In addition to a description of a solar eclipse discovered on a fragment of animal bone used for casting oracles and written over one thousand years before the Christian era, China can also boast the earliest records of sunspots, the dark, irregular shapes that appear and disappear cyclically on the sun’s surface as a result of magnetic disruption of the solar magma. Indicated in the ancient language with a character meaning “crow” or “dark,” their appearance was regularly recorded in China back in the pre-Christian era, together with details of their shape, size, and duration.28 Sunspots were instead still unknown in the West during the late sixteenth century and would remain so until first observed by Galileo with his telescope in 1610, nearly two thousand years later.29
The appearance of supernovas was also documented in China long before the West. As is known, the Chinese records for 1054 included the most famous event of this kind ever observed, an explosion in the Taurus constellation that shone so brightly as to be visible also by day for three consecutive weeks.
Ricci was naturally inclined to underestimate Chinese astronomy, as he had no way of knowing its history and primacy with respect to the West. As historians of science have pointed out, his assumption of superiority was not always justified. In any case, Western and Chinese astronomy were the products of worldviews and methods of investigating nature so far removed from one another as to make direct comparison very difficult. Moreover, as the Jesuit was only just beginning to understand, the role of astronomy in Chinese society was very different from the one it performed in Europe. In China it was a state science, and astronomers were government officials working in conditions of semisecrecy and reporting directly to the emperor.
Astronomy and the Emperor
The role of astronomy as a science at the service of the imperial regime went back to the dawn of Chinese thinking and influenced the development of the discipline from the very outset. Chinese philosophy saw the heavens and the earth as intimately and indivisibly interwoven, and the universe as an immense organism in which the various parts communicated with and were influenced by one another in the same way as the organs of the human body. The entire universe evolved in accordance with the Tao and underwent constant change driven by qi, or vital energy, endlessly circulating in the infinite variety of its manifest forms. This vision was incompatible with the description of the universe accepted by practically all of the European scientists of the time, whereby the heavens and the earth were radically different in nature. The former, the realm of God, were eternal, incorruptible, and perfect, whereas the latter, man’s dwelling place, was exposed to the variability of natural phenomena and was subject to decline, decay, and death.
The Chinese saw the bond between the heavens and the earth as mediated by the Son of Heaven, whose task it was to ensure harmony between the two worlds in accordance with the Tao. The emperor was considered the link upon which earthly order depended and was compared to the pole star, the fulcrum around which the heavenly vault seemed to revolve.
The emperor celebrated the imperial rites dedicated to the heavens30 and was responsible for presenting to his subjects the calendar drawn up by the court astronomers and made public during one of the most splendid ceremonies of the year. This “Book of the Laws of Time” showed the division of the year into twelve or thirteen lunar months and twenty-four solar periods, and it supplied the dates of the major festivities, the most important of which was the New Year, falling on the first day of the first lunar month and followed a fortnight later by the Feast of Lanterns. The moon was celebrated in midautumn and the ancestors in the third lunar month. The calendar also supplied the most important astronomical data, such as the positions of the sun, the moon, and the five known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) in the various periods of the year and the dates and duration of solar and lunar eclipses. An integral part of the publication was the astrological almanac listing auspicious and inauspicious dates.
With its wealth of social, religious, and political implications, the “Book of the Laws of Time” was the most important imperial document, and its compilation was considered so crucial to the state that the production of any other calendar was punishable by death. No one was allowed to perform astronomical calculations or possess books of astronomy without government authorization.
The importance attributed to the astronomers’ task of predicting and classifying celestial phenomena was such that the occurrence of an inexplicable event such as a comet or a supernova in the heavens, or a natural disaster like an earthquake or a flood on the earth, was interpreted as a sign that the Son of Heaven had failed to perform his duties correctly. This was the reason for the painstaking precision of the observations carried out over the centuries by Chinese astronomers, who were required to record, or rather predict, every phenomenon departing from the normal run of events. When Wanli took the throne, the supernova that exploded at the end of 1572—the same dying star that Clavius observed from the terrace of the Roman College—was still visible in the sky. Slowly diminishing in intensity and to disappear the following year, this celestial phenomenon was a cause of great apprehension to the Chinese astronomers. The chronicles tell us that the grand secretary Zhang Juzheng, tutor to the child emperor, urged Wanli to examine his conduct so as to avoid any further disruption of the heavenly balance.31
When an evident mistake was made in the astronomical calculations, the emperor punished those responsible and sometimes ordered the imperial mathematicians to rewrite the calendar. Discrepancies were very frequent in the Ming era because the astronomical tables in use were archaic and inaccurate, and because the general framework of the old Datong calendar was now out of date. Particularly severe punishments were visited on those who failed to predict solar eclipses, as accuracy in this was believed to be the only way of neutralizing their ill effects. Fear of making mistakes had made the imperial astronomers highly skilled in excogitating imaginative excuses for their ignorance and in devising stratagems to safeguard their reputation. One expedient frequently used was to announce a larger number of solar eclipses than actually expected32 and then to claim credit for averting them by means of propitiatory rites when they failed to occur, with no fear of being found out.
