Kunyu Wanguo Quantu
Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, printed in China at the request of the Wanli Emperor during 1602 by the Italian Catholic missionary Matteo Ricci and Chinese collaborators, Mandarin Zhong Wentao and the technical translator, Li Zhizao, is the earliest known Chinese world map with the style of European maps. It has been referred to as the Impossible Black Tulip of Cartography, "because of its rarity, importance and exoticism". The map was crucial in expanding Chinese knowledge of the world. It was eventually exported to Korea then Japan and was influential there as well, though less so than Alenio's Zhifang Waiji.
Description
The 1602 Ricci map is a very large, high and wide, woodcut using a pseudocylindrical map projection showing China at the center of the known world. The 1906 Eckert IV map resembles the display of this Chinese map. It is the first map in Chinese to show the Americas. The map's mirror image originally was carved on six large blocks of wood and then printed in brownish ink on six mulberry paper panels, similar to the making of a folding screen.It portrays both North and South America and the Pacific Ocean with reasonable accuracy. China appropriately is linked to Asia, India, and the Middle East. Europe, the Mediterranean, and Africa also are well delineated. Diane Neimann, a trustee of the James Ford Bell Trust, notes that: "There is some distortion, but what's on the map is the result of commerce, trade and exploration, so one has a good sense of what was known then."
Ti Bin Zhang, first secretary for cultural affairs at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., said in 2009: "The map represents the momentous first meeting of East and West" and was the "catalyst for commerce."
Details
The map includes images and annotations describing different regions of the world. Africa is noted to have the world's highest mountain and longest river. The brief description of North America mentions "humped oxen" or bison, feral horses, and names Canada. The map identifies Florida as Huādì, the "Land of Flowers." Several Central and South American places are named, including Guatemala, Yucatan, and Chile.The map's cartographer, Matteo Ricci, gave a brief description of the discovery of the Americas. "In olden days, nobody had ever known that there were such places as North and South America or Magellanica, but a hundred years ago, Europeans came sailing in their ships to parts of the sea coast, and so discovered them."
The Museo della Specola Bologna has in its collection, displayed on the wall of the Globe Room, original copies of panels 1 and 6 of the six panels comprising the 1602 Ricci map. During restoration and mounting, a central panel—a part of the Doppio Emisfero delle Stelle by the German mathematician and astronomer Johann Adam Schall von Bell—was inserted between the two sections by mistake.
In 1958, Pasquale D’Elia, sinologist at the University of Rome certified the authenticity of the Chinese maps in this museum’s possession, stating that "it is the third edition of a geographical and cartographical work that made Ricci famous throughout China. He had already made a first edition in 1584 at Shiuhing, followed by a second in 1600 at Nanking, and two years later a third in Peking.
In 1938, an exhaustive work by Pasquale d'Elia, edited by the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, was published with comments, notes, and translation of the whole map. The maps carry plentiful instructions for use and detailed illustrations of the instruments that went into their production, as well as explanations regarding conceptions of "systems of the terrestrial and celestial world". There is a long preface by Matteo Ricci in the middle of the map, where it depicts the Pacific Ocean. D’Elia’s translation reads:
The figure of the Nove Cieli is printed to the left of the title, illustrated as per sixteenth-century conceptions. The accompanying inscription explains the movement of the planets. The right-hand section has other inscriptions giving general ideas on geography and oceanography. Another inscription records an extract of the Storia dei Mongoli regarding the motions of the Sun.
In the top of the left-hand section, there is an explanation of eclipses and the method for measuring the Earth and the Moon. Both sections carry the characteristic Jesuit seal, the IHS of the Society of Jesus. At the bottom left, in the Southern Hemisphere, is the name of the Chinese publisher of the map and the date: one day of the first month of autumn in the year 1602.
The map also incorporates an explanation of parallels and meridians, a proof that the sun is larger than the moon, a table showing the distances of planets from the earth, an explanation of the varying lengths of days and nights, and polar projections of the earth that are unusually consistent with its main map.
