Osaka. He published Hsü Kuang-ch’i and Astronomical Reform: The Process of the Chinese Acceptance of Western Astronomy, 1629-1635 (Osaka: Kansai University Press,1988), and co-edited East Asian Science: Tradition and Beyond. Papers from the Seventh International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia [Kyoto, 2-7 August 1993], with the same publisher in 1995. He is currently working on the problem of Confucianism and science relating to the Jesuit adaptation to China and the Chinese acceptance of European cosmol- ogy and astronomy.] Golvers has already published the Astronomia Europaea of Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (Dillingen, 1687): Text, Translation, Notes and Commentaries (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series XXVIII, Nettetal: Steyler Verlag, 1993). Prior to that, he had also published—together with Ulrich Libbrecht, who contributed the introductory part—Astronoom van de Kaizer: Ferdinand Verbiest en zijn Eu- ropese Sternkunde (Leuven, 1988), in which he started his work on Verbiest’s achievements. We thus have to read these three books by the same author for a proper review of the newly published book. Luckily I was staying at K. U. Leu- ven when Golvers was translating the Astronomia Europaea into English. Hence I felt very happy when the editor of EASTM asked me to review the book (2003) for the journal, although it eventually took me a long time to finish this task! As the author writes in the introduction for the Monumenta Serica Mono- graph Series XXVIII, the Astronoom van de Kaizer was a first attempt at the interpretation and translation of the Astronomia Europaea (hereafter abridged as AE).1 It is very interesting to note that the publication of this work reported the surprising and crucial discovery of the existence of the Compendium historicum de astronomia apud Sinas restituta (CH) and Astronomiae apud Sinas restitutae mechanica centum et sex figures adumbrate (M) of 1676 by E. Nicholaïdis in Athens in 1992 [p. 28]. 2 These materials are evidence of Verbiest’s earliest dispatch of his achievements to Moscow in 1676 (pp. 182, 284). Together with 1 Golvers (1993), p. 46. 2 E. Nicolaïdis (ed.), “Les Grecs en Russie et les Russes en Chine au XVIIième siècle contexte de la copie par Chrysanthos des livres astronomiques ‘perdus’ de Verbiest,” Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences, 44 (1994): pp. 271-308. Reviews 123 the Ceyan jilüe 測 験 紀 略 (CY), i.e., Compendium Libri Observationum (1676- ) and Libri Organici (1677-1678), they came to be included in the AE. Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (Nan Huairen 南 懷 仁) was, as is well known, a Flemish-Belgian missionary in China. After having studied and taught at Leu- ven, Rome, and Coimbra, Verbiest left Europe in 1657 and arrived in Beijing in 1660, where he first supported Johann Adam Schall von Bell, S.J. (1591-1666, Tang Ruowang 湯 若 望) in his calendrical work at the Bureau of Astronomy. Soon, however, they were accused by Yang Guangxian 楊 光 先 in 1664, and Verbiest was prosecuted and sentenced to death. Schall died during house-arrest, but Verbiest and European astronomy were eventually rehabilitated in 1678. The Astronomia Europaea is an extensive report sent back to Europe of his activities linking astronomical rehabilitation to the primary goal of the religious mission. Indeed, Verbiest wrote in the Preface of AE: “Hence, when showing the rehabili- tation of our astronomy in China in this compendium, I am showing the rehabili- tation of our Religion at the same time.”3 For a proper understanding of the components of the AE corpus (chapter 8, pp. 97-173), we first have to refer to the monograph of 1993 by the same author. Golvers’ translation in Monumenta Serica Monograph Series XXVIII shows us the content of the Astronomia Europaea. In the Preface, as we have just seen, Verbiest stresses that the restoration of European astronomy was the sole and immediate cause of the rehabilitation of Catholic religion in China. Secondly, the aim of the AE is to illustrate the observatory and the instruments at the Astro- nomical Bureau in China, the directors of which were previously Schall and then Verbiest. This was intended for a European readership, for who the structure, function as well as ceremonies of the Bureau needed to be explained. Next, the AE gives a detailed survey of the introduction of European mathe- matics at the Beijing imperial court. Four years after the persecution had begun, Verbiest, as the successor to Schall, replied to an inquiry of the prefects of the Supreme Board, the Gelao 閣 老, pointing out mistakes in the calendar of the next year (the eighth year of the Kangxi reign-period, 