Albert Chan, Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome: A Descriptive Catalogue: Japonica Sinica I-IV; in H-Net Reviews [2003] (original) (raw)
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Journal of Jesuit Studies, 2022
The early Jesuit mission in China (1579-1724) has long been recognized as an extraordinary case of intellectual apostolate. Yet only recently have we come to know many important details about the backbone of that Jesuit project: the massive and systematic importation of European books and scientific instruments into China by generations of Jesuits and their uses of those materials via their libraries inside China. This is largely thanks to the efforts of Noël Golvers, particularly the publication of his three-volume magnum opus,
East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, 2011
In total, 281 medical and pharmaceutical books, and some journals (including 'general' ones, such as the Gazeta de Lisboa) are preserved in the so-called Beitang collection (Peking). These, in the main, originate from the pre-1773 Jesuit collections in Peking and elsewhere. They constitute, together with other written sources, a primary source reflecting the medical aspect of the Jesuit presence and activities in seventeenth till eighteenth century China. It is possible to identify a core of 68 items brought to Peking in 1623. This is followed by a decline (in the number of acquisitions, and probably interest in upgrading the collection), until in 1685 Ferdinand Verbiest tried to provide fresh impulse to book acquisition, without significant results. Yet, medical books continued to arrive until the very end of the Jesuit presence in Peking, apparently more often at the (French) Beitang than the Portuguese college (Nantang), with its strong focus on mathematics, linked to the activities in the Astronomical Bureau of its residents. I try to tease out details of the identity of the brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
Jesuit Accounts of Chinese History and Chronology and their Chinese Sources
2012
When Jesuit missionaries went to China in the seventeenth century , they discovered that Chinese history was in many regards apparently longer than the history as presented by the Bible. Subsequently, they started to translate Chinese histories, which they sent back to Europe, and which in the eighteenth century were adopted by Enlightenment thinkers for their own purposes. The European side of this story is quite well known, but what about the Chinese side? What sources did the Jesuits use and how did these sources interpret ancient history? As part of a larger project, these questions about the Chinese sources are answered from an intercultural perspective. The missionaries not only used classical Chinese histories written during the Song dynasty (960-1279), but also numerous newly edited or newly composed works from the seventeenth century. While they themselves originated from a Europe in which the ars historica was in full transition, they met a situation in China where new approaches to history had emerged. They used comprehensive histories , such as the one by the late Ming scholar Nan Xuan 南軒, or the more widespread genres, such as gangjian 綱鑑 (outline and mirror) histories, which from the late eighteenth century fell into oblivion. In fact, the sources used by the Jesuits not only throw light on their own compilations that 12 EASTM 35 (2012) were ultimately sent to Europe, but also on the writing of history in China in the late Ming (1368-1644) and the early Qing dynasties (1644-1911).
This article introduces the recent bibliographical research on Kirishitan-ban, a series of books published by the Jesuit mission press in Japan in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Afterwards, the books were dispersed through political turmoil; some are still to be found scattered across the world. In addition, the study presents a textual comparison of some Kirishitan-ban with their European originals, in order to examine the compilation and translation policies of the Jesuits in Japan. Authors or editors sometimes manipulated or revised important sections, for instance omitting a statement on predestination or adding a discourse on the immortality of the soul, illustrating the Jesuits' strategy of balancing the Japanese and the European-Catholic intellectual climates of their time. Analyzing both the books and their contents will contribute to the study of the globalization of Jesuit intellectual history and library research.
Asian Review of World Histories, 2024
Over recent decades, studies on the Jesuits’ activities in China and elsewhere have been considerably facilitated by collated and published correspondence written in Western languages. In order to broaden this scholarly discussion by including more sources from the Chinese side, this article makes a modest contribution by translating and analyzing two letters from Zhu Shi 祝石 (1602–after 1689), a remnant of the Ming dynasty and a Chinese Catholic, to Lodovico Buglio (1606–1682) and Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688), two Jesuit missionaries at the Manchu court. Transcriptions of the two letters are found in the collected works of Zhu, Zhi hao hao xue lu 知好好學錄 (Records of knowing how to appreciate good learning; n.d.). Noteworthy subjects reflected in the letters include, among others, Zhu’s involvement in the translation and revision of Buglio’s Chaoxingxue yao 超性學要 (Essentials of transcendental nature studies; 1654–1677), a contemporary explanation of the obstacles facing evangelism in China, and Verbiest’s cannon-casting activities during the Revolt of the Three Feudatories (or the San-Fan War; 1673–ca. 1681). A close examination of these two letters not only broadens the understanding of the social networks of the two missionaries and provides supplementary historical details, but also calls attention to the value of correspondence between Chinese literati and the missionaries.