The Austrian National Library's Matteo Ricci World-map“_??__??__??__??__??__??_”

Abstract

Only five complete copies of Father Matteo Ricci's Chinese world-map titled “K'un-yu Wan-kuo Ch'uan-t'u” (Description of the Whole World) including a revised edition are known to exist in the world. The Ricci world-map was originally printed in the 30th year of Banreki during the Ming Dynasty (1602).Four existing complete copies, respectively owned by the Vatican Library, Miyagi Prefectual Library in Japan, Kyoto University Library in Japan and the British Library, are all original maps. A fifth existing complete copy, owned by the Royal Geographical Society in London, is a revised edition printed sometime after 1644 during the Ch'ing Dynasty.In addition to the above copies, we have one more printed copy in the National Archives of Japan. However, this is not a complete copy, but is composed of only the main part of the Ricci map, with the borders containing writing by Ricci and the characteristic seals of the Society of Jesus cut off. This is considered to have been the map owned by the Tokugawa Shogunate government.Recently the author confirmed one more existing copy of the printed Ricci world-map in the map-room of the Austrian National Library at Vienna. Although this map had been already recognized to be one of the Ricci world-maps by Dr. Johannes Dorflinger (Vienna University) and Dr. Franz Wawrik (Austrian National Library), the map does not have sufficient notoriety in academic circles as yet.A Latin notation tagged at the bottom of this map shows that the map was presented to the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Leopold I, by the Italian Jesuit missionary Prospero Intorcetta in 1672. In China the year corresponds to the 12th year of Koki of the Ch'ing Dynasty. Intorcetta arrived in China in 1657 at the age of 29 and died in Hangchow, China in 1697. He probably brought this Ricci world-map to Vienna when he left for Rome in 1671-1674.The map is entirely covered with place-names, geographical descriptions in Chinese and several short explanatory essays called “prefaces” written by Chinese scholars as well as Ricci himself. The characteristic seals of the Society of Jesus are to be seen at the usual three fixed places on the map and it is dated 1602 using the Chinese year numbering system.The most striking aspect of this copy is the use of color. Matteo Ricci indicated in his preface on the map that the continents were distinguished by five different colors and major parallels (the tropics, arctic and antarctic) were painted over in red. So the authentic copy of the original edition might have been destined to be colored in its proper form. But the existing copy of the Vatican and all the others of the original edition are not surfficiently colored.It is really remarkable that the A. N. L. map has been so beautifully colored according to Ricci's descriptions. In the A. N. L. map, Europe has been outlined heavily in red, Africa in dark blue, Asia in red, America in purple, Magalhenica (the Great Southern Continent) in brown, while around the map's extremity (the border of the oval) run three stripes colored in green, yellow and vermilion. The equator and the central meridian have been painted in yellow, and the major parallels in red. The large characters of the name of each continent were filled in red. The seas have various tints of blue and green, while the mountains have been painted over in dark blue except for Africa where its coastline is outlined in the same color.The content of the A. N. L. copy is fundamentally altogether similar to the existing copies of the original Banreki edition. However, we can observe a conspicuous difference in the national name of China between the A. N. L. copy and the copies of the original Banreki edition. While the original Banreki copy indicates “Great Ming Empire” for China, the A. N. L. copy denotes “Great Ch'ing Empire”.Regarding the indication of the national name of China,