Celestial observations and calculations were performed by the office of astronomical observations, a complex bureaucratic structure employing hundreds of officials of every degree and level. A document dating from the end of the first millennium indicates a workforce of 500: 63 responsible for drawing up the calendar, 147 for astronomical observations, 90 for the measurement of time, and 200 for sounding the hours with bells and drums. There were at least twice as many in Ricci’s time. Moreover, two different astronomical observatories had been operating in Beijing ever since the Song era, one manned by Chinese astronomers inside the walls of the imperial palace and the other manned by Muslims outside. The personnel of both institutions were required to develop predictions of celestial phenomena and then to compare their results. History tells us that the officials in charge were punished by the emperor in 1070, when the censors established that for years the two groups of astronomers had confined themselves to copying one another’s results without bothering to make any independent calculations.33 As Ricci realized on checking the predictions of the Chinese calendar, the imperial astronomers of the Ming era had evidently made little progress in terms of accuracy and diligence.
Now having a clearer idea of how important astronomy was to the empire and having ascertained that the literati were very interested in acquiring his skills, Ricci decided that if he stayed in Nanchang long enough, he would teach mathematics and astronomy more systematically than he had in the past. He was in fact convinced that science would prove the best way to establish credibility with the dignitaries and would thus facilitate the work of spreading the Christian doctrine. At the same time, however, he was aware that he was neither a mathematician nor an astronomer and that he lacked the books he needed to take on t
asks as demanding as that of assisting the astronomers in revising the calendar, a possibility suggested by Minister Wang in Shaozhou. Realizing that he would need the help of a team of specialists if anything was ever to come of this, Ricci began to bombard the Jesuit authorities with requests to send out brethren skilled in astronomy to assist him in his plans to convert the Chinese, a project that placed science at the service of religion.
Notes
1. Letter dated August 29, 1595; OS II, p. 148.
2. Letter dated October 7, 1595; OS II, p. 163.
3. Letter dated August 29, 1595; OS II, p. 151.
4. FR, book I, ch. III, p. 15.
5. Letter to Duarte de Sande, August 29, 1595; OS II, p. 157. Cf. also Jacques Gernet, Chine et christianisme, action et réaction (Paris: Gallimard, 1982), p. 225.
6. On the misunderstandings and incomprehension between the Jesuits and the Chinese seen from the latter’s standpoint, see Jacques Gernet, Chine et christianisme, cit., pp. 191 ff.
7. Letter to Duarte de Sande, August 29, 1595; OS II, pp. 160–61.
8. Cf. Pasquale M. D’Elia, “Il trattato sull’amicizia: primo libro scritto in cinese da Matteo Ricci S.I., traduzione antica (Ricci) e moderna (D’Elia),” in Studia Missionaria 7 (1952): pp. 449–515.
9. The quotations are taken from Pasquale M. D’Elia, “Il trattato sull’amicizia: primo libro scritto in cinese da Matteo Ricci S.I., traduzione antica (Ricci) e moderna (D’Elia),” in Studia Missionaria 7 (1952): cit.
10. According to D’Elia, Ricci followed the Buddhist practice of making phonetic Chinese transcriptions of prayers in Sanskrit. See FR, book III, ch. XII, p. 369, no. 1.
11. Ricci sent a copy of his work to Rome on August 14, 1599 (FR, book III, ch. XII, pp. 368–69, no. 1).
12. Letter dated August 15, 1606; OS II, p. 304.
13. Letter to Girolamo Costa, October 15, 1596; ibid., p. 230. João da Rocha was sent to Shaozhou first for a short period and then Nicolò Longobardo, who stayed with Lazzaro Cattaneo (FR, book III, ch. XIV, p. 385).
14. OS II, p. 184. See also FR, book III, ch. XI, p. 360.
15. Cf. Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (London: Pimlico, 1992), esp. chapter 1, and J. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, cit., pp. 2–5.
16. Cicero’s work contains the first written exposition of the method. See Steven Rose, The Making of Memory: From Molecules to Mind [trad. it. La fabbrica della memoria, Milano, Garzanti, 1994, p. 84].
17. See J. Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, cit., for a detailed description.
18. See J. Needham, op. cit., pp. 211 ff, for a description of the Chinese astronomical system.
19. See chapter 10 (“The Forgotten Astronomical Observatory”).
20. As the position of the sun and its height above the horizon—and hence the length and direction of the shadow cast by the gnomon—vary with movement north or south along a meridian, every solar clock has to be calibrated for the latitude of the locality in which it is used.
21. Ricci thanked Clavius in a letter written in Nanchang on Christmas Day 1597, which is the only letter addressed to the professor to have survived (OS II, p. 241).
22. OS II, p. 166.
23. OS II, p. 207.
24. Kepler was to complete the theoretical and mathematical framework of the Copernican system by formulating the laws that govern the movement of the planets around the earth on elliptical orbits.
25. Ricci knew that the visibility of a solar eclipse and its degree depended on the part of the earth from which it was observed, and he had no difficulty predicting the duration of the phenomenon by taking into account the latitude of Nanchang.
