- Brahe , Tycho . 1598 . Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica Wandesburgi translated by Hans Raeder, Elis and Bengt Strömgren (Copenhagen, 1946). Johannes Hevelius, Machina Celestis, I (Dantzig, 1673). John Flamsteed also provides exhaustive treatment not only of his own instruments, but also of those of his European and Arabic predecessors, thereby stressing the instrumental basis of astronomy. See The ‘Preface’ to John Flamsteed's ‘Historia Coelestis Britannica’, 1725, edited and introduced by Allan Chapman (National Maritime Museum Monograph No. 52, 1982).
- Le Comte , Louis . 1696 . Nouveaux Mémoires sur l'état présent de la Chine Vol. 2 , Paris anonymously translated into English as Memoirs and Observations Topographical, Physical, Mathematical, Mechanical, Natural, Civil and Ecclesiastical, made in a late journey through the Empire of China (London, 1697), p. 65. For a comprehensive account of Verbiest's life and career, see H. Bosmans, “Ferdinand Verbiest, Directeur de l'Observatoire de Péking’, Revue des questions scientifiques, 21 (1912), 195–273. [Hereafter cited as Bosmans I] Verbiest's rise to eminence as a calendar calculator under the Emperor K'ang Hsi during 1668–1669 is outlined by Bosmans I, pp. 235–50. Bosmans also produced a detailed critical bibliography of Verbiest's Chinese writings in the second part of his article, headed “Les ecrits Chinois de Verbiest’, Rev. ques. sci., 24 (1913), 272–98. [Hereafter referred to as Bosmans II.]
- Verbiest's interests and accomplishments in Western science are discussed in Spence Jonathan Emperor of China: a self-portrait of K'ang Hsi London 1974 See also Joseph Needham, Chinese astronomy and the Jesuit mission (London, 1958).
- The bibliographical position of Verbiest's writings has been elucidated by a variety of scholars, such as Bosmans II, and Pfister L. Notices Biographiques et Bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l'Ancienne Mission de Chine Shanghai 1932 2 Verbiest produced at least two works with Latin titles, the Astronomia Europaea sub imperatore Tartaro-Sinico Cam Hy appellato ex-umbra in lucem revocata a. P. Ferdinando Verbiest Flandro-Belgae Brugensi & Societate Jesu Academiae In Regia Pekinensi Praefacto Anno Salutis MDCLXVIII, and Liber Organicus Astronomiae Europaeae. Although both of these works are dated Peking 1668, they are clearly backdated from c. 1674, as the instruments which they describe had not even been built in 1668. A copy of both works, bound up together in European covers of c. 1800 (until re-binding in the early 1980s), is in the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, Accession No. 35409 (Ex 39). Whether this mode of binding or order of presentation was intended by Verbiest is not known, for the title page Astronomia Europaea precedes the Latin text, and the 117 numbered and one unnumbered xylographs of the Liber Organicus are printed on 105 separate sheets of folio-sized rice paper. In addition to the S.O.A.S. volume, there are two separate sets of the Liber Organicus plates in the British Library, Oriental Section, but they lack the Latin text. In 1977 another unbound set of the same plates, minus the text, were acquired by the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford. The illustrations that follow are taken from this set by kind permission of the Curator. Verbiest's Latin text was later printed in Europe by Philippe Couplet in a small volume describing the scientific activities of the Jesuits in China. While Couplet's work has an almost identical title to Verbiest's, Astronomia Europaea … (Dilingen, 1687), it is somewhat confusing as the Verbiest text only occupies chapters XIII–XXVIII, Sig. 40E4V, and Sig. 57H of this 126-page quarto volume. The European edition, however, does not reproduce the plates from the Liber Organicus, with the exception of the re-engraved prospect of the Peking Observatory included as a frontispiece. Le Comte also includes the observatory prospect in Nouveaux Mémoires, I, p. 142 (footnote 2). Joseph Needham also refers to Verbiest's Chinese publications in Science and Civilisation in China, III (Cambridge, 1959), p. 452. I am especially indebted, furthermore, to Mr John Combridge's work still awaits publication, though he has been generous in imparting to me the benefits of his research, both by letter and in conversation. I wish to state, however, that I take full responsibility for any bibliography or technical errors committed in this paper.
- Ferdinand Verbiest to Jacques Le Faure, letter 20/8/1670, in Bosmans I 269 – 269 . Bosmans himself, p. 254, also stresses the Tychonic provenance of the instruments.
- Verbiest to Le Faure, 20/8/1670, Bosmans I, p. 270. See also Needham J. The Peking Observatory in A.D. 1280 Vistas in Astronomy 1955 1 67 83
- In Couplet's Astronomia Europaea, the plate is reduced in size from folio to quarto and bears the engraver's name, Melchior Haffner. This plate, however, was re-copied in several subsequent works on China, as in Le Comte's Nouveaux Mémoires, and its English translation, Memoirs and Observations Topographical (footnote 2), and in Du Halde J.B. Description géographique, historique, chronologique et physique de l'Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise Paris 1735 4 In Richard Brookes' translation of Du Halde, A general history of China, 4 vols (London, 1736), portraits of Verbiest and his scientific predecessor, Adam Schall, are printed as frontispieces to volumes III and IV.
