Authors: Michela Fontana
The tower was situated on the Hill of the Purple Mountains near the center of the city, surrounded by luxuriant woods and not far from the tomb of Hongwu, the first Ming emperor. The astronomers kept watch every night from a large terrace known as the Pavilion of the Pole Star to record celestial movements and report on any unusual phenomena to the court. On being taken to the top of the building, the Jesuit was astonished to discover a number of large instruments that were not only expertly cast in bronze but were also technologically advanced and unquestionably the work of highly skilled astronomers.
13
Ricci saw a huge globe designed to represent the celestial sphere, so big that “three people could not have embraced it.”
14
This was mounted on a hollow cube of bronze fitted with machinery to make it rotate. There was a massive armillary sphere—from the Latin
armilla
, meaning “bracelet”—supported by columns with a relief decoration of dragons swooping through clouds. Known ever since ancient times both in China and in the West, and consisting of concentric rings of wood or metal representing the great circles on the celestial sphere,
15
this device was used to observe the stars and record their coordinates by means of the graduated scale on the ring taken as reference. The armillary spheres produced in the West and China were similar in conception but differed in terms of the ring used to calculate the position of the celestial bodies, as Europeans used the ecliptic and the Chinese the equator. Moreover, the sphere representing the earth usually placed at the center of Western instruments was traditionally replaced in China with a sighting tube that could be rotated to point at the star whose position in the sky was to be determined.
Ricci also saw a gnomon, a metal rod of about twelve meters mounted vertically on a long, graduated slab of marble laid horizontally to point north, so that the shadow cast on the slab indicated the height of the sun above the horizon. This was used to measure the passing of time and to determine latitude.
What most impressed Ricci, however, was an enormous piece of equipment with a rectangular base of four meters by five that looked like a set of juxtaposed astrolabes. This was in fact an instrument quite similar to the one called a “torquetum” in the West, an instrument consisting of several interconnecting armillary spheres that was used to observe stars and give their position. Developed by the Arabs and then adapted by the Chinese to their equatorial astronomical system, this device can be considered the ancestor of modern telescopes with equatorial mounts. The bronze again bore a finely chased decoration of enormous dragons and clouds. Like the other instruments, the torquetum had grooves in the base that could be filled with water to make sure that it was dead level.
Ricci admired the beauty of the instruments and the decorations, which indicated an uncommon mastery of the technique of casting in bronze, an art in which the Chinese already excelled in the seventeenth century
bc
.
16
Above all, however, he marveled at the evident astronomical expertise of their designer. Closer examination then revealed that the instruments were not calibrated for the latitude of Nanjing,
17
which seemed inexplicable. Who could have made them? And where? The astronomers told him very vaguely that the equipment was very ancient, and its origin was lost in the mists of time. Ricci was convinced that they were the work of some foreigner deeply versed in Western science, finding it impossible to believe that such peaks of technological mastery and astronomical knowledge were possible in China.
In actual fact, however, the instruments had been made in China three hundred years earlier, in the Yuan era, by the great astronomer, engineer, and mathematician Guo Shoujing, appointed by Kublai Khan to reform the calendar and the inventor in 1281 of the division of the year that was still used, with few variations, in the Ming era.
18
It was precisely in order to make the calculations necessary for drawing up the new calendar that the scientist had had numerous astronomical instruments made, including those that so impressed Ricci. They were, however, calibrated for localities other than Nanjing, and the modifications required for their correct use were not carried out when the equipment was subsequently transported to the capital of the Jiangsu province. This had no practical consequences, as the officials at the observatory had no idea how they worked and had never tried to use them, as they confessed to Ricci’s increasing amazement.
The Jesuit paid tribute to the high degree of scientific and technological expertise displayed by the Chinese equipment in his history of the mission: “These instruments are all cast in bronze with a great deal of work and decoration, so large and fine that the father had seen nothing better in Europe, and had been there for about two hundred and fifty years in the rain and snow without being ruined.”
19
Ricci’s wonder and admiration were completely justified. Though dating back to the thirteenth century, Guo’s instruments had hitherto remained the most advanced devices for astronomical observation in the world. It was precisely during Ricci’s years in Nanjing that their precision was surpassed for the first time in the West by the instruments produced in the Uraniborg observatory by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, the most meticulous observer of the heavens in that era.
20
Brahe also adopted the equatorial system of reference used in China
21
for the first time in his equipment, thus attesting indirectly to the validity of ancient Chinese astronomy.
Notes
1.
Tao Te Ching
, 42, trans. James Legge, in The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 39 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1891).
2. Cit. in Jacques Gernet,
Chine et christianisme
, pp. 294–95.
3. FR, book IV, ch. IV, p. 47.
4. Chinese music does not follow the Western rules of harmony and therefore proves difficult for the unaccustomed listener to understand and appreciate.