1669/1670), the most serious among them being the insertion of an intercalary month. No such thir- teenth month should have been inserted, but as the calendar had already been published and promulgated in all the provinces of the whole empire, this became a great state scandal. Verbiest and his fellow fathers were invited to the Inner Court of the Palace and ordered to observe the heavens and to correct the calendar by means of the gnomon at the observatory of Beijing. After the observational demonstrations had been completed, the emperor sent the calendar over to Verbiest to be exam- ined by him. Verbiest identified all the errors and presented them to the Emperor in a petition. Thereupon the Deliberative Council decided that this case should be settled with heaven as witness. After a new round of observations of the sun 3 Golvers (1993), p. 57. 124 EASTM 24 (2005) and of other planets at the observatory, it was decided that all astronomical mat- ters should be entrusted to Verbiest and that his adversaries, including Yang Guangxian, should be imprisoned. The intercalary month was deleted and an imperial decree was promulgated to this effect. Verbiest also describes how each year the calendar was presented to the Emperor and the mandarins. Verbiest further gives an account of the prognostication of natural phenom- ena and eclipses, as well as the ceremoniousness and rigour maintained during the observations at the Astronomical Bureau. The specific tasks of the three sections of the Bureau are also explained in chapter 11 of AE, where he proudly reports on the recently (1678) published Eternal Calendar of the Kangxi Em- peror (Kangxi yongnian libiao 康 煕 永 年 暦 表), 32 juan, which “should be preserved among the Annals of the empire, to be remembered for all eternity” [p. 82]. Verbiest’s astronomical observations of 1668 and 1669, which corre- sponded exactly to his calculations, resulted in his appointment as Supreme Director of the Bureau of Astronomy. Moreover, he received high honorary titles, such as tongfeng dafu 通 奉 大 夫 or Grand Master for Thorough Service. The story of the restoration process of European astronomy was described by him in a Chinese treatise entitled Ceyan jilüe 測 験 紀 略 (CY) in 1668. Chapter 12 of the Astronomia Europaea presents an explanation of the eight last figures from the Liber Observationum (‘Book of Observations’) as well as the twelve first figures of the Liber Organicus (‘Book of Instruments’). The more detailed Chinese counterparts are the Xinzhi Lingtai yixiang zhi 新 製 靈 臺 儀 象 志, juan 14 (Treatises) and the Yixiang tu 儀 象 圖, jüan 2 (Figures, 117 plates), presented to the throne in 1674. After astronomy, mathematical sciences were also welcomed by the Emperor and thus gradually entered the imperial court. First Verbiest mentions geometry, arithmetic, cosmography and geodesy (chap. 13). Then he explains other mathematical sciences, namely, gnomonics, ballistics, hydragogics, mechanics, optics, catoptrics, perspective, statics, hydrostatics, hydraulics, pneumatics, music, horologic technology and meteorology (chap. 14-27). At the end of the AE he concludes that the great authority and prestige the missionaries gained in China was due to the introduc- tion and use of the above-mentioned sciences [chap. 28, p. 130]. “On the occa- sion of the celebration of the first decade of the rehabilitated European astron- omy in Beijing [in 1678/1679], the texts of Compendium Latium [CL, 1678], Compendium Historicum [C.H., 1676], and Mechanica [M, 1676] were joined together into a new work, the Astronomia Europaea” [p. 34]. Now we are ready to understand how the author, in the present work of 2003, presents the Astronomia Europaea against the background of Verbiest’s astro- nomical and missionary activities in Beijing, and explores the transmission to Europe and prevalence there of the results of Verbiest’s contributions to Chinese astronomy. In his exhaustive work, Golvers begins with a description of the setting and pedigree of the AE, published in Dillingen in 1687. He points out that the Astronomia Europaea corpus is presented as an allegory in which the real hero is Religio Christiana and her supporter Astronomia (Europaea), accompa- Reviews 125 nied by other European mathematical sciences, all personified as Muses (p. 23). The allegory itself expresses the two crucial ideas that guided the publication in Europe: the first is the instrumentality of Astronomia for Religio Christiana, i.e. the role of astronomy in the restoration of the Christian mission in China as well as in safeguarding its position; the second is the supremacy of astronomy over the other mathematical sciences at that time.
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