The Real vs the Imaginary: Sir William Chambers on the Chinese Garden

Sir William Chambers was one of the most important English architects in the eighteenth-century, but both in his day and later his international recognition was closely connected with his admiration for and promotion of Chinese art, particularly Chinese landscaping. Between 1757 and 1773, Chambers published three treatises praising the ingenious mixture of nature and art in a Chinese pleasure ground, criticizing the then influential English gardener Lancelot (Capability) Brown, and trying to goad English garden design into the direction of China. He did not achieve his purposes mainly because he mixed what he knew as genuine about the Chinese gardening art with what he fantasized about it. While recent scholarship has focused on his fantasy, this article examines what Chambers knew or imagined about Chinese landscaping, what he and his detractors were for and against, and how the fiasco of his 1772 and 1773 treatises, which he brought upon himself, nevertheless helped to usher in a new phase in the English reception of Chinese landscaping ideas.     

神和乃礭：利玛窦世界地图的在华传播及其本土化

在西学东渐史上,利玛窦是一个标志性的人物。他不仅在中国用汉语编写《天主实义》和《交友论》,阐释基督教神学和伦理思想,提出对儒佛的独到分析;与徐光启合译《几何原本》前六卷;并多次译绘汉文世界地图,为中国乃至东亚世界首次完整地展示了世界的面貌。该图见之于明确文字记载的自刻、他人翻刻和摹绘版本多达十余种。笔者根据利玛窦世界地图刊刻和传播的实况,将其版本分为《大瀛全图》与《山海舆地图》、《坤舆万国全图》、《两仪玄览图》三个系列和木刻本、彩绘绢本两种形式;并就“地圆说”与地球知识、“五大州”与“万国”的概念、西方人文地理知识点的介绍及其与中国文化的对话等诸多方面,讨论了利氏世界地图中所传送的新知识、新方法和新词汇,指出该图是明清士人理解整个世界的一个重要的窗口。论文还通过熊明遇的《格致草》、熊人霖的《地纬》、王在晋的《海防纂要》以及晚清的《海国图志》和《瀛寰志略》等,分析了利氏世界地图在晚明至晚清二度本土化的过程,指出该地图在晚清西学知识重建过程中所产生的意义。     

The Laurentian world map with special reference to its portrayal of Africa

When the Jesuit missionaries began to work in China, they attracted the attention of the Chinese by introducing European knowledge. This is the context in which Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci, Giulio Aleni, Francesco Sambiasi and Ferdinand Verbiest made their Chinese‐language world maps. Sambiasi was a man of many talents. He was a tactful diplomat and a learned scientist. His world map shows him to be a skilful adapter of earlier knowledge, which he passed on to future generations. The six known copies of his map are in two versions, printed from two sets of wood blocks (c. 1639). A text at the top of one version explains why the world must be seen as a sphere, which demonstrates how these maps were meant to convince the Chinese public of European scientific findings.     

Les Révolutions françaises. Les phénomènes révolutionnaires en France du moyenâgeànos jours

In this article, I examine friendship as a subject of political theory rather than as a social practice relevant to political life. As suggested by Francesco d'Altobianco Alberti in the poem recited at the first certame coronario, two ideas of political friendship existed side by side in Medicean Florence. They appeared in full in Palmieri's Vita civile and in Platina's De optimo cive. As I will show, the Ciceronian language of friendship is used in these works to resolve two key problems of Renaissance political thought: the need for political unity and the just way of appointing the governing elite. Palmieri placed friendship in the political sphere of concord: he was a republican imperialist who believed that civic friendship protected the political unity of the city, without which Florence would not have been able to expand. Platina, on the other hand, situated friendship in the political sphere of counsel: his concern was to support the selection of the most virtuous and knowledgeable citizens, worthy of access to public office. While Palmieri looked back to the city's medieval past, Platina cast light on the politics of friendship that allowed the Medici to stay in power.     

利玛窦与庞迪我关系辨析

利玛窦与庞迪我之间的矛盾曾被认为是当时意大利与西班牙间民族矛盾的体现。民族矛盾固然是影响利、庞关系的重要因素,但更潜在的原因应是二人在思想观念上的本质差异：利玛窦不是一名狭隘的民族主义者,他之所以不见容于庞迪我,主要是因为他那种具有浓烈人文主义背景的工作方式与庞氏的传统中世纪传教模式格格不入;与人们的假设相反,利氏至死都未曾原谅过庞氏,而在利氏生前,庞氏对其不满也蓄积已久。     

Gouguo,the “Land of Dogs,” on Ricci's World Map*

When Matteo Ricci designed his famous world map, he made use of European and traditional Chinese sources, which also concerns the distribution of certain toponyms on the map. The present study looks at one particular item: the name Gouguo 狗國, or “Land of Dogs,” which appears near the Bering Strait (then called “Strait of Anián”). Several questions arise in this context: Where does the name Gouguo come from? What can we say in regard to the well-known topos of “dog-headed” people? Which were the works consulted by Ricci? Why did he assign Gouguo to such a remote area and how should we interpret the “layout” of the entire region? The discussion will also look at some adjacent regions and names. The final part offers an hypothesis in regard to the possible political background of this arrangement in ca. 1600.     

Caspar Vopel's Ventures in Sixteenth-Century Celestial Cartography

ABSTRACT

This paper concerns the undertakings in celestial cartography of the sixteenth-century Cologne cartographer Caspar Vopel. Copies of his printed celestial globe and of the celestial maps included on his world map are also described. Vopel's celestial mappings display his extraordinary interest in astronomical myths through a series of conspicuous iconographic features. In particular, Vopel's introduction of the images of Antinous and Coma Berenices is revealed to have been inspired by a humanist edition of the Ptolemaic star catalogue. Finally, a study of the celestial maps on the copies of Vopel's world map by Valvassore (1558) and by Van den Putte (1570) shows that these represent different editions of Vopel's world map and that the celestial maps on the world map of Matteo Pagano were in turn copied from those on the world map of Valvassore.     

清康熙年间意大利传教士马国贤及避暑山庄铜版画

传教士马国贤是清康熙年间中西文化交流中的重要人物,是中国园林西传的先驱人物。他曾在中国宫廷服务13年,将西方的铜版技术传入中国,为康熙皇帝制作了避暑山庄铜版画。后来,他把避署山庄铜版画带回欧洲,使中国园林的图像资料第一次进入欧洲并在欧洲传播,推动了欧洲特别是英国园林设计的革命。     

利玛窦与中西文化交流

利玛窦拉开了中西文化双向交流的序幕,他与之后来华的西方传教士汤若望、南怀仁等,在中国传播西方文化的同时,也积极把中国文化传播到西方,由此西方的思想、文化、科技,诸如语言学、地理学、数学、天文学、美术等传入中国,而以儒学为代表的中华文化也流入欧洲。这一段中西文化在平等地位上交流的历史,倘从世界史范围内加以考察,将因其辉煌而深远的影响,让我们寻回文化的自信和增强我们的文化自觉。