5. A form of worship developed by Lin Zhaoen. See Jacques Gernet,
Chine et christianisme
, pp. 106 ff.
6. FR, book IV, ch. VI, p. 69.
7. See Jacques Gernet,
Chine et christianisme
, p. 30. The Duke of Zhou is a figure of the ancient Chinese tradition regarded as the founder, together with the sovereigns Wen and Wu, of the Zhou dynasty of the first millennium
bc
.
8. FR, book IV, ch. V, p. 55.
9. Printed in Nanjing (1599–1600) and then Beijing (1601). See FR, book IV, ch. V, p. 52.
10. Globes of excellent workmanship had also been made in China since ancient times but were used to represent the heavenly vault and the major constellations rather than the earth.
11. Paolo Dal Pozzo Toscanelli (1397–1482), mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer, responsible together with Brunelleschi for the calculations for the construction of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence. His fame also rests on a letter to Columbus arguing that the shortest route to the East was across the Atlantic.
12. Born into a patrician family in Verona, Girolamo Fracastoro (1478–1553) was a physician and poet as well as a botanist, geologist, paleontologist, cartographer, and astronomer. He taught at the University of Padua and is considered the father of epidemiology.
13. Copies of these instruments can still be seen today in the ancient observatory of Nanjing.
14. See FR, book IV, ch. V, pp. 56 ff, for a description of the visit.
15. Including the meridian, which runs between the poles of the celestial sphere, the equator resulting from the intersection of the plane of the terrestrial equator with the celestial vault, the horizon, which forms a right angle with the vertical running through the point where the observer is located, and the ecliptic, the line that follows the apparent path of the sun in the sky during the year.
16. The Chinese were also the first to cast iron, a process developed in the fourth century
bc
, if not earlier.
17. They were calibrated for a latitude of 36°, whereas Nanjing was located at 32°15’.
18. See chapter 7 (“Minister Wang and the Reform of the Calendar”).
19. FR, book IV, ch. V, p. 56.
20. The Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) made the most precise astronomical observations with the naked eye before the introduction of the telescope. He built the Uraniborg observatory on the island of Hven, which he received as a gift from Frederick II of Denmark in 1576, and developed a geocentric model of the planetary system that was more advanced than the Ptolemaic and found support among many seventeenth-century astronomers until the definitive acceptance of the Copernican system.
21. The equatorial system of reference was subsequently adopted in the West too.
v
From Nanjing to Tianjin, 1599–1600
Li Madou has lived in the Middle Kingdom for a long time. He is no longer a foreigner but Chinese, as he belongs to China.
—Guo Qingluo
1
The Master said, “Exemplary persons learn broadly of culture, discipline this learning through observing ritual propriety, and moreover, in so doing, can remain on course without straying from it.”
—Confucius,
Analects
(6, 27)
No one has ever heard of a Lord of Heaven nailed to scaffolding in the shape of ideogram number ten.
—Lifa Lun
2
The Eunuchs, the Emperor’s Private Bureaucracy
It was the month of April 1599. The heat and humidity in Nanjing were already stifling. Flowers bloomed in the gardens, and the branches of the trees were covered with the first bright green leaves. The ice blocking the rivers and canals had melted in the north, and Ricci anxiously awaited the arrival of Lazzaro Cattaneo from Linqing with the baggage and the gifts for the emperor. He knew that it was dangerous to travel back along the Imperial Canal to Nanjing without an escort because the social situation had become unstable after the end of the war in Korea. The expense of six years of fighting (1592–1598) with the mobilization of over two hundred thousand soldiers had drained the state coffers, and the emperor had levied a new tax on commerce in all the provinces that weighed upon merchants and above all small shopkeepers. This created widespread discontent and fears of revolt in an age already plagued by popular uprisings.
In order to increase its revenues, the government also ordered the reopening of silver and gold mines, previously closed to prevent pillaging by bandits, and entrusted their management to the
taijian
, or eunuchs, who were also responsible for collecting taxes. The eunuchs were well known to be unscrupulous and to abuse their power for purposes of extortion. Some worked in cahoots with common criminals, claiming that the homes of wealthy merchants were built on top of silver mines and threatening demolition unless the owners agreed to hand over huge sums of money. Everyone submitted out of fear, but hatred of the eunuchs grew, together with terror at the idea of having anything to do with them. Scholars and officials loathed them but had no effective defense against their oppression, because the
taijian
constituted a structure parallel to the state bureaucracy, many of whose functions they had usurped, and answered only to the emperor. Ricci also despised them and described them as “idiotic, barbaric, arrogant people with no shame or conscience.”
3
While trying to avoid them as much as possible, he was beginning to realize that the closer you got to the imperial court, the more you had to come to terms with them.
