Lǐ Zhīzǎo 李之藻
Style names Zhènzhī 振之 and Wǒcún 我存; sobriquets Liángān jūshì 涼菴居士 and Liángān yìmín 涼菴逸民. Native of Rényǐ 仁義 in Hángzhōu 杭州 prefecture (Zhèjiāng). Born Jiājìng 44 (1565); died Chóngzhēn 3 (1630).
Jìnshì of Wànlì 26 (1598). Successive offices: Vice Director of the Court of Imperial Stud (Tàipúsì shàoqīng 太僕寺少卿); Governor of Nánjīng’s Court of State Ceremonial; Gōngbù yuánwàiláng 工部員外郎 (Vice Director, Bureau of Construction); finally retired to Hángzhōu in his last years.
The senior Catholic literatus convert of his generation, baptized 1610 with the Christian name Leo (Lǐáng 良) — Matteo Ricci’s last major Chinese baptism before his death the same May. With Xú Guāngqǐ 徐光啟 (徐光啟) and Yáng Tíngyún 楊廷筠 he formed the trio known to Catholic mission historiography as the “Three Pillars of Catholic Faith in China” (Shèngjiào sān zhùshí 聖教三柱石) of the late-Wànlì period.
Lǐ Zhīzǎo’s Sinological-mathematical-cartographic activity:
(1) Cartography: in 1602 he engraved Matteo Ricci’s Kūnyú wànguó quántú 坤輿萬國全圖 (the great Beijing world-map) at Wǔlín, the most influential single non-Chinese geographical work in late-imperial China.
(2) Mathematics: with Ricci he produced the Tóngwén suànzhǐ 同文算指 (1614, Western arithmetic in 11 juàn) — the first systematic exposition of European pen-and-paper arithmetic in Chinese, the indispensable supplement to the Ricci-Xú Guāngqǐ Euclid translation KR3f0013 Jǐhé yuánběn 幾何原本.
(3) Mathematical astronomy: with Sabatino de Ursis he produced the Yuánróng jiàoyì 圜容較義 (1614, on circles and inscribed-and-circumscribed figures); independently the Húngài tōngxiàn túshuō 渾蓋通憲圖說 (KR3f0015, the great Chinese-Jesuit synthesis of the planispheric astrolabe with the Chinese armillary tradition).
(4) Compendia: the Tiānxué chūhán 天學初函 (1626) — the foundational anthology of late-Wànlì Western learning in 52 juàn, in two divisions (Lǐpiān 理篇, theological-philosophical, 9 titles; Qìpiān 器篇, scientific-instrumental, 10 titles) — was Lǐ Zhīzǎo’s editorial achievement and the most important Chinese-language Catholic-Western anthology before the Shénfù bùcún of the early Qīng.
(5) Calendar reform: Lǐ Zhīzǎo, with Xú Guāngqǐ, was the principal Chinese advocate of the calendrical reform proposal that the Ministry of Rites memorialized in 1611 and again — successfully — in 1629; he was named co-leader of the Chóngzhēn lìshū project (KR3f0013 Xīnfǎ suànshū) in Chóngzhēn 2 (1629), but illness intervened and he died the following year. His prepared volumes were absorbed into the Lìshū’s subsequent compilation under Xú Guāngqǐ’s continued direction.
(6) Catechetical-and-philosophical works: the Tiānzhǔ shèngjiào jiéyào 天主聖教解略 (catechetical, with Diego de Pantoja); the Jīrén shípiān 畸人十篇 preface (1608, for Ricci’s published dialogues).
The Sìkù tíyào of KR3f0015 notes that Lǐ Zhīzǎo’s Húngài tōngxiàn túshuō was praised by Méi Wéndǐng (the great early-Qīng mathematician) as one of the foundational works of Chinese-Western mathematical synthesis.