Mǐn Míngwǒ 閔明我 / Claudio Filippo Grimaldi, S.J. (zì Déxiān 德先; 1638 Cuneo, Piedmont – 1712 Beijing). Italian Jesuit, mathematician, astronomer and diplomat; the senior Jesuit at the Beijing court between the death of 南懷仁 Verbiest (1688) and his own death in 1712. Entered the Society of Jesus 1656 (Piedmont); sent to China 1669; reached Beijing 1671. Worked under Verbiest in the Imperial Astronomical Bureau; in 1685 was deputed by Kāngxī to travel through Russia to Moscow and on to Rome as imperial envoy — a journey of seven years (1686–93), the longest Jesuit-Chinese diplomatic mission ever undertaken. Returned to Beijing 1694; appointed Qīntiānjiān jiànzhèng (Director of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau) in 1694, succeeding Verbiest’s interim successors. Author of the Fāngxīng tújiě 方星圖解 (KR3fa023), a Chinese-language treatise on the use of a square-grid star-chart for telescopic and naked-eye observation. He should be carefully distinguished from his Spanish-Dominican contemporary 閔明我 (Domingo Fernández Navarrete) of the same Chinese name — the two are conventionally separated as the “xiǎo Mǐn Míngwǒ” 小閔明我 (Grimaldi) and the “dà Mǐn Míngwǒ” 大閔明我 (Navarrete, 1610–89). The KR3fa023 attribution is to Grimaldi. Not in CBDB.