Proceedings of 2015 IFToMM Workshop on History of Mechanism and Machine Science May 26-28, 2015, St-Petersburg, Russia

Preliminary study of the work of Xu Guangqi in the technical knowledge in 17th century: from the perspective of drawing and representation

Michela Cigola

DART – Laboratory of Documentation, Analysis and Survey of Architecture and Territory University of Cassino - G. Di Biasio 43 - 03043 CASSINO (FR), Italia

e-mail: cigola@unicas.it

Yibing Fang Institute for the History of Natural Science, Chinese Academy of sciences

55 Zhongguancun East Road, Beijing, 100190, P.R.China e-mail: yibing@inhn.ac.cn

Abstract: This article aims to investigate the role played by Xu Guangqi (1562-1633) in the development of European technical knowledge in China between the XVIth and XVIIth centuries by examining and comparing the Taixi shuifa and Nongzheng quanshu with the earlier European and Chinese texts of similar content, especially in the perspective of drawings of machines and mechanics. Keywords: Guangqi, Taixi Shuifa, De Architectura, Vitruvius Jesuit missionaries, Italian Renaissance, Drawing, Representation. 1 Introduction Technological transfer of machine designs from western countries to China was started by the Jesuit missionaries, who brought Italian and other western technical treatises into China in early 17th century. Several previous studies have been done in different perspectives which were connected to the works of Chinese pioneer scholar who collaborated with Jesuit missionaries. A fruitful work which was carried out by Baichun Zhang and Tian Miao focused on an important Chinese technical treatise Qiqi Tusuo which was written by Wangzhen and German Jesuit Johann Terrenz in 17th century from the pespective of the dissemination of western knowledge of machine in the pre-modern China in the context both in text and drawing presentations [1][2]. Italian scholars also did some works on this topic from the perspectives both in the transfer of Italian technology knowledge in China and in the history of Mechanical design [3][4][5]. This paper is focused on an analysis of the work of Xu Guangqi from the point of view of representation and drawing. In fact, we present comparison among illustrations of machine designs from volumes of Taixi shuifa and Nongzheng Quanshu by Xu Guangqi and the works of Vitruvius in the 10th Book of De Architectura and the works of Wangzheng in Wangzheng Nongshu. The proposed analysis is mainly devoted to understand and interpret the knowledge transfer of machine technology in terms of representation and illustration that Xu Guangqi attempted to facilitate and disseminate the western machines with their theoretical backgrounds. The present work is aligned with the previous investigation activities at IHNS institute in Beijing and at the University of Cassino in Italy as an extension of the works by Zhang Baichun, Marco Ceccarelli and other scholars.

2. Xu Guangqi and Jesuit missionaries in XVIIth century China Xu Guangqi 徐光啟 (1561 Shanghai, China – 1633 Beijing, China; Christian name Paulus Xu) was one of the earliest and the most important Chinese to convert to Christianity. He was a minister of the Ming Dynasty, doing much for promoting western scientific culture in China (Fig. 1).

Figure 1 Portrait of Xu Guangqi (Guangqi Park, Shanghai). Xu came from Shanghai and earned his imperial examinaton ( 进 士 ) with the age of 36. In 1604 he participated a second time in the metropolitan examination and in 1632, as an elderly man, was appointed Minister of Rites (礼部尚书) and Grand Academician (大学士) of the East Pavilion. A year later he was transferred to the post of Grand Academician of the Hall of Literary Profundity but he died soon thereafter. His posthumous title is Duke Wending. Xu Guangqi become Christian through the work of Jesuit missionaries and in particular Italian Matteo Ricci. As a colleague and collaborator Xu worked with Matteo Ricci from 1604 to 1607, studying, translating and writing

relative part of Long wei che and Yu hen che in Taixi Shuifa, which provides the evidence of possibility that some part of Taixi Shuifa were written based on the translation of De Architectura. (3) The differences in the drawings between Taixi Shuifa and De Architectura shows that the illustrations in Taixi Shuifa looked more like a combination of Chinese and Western style. (4) The machines could be studied in details in Taixi Shuifa since Xu devoted 4 or 5 charts to every kind of them in which he presents a good knowledge of the orthogonal projections, that also proves how the western way of drawing began to be rooted in seventeenth-century China due to the cooperative works between Chinese scholars and Western Jesuits. (5) Even though the illustrations in Wangzhen Nongshu were copied in Nongzheng Quanshu without particular changes, some illustrations of Nongzheng quanshu still appear to be of interest when compared with those that inspired them. However, the reasons of such interesting differences are not in certain because that there were several hand-copied editions of the books were republished in ancient China and the author of the drawings are usually unknown. Conclusion (1) Taixi Shuifa and Nongzheng Quanshu can be considered the representative works of Xu Guangqi in the development and spread of the technological knowledge in the 17th Century in China. The content of both books were of the relative knowledge of Agriculture, which represent that a typical prior manner on the development of agriculture in the ancient China. (2) Both the illustrations and texts in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 of the 10th Book of the 1513 and 1521 editions of De Architectura showed remarkable similarity to the relative part of Long wei che and Yu hen che in Taixi Shuifa, which provides the evidence of possibility that some part of Taixi Shuifa were written based on the translation of De Architectura. (3) The differences in the drawings between Taixi Shuifa and De Architectura shows that the illustrations in Taixi Shuifa looked more like a combination of Chinese and Western style. (4) The machines could be studied in details in Taixi Shuifa since Xu devoted 4 or 5 charts to every kind of them in which he presents a good knowledge of the orthogonal projections, that also proves how the western way of drawing began to be rooted in seventeenth-century China due to the cooperative works between Chinese scholars and Western Jesuits. (5) Even though the illustrations in Wangzhen Nongshu were copied in Nongzheng Quanshu without particular changes, some illustrations of Nongzheng quanshu still appear to be of interest when compared with those that inspired them. However, the reasons of such interesting differences are not in certain because that there were several hand-copied editions of the books were republished in ancient China and the author of the drawings are usually unknown.

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