History
was a Jesuit priest. Ricci was one of the first Western scholars to live in China and he became a master of Chinese script and the Classical Chinese language. In 1583, Ricci was among the first Jesuits to enter China from Macao. The first Chinese world map was named Yudi Shanhai Quantu and made in Zhaoqing in 1584 by Matteo Ricci with Chinese collaborators. Ricci had a small Italian wall map in his possession and created Chinese versions of it at the request of the governor of Zhaoqing at the time, Wang Pan, who wanted the document to serve as a resource for explorers and scholars.On January 24, 1601, Ricci was the first Jesuit - and one of the first Westerners - to enter the Ming capital Beijing, bringing atlases of Europe and the West that were unknown to his hosts. The Chinese had maps of the East that were equally unfamiliar to Western scholars.
In 1602, at the request of the Wanli Emperor, Ricci collaborated with Mandarin Zhong Wentao, a technical translator, Li Zhizao, and other Chinese scholars in Beijing to create what was his third and largest world map, the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu.
In this map, European geographic knowledge, new to the Chinese, was combined with Chinese information unknown to Europeans to create the first map known to combine Chinese and European cartography. Among other things, this map revealed the existence of America to the Chinese. Ford W. Bell said: "This was a great collaboration between East and West. It really is a very clear example of how trade was a driving force behind the spread of civilization."
According to John D. Day, Matteo Ricci prepared four editions of Chinese world maps during his mission in China before 1603:
- a 1584 early woodblock print made in Zhaoqing, called Yudi Shanhai Quantu;
- a 1596 map carved on a stele, called Shanhai Yudi Tu ;
- a 1600 revised version of the 1596, usually named Shanhai Yudi Quantu, engraved by Wu Zhongming;
- a 1602 larger and much refined edition of the 1584 map, in six panels, printed in Beijing, called Kunyu Wanguo Quantu;
Other copies of the 1602 map are located at: Japan, Kyoto University Collection; collection of Japan Miyagi Prefecture Library; Collection of the Library of the Japanese Cabinet; and a private collection in Paris, France. No original examples of the map are known to exist in China, where Ricci was revered and buried.
The maps received widespread attention and circulation. The governor General of Guizhou reproduced a copy of the map in a book about Guizhou published in Guiyang in 1604. Ricci estimated that more than 1,000 copies of the 1602 edition were reprinted.
Various versions of the map were exported to Korea and later Japan. The first Korean copy was brought back from Beijing by visiting ambassadors in 1603. An unattributed and very detailed two page coloured edition of the map, known in Japanese as Konyo Bankoku Zenzu, was made in Japan circa 1604. Within this Japanese export copy, Japanese Katakana is utilised for foreign location names throughout the Western world.
The Gonyeomangukjeondo is a Korean hand-copied reproduction print by Painter Kim Jin-yeo in 1708, the 34th year of King Sukjong's rule of Joseon. It shows Kunyu Wanguo Quantu measuring 533×170 cm on mulberry paper. This map, representing the world in an ellipse, was brought to Korea in the 36th year of King Seonjo's rule by Lee Gwan-jeong and Gwon Hui, two envoys of Joseon to China. It is owned and displayed at Seoul National University Museum, San 56-1, Sillim-dong, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, Korea and was designated National Treasure No.849 on August 9, 1985. The map shows five world continents and over 850 toponyms. It contains descriptions of ethnic groups and main products associated with each region. In the margins outside the ellipse, there are images of the northern and southern hemispheres, the Aristotelian geocentric world system, and the orbits of the sun and moon. It has an introduction by Choe Seok-jeong providing information on the constitution of the map and its production process. This reproduction map provides a clear testimony to the national interest in western maps in 17th-century Korea. It is a highly esthetic piece of work and one of the most beautiful maps produced during the Joseon period.