26. Letter dated November 4, 1595; OS II, p. 207.
27. Letter dated October 28, 1595; OS II, p. 184.
28. See I. Iannaccone, Misurare il cielo: l’antica astronomia cinese, cit., pp. 16 ff.
29. Galileo spoke of this in his Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari, printed by the Accademia dei Lincei in 1613. Attention should also be drawn to the dispute between Galileo and Father Christoph Scheiner over the paternity of the discovery of sunspots; see Ludovico Geymonat, Galileo (Turin: Einaudi, 1969), pp. 71 ff.
30. See chapter 4 (“Religion in China: Heaven, the Gods, and the Name of God”).
31. Cf. Ray Huang, 1587, A Year of No Significance (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 11.
32. I. Iannaccone, Misurare il cielo: l’antica astronomia cinese, cit., p. 17.
33. I. Iannaccone, Misurare il cielo: l’antica astronomia cinese, cit., pp. 7 ff.
Chapter Nine
v
To Beijing!
From Nanchang to Beijing and Nanjing, 1596–1598
And so, in my view, Cathay is none other than China.
—Matteo Ricci1
The emperor is as distant as the heavens are high.
—Chinese saying
The Conjecture about Cathay, the Order to
Reach Beijing, and the Gifts for the Emperor
Ricci led an intense and industrious life in Nanchang and earned a reputation for his knowledge in the fields of culture, ethics, and astronomy. Many shidafu were prompted by a reading of the Jesuit’s treatises on friendship and memory and by admiration for his European-style sundials to hold banquets in his honor. Ricci never declined an invitation and rushed from one house to another, “with no time to catch his breath,”2 in the hope that success in the local society would foster his missionary work. His companion, João Soerio, had adapted well to life in the mission and studied the Confucian classics under his guidance with great commitment. Despite the considerable degree of integration achieved, however, few conversions were made. After fourteen years of missionary work in China, the total number of baptized converts for all the residences was little over a hundred,3 a modest figure that seemed unlikely to increase substantially in the immediate future.
Ricci was still convinced that it was better to eschew the facile, immediate success that could be obtained by baptizing large numbers of people regardless of the quality of their newfound faith and to aim instead at long-term achievement built on solid foundations and deeply considered conversion. Knowing the peculiarities of Chinese society, so rich in established traditions and loath to give the exclusive commitment to a new religion required by the Jesuits, Ricci preferred to proceed “on leaden feet,” as he wrote to Superior General Acquaviva4 to justify the delay in achieving the results expected of him by the ecclesiastical authorities. He had no intention of abandoning the more difficult and ambitious goal he had set for himself of persuading the literati to convert by showing them the superiority of European science and culture and by emphasizing the compatibility of Confucianism and Christianity. Whenever an exchange of views with an intellectual offered fresh food for thought, the Jesuit took note of the subjects addressed so as to develop them in greater depth in his catechism.
The missionary always managed to find time for study and reflection without neglecting his correspondence. The amount of mail he received had increased over the years, and he found himself obliged to reply to as many as twenty letters at the same time and to repeat the same account of life in the mission over and over. With the passing of the years, his customary European correspondents had been joined by new friends among the shidafu, who sent letters from other provinces that Ricci answered in Chinese, thus adding considerably to the burden of writing.
One day, the post included a letter from Girolamo Costa informing him that both of his parents had passed away. On October 13, 1596, a few days later, Ricci sought comfort in writing to his brother, the canon Antonio Maria. They had been out of touch for a long time, and the Jesuit, who had just turned forty-four, asked for detailed information about all the other members of the family. “The news about me is that I am already old and very busy here in China, where I ha
ve spent so many years and expect to end my life.”5 In actual fact, Giovanni Battista Ricci was certainly still alive in 1596, but the Jesuit was to go on believing Costa’s erroneous information for a long time,6 as rectification did not arrive until a few years later, by which time his father really had passed away. The delay in receiving news of loved ones far away and the uncertainty attendant on sending correspondence by sea were among the torments that plagued the missionaries. Moreover, the customary risk of shipwreck had been combined for some years now with the danger of attack by English and above all Dutch pirates. While expeditions were still being sent out on unsuccessful attempts to reach the Spice Islands and Cathay by a northern route from Europe, the fleets of the new sea powers had also begun to sail the waters of the Indian Ocean with the aim of ending the Portuguese monopoly of trade with China.
Ricci often thought about the identity of Cathay, his journey to Nanjing the previous year, and the possibility that the country where Marco Polo had lived was in fact China, a conjecture he had communicated to no one so far, at least as far as we can tell on the basis of surviving letters. It was finally mentioned as “a curiosity that I think Your Reverence and others will be interested to hear” at the end of the periodical report sent to Superior General Acquaviva in October 1596. Ricci explained that he had been struck by the similarity between the Yangtze and the “Chian” described by Polo, and he noted the presence of many bridges in Nanjing, albeit not the thousands counted by the Venetian merchant in “Chinsai.” He then suggested that Cathay was the name used by the “Tartars” for China, and he ended with no hesitation: “In my opinion, Cathay is none other than China . . . few can know it better than we do.”7
Matteo Ricci Page 20