Matteo Ricci

by Michela Fontana

  In the meantime, a small group of literati had begun to gather regularly at the Jesuits’ house in Nanjing. For Ricci, it was like running a sort of school of Western studies with arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and cosmology on the syllabus. Prompted by a desire to correct what he regarded as the completely wrongheaded ideas of Chinese natural philosophy, he based his “lessons” on what he had learned at the Roman College. While it was believed in China that the universe was made up of various combinations of the five “agents” of water, earth, fire, wood, and metal, it was an established fact in the West that the sublunary world was composed of the four elements of water, air, earth, and fire. Both theories were of course to disappear with the progress of science, but Ricci, a true child of his time, was convinced of the validity of his knowledge and wrote a short treatise on the four elements in Chinese entitled Si yuanxing lun in order to convince his Chinese friends too.9

  Having elucidated the composition of the universe, Ricci went on to demonstrate that the earth was round by exhibiting his terrestrial globes.10 He then outlined the Ptolemaic system without going into the more difficult theoretical and mathematical aspects regarding the movement of planets, which he meant to explain only to those with sufficient aptitude for complex calculations. As had already happened in Nanchang, he was astonished at how hard it was for his “students” to accept the vision of a universe made up of crystalline spheres with the heavens and the earth rigidly separate.

  Having presented the structure of the cosmos, Ricci spoke one day about comets. His explanation that these peculiar celestial bodies were formed out of the fire located beneath the sphere of the moon echoed the classic Aristotelian view of comets as meteorological phenomena belonging to the sublunary world rather than celestial bodies. His listeners were spellbound. No one in China had ever formulated a hypothesis as to how the comets might be formed, even though Chinese astronomers had observed “broom stars” since antiquity, keeping accurate records of their passing and being the first to note that the tail always points away from the sun. In the West, the first systematic observations of comets were the work of Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli11 in the fifteenth century, and the discovery about their tail was first made in 1532 by the Italian scientist Girolamo Fracastoro12 and Petrus Apianus.

  The Chinese were also the first, in 421 bc, to observe Halley’s Comet, the brightest of all comets, which reappears regularly in the sky every 76 years, when its orbit brings it closest to the sun. Their records of its periodical transits proved so accurate that Western astronomers were to use them in the twentieth century as the basis for calculating the exact cycle of its appearances.

  Ricci did not confine himself to presenting the theoretical aspects of astronomy but also explained how to construct equipment for the measurement and observation of the heavens, such as spheres, globes, quadrants, and astrolabes. Even though he could not call himself a specialist, he was convinced that the Chinese had a great deal to learn in that field too. His certainty was, however, soon to be shaken by an unexpected discovery.

  The Forgotten Astronomical Observatory

  Ricci’s reputation reached the ears of the officials on the Nanjing board of mathematicians responsible for making the calculations for the calendar in collaboration with their more authoritative colleagues in Beijing. The Jesuit often noted that he was able to obtain more accurate results by using the astronomical tables he had brought from Italy, and he regarded the local astronomers as possessing “little talent and knowledge.” He also suspected that the guan mathematicians feared him as an expert scientist enjoying the friendship of Minister Wang and as perhaps capable of usurping their position one day. According to Ricci’s account of events, it was made known through friends of the missionaries that Li Madou occupied a position of such importance in his native land as to have no need of any appointment in China, whereupon the delighted officials invited him to visit their observatory.

  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 China21 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.

  Chapter Eleven

  v

  Prisoner of the Eunuch

  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 Qingluo1

  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 Lun2

  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.