The most powerful of the thousands of eunuchs living in Nanjing was Feng Bao, who allowed himself the luxury of a litter with eight bearers, like the most authoritative mandarins. Ricci’s friends advised him to go and pay his respects, as Feng Bao’s favor was an essential prerequisite for a peaceful existence in Nanjing. The Jesuit reluctantly agreed but confined himself on entering the potentate’s presence to pronouncing the customary conventional phrases rather than kneeling down and wishing him “one thousand years of life,” as was customary for the most influential figures.
4
Fortunately, the eunuch was hard of hearing, and his secretaries, when called upon to repeat Ricci’s words in a loud voice, took advantage of this to insert the greeting on their own initiative. Feng Bao felt that he had been treated with due respect, and Ricci had the satisfaction of sticking to his guns, even refusing the secretaries’ request to leave a prism as a gift for their master. Feng Bao had been in close contact with Wanli many years earlier, acting as a sort of minder when the emperor was still a child and reigned under the tutelage of the grand secretary Zhang Juzheng.
The Son of Heaven had become attached to the eunuch, affectionately calling him “great companion” and often climbing onto his knee like a child. Thanks to the emperor’s protection, Feng Bao, who had no education but was an excellent chess player and a competent amateur musician, had been appointed master of ceremonies and was thus in charge of the court personnel and the secret police. Wanli had always considered him a faithful ally until he was discovered some ten years earlier to have amassed a fortune in exchange for granting favors to corrupt officials, whereupon he had fallen into disgrace and had his property confiscated. Banished from Beijing, Feng Bao had succeeded in establishing a predominant position in the second capital over the years.
5
A constant factor in the history of the Chinese empire from the earliest times, eunuchs were initially employed as domestic servants in the imperial palace, above all to serve the concubines, but their functions were gradually extended to being a sort of private bureaucracy for the emperor. Their numbers and influence reached unprecedented levels in the Ming era, and in Ricci’s day there were seventy thousand in the whole of China, twenty thousand of whom lived in the Imperial City as its dreaded custodians. Their numbers were to grow still further and reach a total of one hundred thousand by the end of the dynasty, with seventy thousand resident in the capital. The great majority were from poor families that decided to have one of their sons castrated and present him to the court as a servant, thus ensuring him safe and permanent employment. The families of those with successful careers in the imperial palace enjoyed privileges comparable to those of the wealthiest classes.
Realization that the growing influence of the
taijian
threatened to undermine the stability of the state prompted the first Ming emperor, Hongwu, to prohibit their education and to make any interference on their part in government affairs punishable by beheading. His orders were disregarded, however, and a palace school reserved exclusively for eunuchs was founded in 1426. The best students were allowed to continue their studies to levels of learning on a par with the Confucian literati, and those who reached the highest positions were capable of drafting notes for the emperor in an impeccable style fully comparable with the unsurpassable productions of the grand secretaries and the members of the Hanlin Academy.
The niche that the eunuchs had carved out for themselves constituted a contradiction within the state, whose official Confucian ideology envisaged no role for them other than that of palace servants. In actual fact, they now held key positions in the court, the provincial administration, the army, and the secret police. They were in charge of collecting duties and taxes, they managed state industries and controlled entire sectors of commerce, and they were employed as envoys on missions of foreign policy. They had also become the only channel for the transmission of memorials to the court, which gave them enormous power over even the most important government officials. Without drastic intervention on the part of the emperor, which was highly unlikely, it was now impossible to curb their ambitions, especially as they were not subject to investigation by the censors, as state officials were.
The history of the Ming dynasty was full of examples of powerful and corrupt eunuchs manipulating emperors of weak character, and everyone knew that Wanli was more of a puppet than any previous ruler. As Ricci learned, isolated officials had endeavored to rebel against the eunuch’s excesses many times in the history of the dynasty, even at the cost of their lives, but their efforts always ended in failure. The unchallenged power of the emperor’s private bureaucracy constituted one of the greatest political problems of the Chinese empire in the late Ming era.
A Chinese Name for Europe:
The Second Edition of the Map of the World
Lazzaro Cattaneo and his companions arrived in Nanjing without incident in May 1599, and Ricci set about finding a house for sale. The search proved harder than expected, but then, as luck would have it, a somewhat unusual transaction was proposed by Liu Douxu, the orthodox Confucian scholar who had clashed with Li Ruzhen. Having built himself a large house three years earlier in strict accordance with the geomancers’ indications, he nevertheless found that it was haunted by evil spirits. Exorcism by Taoist monks, who endeavored to dislodge the unwelcome guests by slashing the walls with sharp swords, proved completely ineffective. The ghosts were still there, and everyone attempting to stay even one night in the house ended up fleeing in terror. Liu Douxu offered Ricci the property at half price, pointing out that the virtuous Xitai could certainly count on the aid of his god, the Lord of Heaven, to defeat the forces of evil.
