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新制靈臺儀象志

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Text ID
KR3fa021
Date
1673–1674
Dynasty
清

Xīnzhì línɡtái yíxiàng zhì 新制靈臺儀象志

Treatise on the Newly Constructed Instruments of the Imperial Observatory by 南懷仁 (撰)

About the work

The Xīnzhì línɡtái yíxiàng zhì (a.k.a. Xīnzhì língtái yíxiàng zhì; “Treatise on the Newly Constructed Instruments of the Observatory of the Língtái”) is the official sixteen-juǎn technical monograph by 南懷仁 Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623–1688), Director of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau (Qīntiānjiān jiànzhèng 欽天監監正), describing the six great bronze astronomical instruments that Verbiest cast and erected on the Imperial Observatory in Beijing between 1669 and 1673 under 康熙 Kāngxī’s commission. The instruments — the huángdào yí 黃道儀 (ecliptic armilla), the chìdào yí 赤道儀 (equatorial armilla), the jìxiàn yí 紀限儀 (sextant), the xiàngxiàn yí 象限儀 (quadrant), the dìpíng yí 地平儀 (azimuth-altitude horizontal instrument), and the tiāntǐ yí 天體儀 (celestial globe) — remain in situ on the Beijing Ancient Observatory and constitute the most important surviving testimony to seventeenth-century European astronomical instrument-making outside Europe itself.

Abstract

The treatise was completed in Kāngxī 13 (1674) and presented to the throne in that year, immediately after the dedication of the new instruments. It is organised in sixteen juǎn: the first four describe the design, casting and operation of each of the six bronze instruments in detail, with accompanying engineering plates; the remaining twelve juǎn give the star-catalog calibrations, the conversion tables between ecliptic and equatorial coordinates, the table of star positions current at the Chóngzhēn epoch (1628) updated to the Kāngxī epoch (1672), and the operating procedures for each observational programme. The presentation copy was illustrated with 117 woodblock plates that constitute one of the most accomplished pieces of 17th-century technical book-illustration in any culture.

The Yíxiàng zhì is the operational follow-up to 湯若望 Adam Schall’s Chóngzhēn lìshū 崇禎曆書 of 1635 and Xīyáng xīnfǎ lìshū 西洋新法曆書 (re-presented to the Qīng under the title Xīyáng xīnfǎ lìshū in 1645). Together these works set the imperial Chinese calendar — from 1645 to 1911 — on a Tychonic-Keplerian footing imported by the Jesuit mission. Verbiest’s instruments embodied that astronomy in working bronze; his treatise gave the Bureau staff the manual by which to use it. The work was incorporated into the Sìkù quánshū (zǐbù, tiānwén suànfǎ lèi) where it is described approvingly in the Sìkù tíyào.

The composition window is taken as 1673–1674: 1673 is the year of completion of the last instrument; 1674 the year of the treatise’s presentation. The catalog refid KX03-07-017 corresponds to the modern reprint in the Zhōngguó kēxué jìshù diǎnjí tōnghuì.

Translations and research

  • Golvers, Noël. 1993. The Astronomia Europaea of Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (Dillingen, 1687): Text, Translation, Notes and Commentaries. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series 28. Nettetal: Steyler. — the Latin parallel and largely auto-translation of the Yíxiàng zhì into the European astronomical res publica. Indispensable.
  • Golvers, Noël. 2003. Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623–1688) and the Chinese Heaven: The Composition of the Astronomical Corpus, its Diffusion and Reception in the European Republic of Letters. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
  • Golvers, Noël and Efthymios Nicolaidis. 2009. Ferdinand Verbiest and Jesuit Science in 17th-Century China: An Annotated Edition and Translation of the Constantinople Manuscript (1676). Athens / Leuven.
  • Bo Shuren 薄樹人 and Pei Junwen 裴俊文. 1993. Lìxué huì-tōng 曆學會通. — places Verbiest in the broader Chinese tradition.
  • Witek, John W. (ed.). 1994. Ferdinand Verbiest (1623–1688): Jesuit Missionary, Scientist, Engineer and Diplomat. Nettetal: Steyler. — collected volume from the 1988 centenary conference.

Other points of interest

The six instruments described in the Yíxiàng zhì — together with two later 18th-century additions (the Jǐhéngfǔchén yí 璣衡撫辰儀 and the European-style azimuth quadrant) — were declared a national treasure and have survived in operating condition to the present day. They were briefly removed by German and French troops as war booty during the Boxer Rebellion (1900) and returned in 1921; they have been continuously displayed since. The treatise is therefore one of the very few traditional technical Chinese books for which the described object can still be inspected.

The Yíxiàng zhì is also of central importance in the history of the East-West scientific encounter: it transmitted to China the Tychonic planetary model (Kepler was still controversial in Catholic Europe), the Brahe-and-Snell precision-instrument tradition, and the use of telescopic sighting devices (Verbiest installed micrometric eyepieces on several of the instruments).

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