Bell Library copy
The James Ford Bell Trust announced in December 2009 that it had acquired one of two good copies of the 1602 Ricci map from the firm of Bernard J. Shapero, a noted dealer of rare books and maps in London, for US$1 million, the second most expensive map purchase in history. This copy had been held for years by a private collector in Japan.Ford W. Bell, president of the American Association of Museums and a trustee of the James Ford Bell Trust started by his grandfather, James Ford Bell, the founder of General Mills, said in an interview with a reporter from Minnesota Public Radio's All Things Considered: "These opportunities don't present themselves very often. This map was the only one on the market, and the only one likely to be on the market. So we had to take advantage of that opportunity."
The map was displayed for the first time in North America at the Library of Congress from January through April, 2010. It was scanned by the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division to create a permanent digital image that will be posted on the internet later in 2010 in the World Digital Library for scholars and students to study. The map was then exhibited briefly at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, before moving to its permanent home at the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, where it will be on display beginning September 15, 2010.
Chinese maps published after 1602
Before his death at Peking in 1610, Matteo Ricci prepared four more world maps after the 1602 one:Most of these maps now are lost. Later copies of the 1602 edition of the Kunyu Wanguo Quantu may be found in China, Korea, London, and Vienna; one copy of the map recently was discovered in the store-rooms of the Shenyang Museum in China. A world search is currently in progress by Kendall Whaling Museum of Massachusetts. Hong Weilian, earlier established a list of twelve total Ricci maps, which differs considerably from Day’s findings.
In 1607 or 1609 the Shanhai Yudi Quantu, is a Chinese map which was published in the geographical treatise Sancai Tuhui. The Shanhai Yudi Quantu was influenced highly by the work of Matteo Ricci. Matteo Ricci had several of his own maps entitled Shanhai Yudi Quantu. The locations in the map have been identified and translated by Roderich Ptak in his work, The Sino-European Map, in the Encyclopedia Sancai tuhui:
About 1620 Giulio Aleni made the world map Wanguo Quantu, putting China at the center of the world map, following Ricci's format and contents, but in a much smaller size. This map was included in some editions of Aleni's geographical work, Zhifang waiji. His 1623 preface states that another Jesuit, Diego de Pantoja, on the command of the emperor, had translated a different European map, also following Ricci's model, but there is no other knowledge of that work.
In 1633, the Jesuit, Francesco Sambiasi, composed and annotated another world map, entitled Kunyu Quantu, in Nanjing.
In 1674, Ferdinand Verbiest developed the Kunyu Quantu, a similar map, but with various improvements. It consists of eight panels, each 179 cm x 54 cm, together displaying two hemispheres in Mercator projection. The two outer scrolls individually depict cartouches that contain several kinds of information on geography and meteorology. The making of Verbiest's Kunyu Quantu was intended to meet the interest of the Kangxi Emperor, as Verbiest's introductory dedication implies. There currently are at least fourteen or fifteen copies and editions of this map known in Europe, Japan, Taiwan, America, and Australia.
Religious significance
Chen, Hui-hung discussed the religious meaning of the world maps that were produced by Jesuit missionaries in China from the late sixteenth to the seventeenth centuries. These world maps serve as a visual proof to emphasize the greatness of the world and the minuscule nature of humans. Through these maps people "can see" the truth of God because of the visual ability granted via God's omnipotence. Jesuit cartography was not only a visual image of geographical configuration: it paved the way for the comprehension of what they expressed as the Creator's significance.It was an embodiment of the Renaissance tradition of cartography as the graphical representation of the universe. This includes the idea of understanding nature through mathematical science as well as understanding Heaven by visualization and sensibility. In this Renaissance tradition, geography was associated with cosmology that was based upon Christian theology. These maps expressed Aristotle's sensibility toward comprehension of the universe, which formed the core of Catholic epistemology and natural philosophy. The religious implications of Jesuit cartography in China are part of how the Jesuits used their cartographic superiority strategically in their evangelization.
Ricci was a Jesuit priest whose mission was to convert the Chinese to Roman Catholicism. He thought that might be helped by demonstrating the superior understanding of the world that he believed grew out of Christian faith. The map’s text shows it as part of a diplomatic attempt by Ricci to affirm the greatness of his own religion and culture. Ricci declares that it offers testimony “to the supreme goodness, greatness and unity of Him who controls heaven and earth.”