This excellent piece of business was transacted in just three days. The building was spacious, located on a hill offering protection from the recurrent floods, and had enough rooms to accommodate Ricci, Lazzaro Cattaneo, Sebastião Fernandes, Manuel Pereira, the servants, and the new converts. The Jesuits took the precaution of sprinkling all the rooms with holy water on moving in, but no hostile spirit came to trouble them that night or any other. Pleased to show that the missionaries were immune to local demonic influences, Ricci had the governor’s edict confirming the Jesuits’ permission to reside in Nanjing and ownership of the property hung in the entrance.
After taking up residence, the missionaries allowed themselves to be persuaded to place the gifts for the emperor on display to the local dignitaries in one room. The influx of visitors was far greater than expected and soon swelled to the proportions of an authentic invasion, with people pouring in at every hour of the day to admire the products of another culture, entranced by the prisms emitting beams of colored light and the magic of the mechanical clocks. The “bells that rang by themselves” so captivated the Chinese imagination that Ricci became a sort of patron saint of clockmakers after his death and was remembered in this role as a minor divinity at least until the early years of the twentieth century, when some clock sellers still hung his portrait in their shops.
The paintings also caused astonishment for their use of oil paints, the extraordinary realism of the faces, and the sense of depth obtained through the technique of perspective. This wonder was justified because ink was used for most of the painting in China, the techniques were different from those in Europe, and the art of portraiture had developed above all in the context of the cult of the ancestors to produce images of the deceased for display on altars. Moreover, various types of perspective were used in the same painting rather than the single linear perspective of Europe. Little importance was attached to showing the direction of the light or reducing the size of distant objects with respect to those in the foreground. In some typically Chinese paintings, where the painter was capable of capturing minute details of nature such as the beating of a bird’s wings or the darting of a fish in a pond, rendering the idea of movement in a few delicate strokes, the background was omitted entirely. Ricci was insensitive to the peculiar beauty of Chinese painting: “They do not know how to paint in oils or to give shadows to the things they paint, and so all their pictures are dull and lifeless.”
6
Worn out after days of constant visits going on until late in the evening, Ricci decided to move the gifts to the house of the censor Zhu Shilin and to send the two clocks to Nanchang until it was time to take them to Beijing. Even in the absence of these objects, however, the visitors continued to pour in. The exhausted Jesuit wrote to Girolamo Costa in the only surviving letter of the Nanjing period, dated August 14, 1599, complaining that he often found no time to eat because of all the people he had to receive: “They flock to see me like lunatics.”
7
Some wanted to ask Li Madou for mathematical explanations, and others to discuss moral questions. Wizards came knocking every so often to talk about alchemy. Many who had read or heard about the treatise on friendship asked Ricci about the customs and way of life in the “Far West,” and he took advantage of this to paint an idyllic picture of Europe as a peaceful country free of conflict, where the Christian religion was practiced, the poor and needy were taken care of, and the moral virtues were practiced, and where it was the custom to take just one wife and remain together all through life.
The missionary’s carefully edited account omitted all mention of the wars that soaked the European continent in blood, the plagues and famines that decimated nations, the rift between Catholics and Protestants, the widespread violence and injustice at all levels of society, and the ruthless crushing of all those who dared to challenge the dominant culture, such as Giordano Bruno, burned at the stake in 1600 for refusing to recant his beliefs. When Ricci talked about the pope, how he was elected by the assembly of cardinals, the role he played, and how he was honored by the faithful, his listeners were astonished. They could not understand how it was possible for the authority of a sovereign other than the emperor to be recognized or for a religion independent of the temporal power to exist. In China, the Son of Heaven was the absolute authority in both the political and the spiritual field, and he supervised the rituals of popular worship. Even a structured and organized religion like Buddhism was only tolerated because it was integrated into the social and political structure and was strictly subordinate to state control. Great importance was attached throughout Chinese history to combating the proliferation of uncontrolled cults and unorthodox sects, which were regarded as a threat to the established order.
Some of the visitors were familiar with Ricci’s planisphere because they had been able to examine copies or because they had seen it cited and reproduced in works by Chinese authors. One of the most famous of these was the “universal map of the countless countries of the world, with an outline of past and present events” produced in 1593 by the well-known
shidafu
Liang Zhou, who presented Ricci’s work with these flattering words: “I recently saw the map of Li Madou with his notes . . . and became aware for the first time of the immensity of the heavens and the earth.”
8
Those impressed by the Jesuit’s knowledge of geography included an important official at the Nanjing ministry of personnel named Wu Zhongming but better known as Wu Zuohai, who suggested that he should produce a new and expanded version of the map and asked for permission to use the engraved wood blocks to make copies for friends.