- Needham . 1932 . Notices Biographiques et Bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l'Ancienne Mission de Chine Vol. III , 82 – 82 . Shanghai 203, 374, 381, states that China remained virtually untouched by Arabic and Indian influences, and failed to develop a geometry based on the 360° circle. Bosmans I, p. 250, also discusses the Chinese mode of dividing both the circle and the day on a decimal basis, while emphasizing the primacy of the Jesuits in the introduction of sexagesimal geometry. See also A. Damry, “Le Père Verbiest et l'Astronomie Sino-Européenne’, Ciel et Terre, 34, no. 7 (1913).
- Comte , Le . 1696 . Memoirs and Observations Vol. 2 , 67 – 67 . Paris Because I feel that the English translator was unable to visualize the technical features of what he was translating at this point, I cite the French original: “Les cercles sont divisez sur leur surface extérieure & intérieure en 360 degrez; chacque degrez, en soixante minutes par des lignes transversales & les minutes de dix en dix secondes par le moyen des pinnules qu'on y applique” (Nouveaux Mémoires, I, p. 144).
- Brahe , Tycho . 1598 . Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica Wandesburgi see “Addendum on the subdivisions and diopters of the instruments”, Raeder and the Strömgrens' translation, pp. 141–4.
- For further comparative discussion of the sextants of Tycho, Hevelius, and Flamsteed, see Chapman Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica Wandesburgi 1598 Figures 7, 8 and 14 respectively, and their related text.
- Comte , Le . 1696 . Memoirs and Observations Vol. 2 , 66 – 66 . Paris and 69
- Comte , Le . 1696 . Memoirs and Observations Vol. 2 , 64 – 64 . Paris 70, 71, 72. The original Chinese instruments dated from the thirteenth century, and survived long enough to be photographed.
- Bosmans . I 273 – 273 . In plate 71 [not illustrated], incomplete armillaries are depicted in the act of being hoisted up the observatory ramparts by means of pulleys.
- Chapman , Allan . Dividing the Circle, the history of precise angular measurement in astronomy, 1500–1850 forthcoming.
- Verbiest to Le Faure, 20/8/1670, Bosmans I 270 – 270 . Plates 82 and 75 [not illustrated] demonstrate the pulleys and hoists necessary to transport the incomplete globe up the observatory ramparts, and set it in place.
- For an account of these inventions, see Chapman Allan The accuracy of angular measuring instruments used in astronomy between 1500 and 1850 Journal for the History of Astronomy 1983 14 133 137
- Free vibrating pendulums are demonstrated on plates 115, 116 and 117 [not illustrated] as devices to time the flight of projectiles and the crash of a lightning bolt, and to make an astronomical observation. Verbiest's failure to discuss the pendulum clock, however, is all the more curious when one considers the important ‘ambassadorial’ function played by the mechanical clock in the seventeenth century. It was the opinion of Matteo Ricci and other early missionaries that they had introduced the mechanical—as opposed to the sand or water clock—into China, and found a strong native interest in horology. See Needham Joseph Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West Cambridge 1970 205 205 The Chinese fascination with the “self-ringing bells” is also discussed by Carlo M. Cipolla, Clocks and Culture, 1300–1700 (London, 1967), pp. 76–103.
- There are many references to Verbiest and his colleagues in the role of cultural and technical ambassadors to China in Spence Emperor of China: a self-portrait of K'ang Hsi London 1974 Spence also looks at the scientific Jesuits and the way in which they captured the imagination of the Emperor and his court in The China Helpers; western advisors to China, 1620–1960 (London, 1969), pp. 3–33. For further references to the Jesuits entertaining the court with technical devices, see Bosmans i, p. 262. Also Paqquale M. D'Elia, Galileo in China (New Haven, Conn., 1960).
- Verbiest to Le Faure, 20/8/1670, Bosmans I 269 – 269 .
- The fruits of the later Jesuit observatory, under Kögler, Da Rocha, von Hallerstein and others were included in I Hsiang Khao Chhêng 1757
- I am indebted to Mr Andrew George, formerly of Clifton College, Bristol, for kindly sending me these photographs, along with a description of the observatory in a letter dated 17 April 1980. Figure 22 is from a small collection of nineteenth- and early twentienth-century photographs of the Verbiest instruments in the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford. Verbiest's use of Western technology to equip the Peking observatory was also the subject of part of a BBC television Chronicle documentary, made by the author, in 1980. This programme, ’China—travellers in the Celestial Empire’, became a topic of correspondence in The Listener magazine during November and December, 1980.
Annals of Science
Volume 41, 1984 - Issue 5