History of mathematical sciences : Portugal and East Asia VI : measuring time, heaven, and earth/ ed. by Luís Saraiva, Jongtae Lim

Table of contents

Pages i-xxxvi
Time
Pages 1-1
Diplomacy, Spirituality, and the Making of Mechanical Clocks in the Jesuit Painting Seminary in Japan
Alexandra Curvelo
Pages 3-17
Western Mathematical Influence in East Asia
Pages 19-19
On Interpretation of Euclid’s Logic in the Translation of the Elements by Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi
Alexei Volkov
Pages 21-49
Measuring Heaven and Earth in a Mathematical Manual: Hong Taeyong’s Manual of Calculations for Practical Use in Eighteenth-Century Korea
Yujin Hong
Pages 51-74
Maps
Pages 75-75
History of Cartography and National Narratives: The Case of the Earlier Portuguese Planispheres (1502–1559)
Francisco Roque de Oliveira
Pages 77-97
Cosmology
Pages 99-99
The Jesuits, Cosmology and Accommodation in Early Seventeenth-Century Macao
Luís Miguel Carolino
Pages 101-113
Buddhist Cosmological Concepts in Japanese Buddhist World Maps of the Fourteenth to Eighteenth Centuries
Wei-Ting Yang
Pages 115-140
Official Astronomy in China
Pages 141-141
Christian Astronomer Families of the Qing Astronomical Bureau as Exemplified by the Bao Family
Ping-Ying Chang
Pages 143-162
Measurement in the Service of the State
Pages 163-163
Pierre Jartoux: Manual Worker in the Forbidden City, Imperial Cartographer, Mathematician
Ugo Baldini
Pages 165-216
Pierre Jartoux’s Brevis vitae ratio. An Annotated Edition
Davor Antonucci, Ugo Baldini
Pages 217-258
“Measuring Our Heaven with Imperial Astronomy”: Sŏ Myŏng’ŭng and Sŏ Hosu’s Astronomical Reform Project in Late Eighteenth-Century Korea
Seulki Kim, Jongtae Lim
Pages 259-277

"An earlier draft of this article was presented at the 'International Conference on the History of Mathematical Sciences: Portugal and East Asia V—Visual and Textual Representations in Exchanges between Europe and East Asia,' held at National Tsing-Hua University, Taiwan, November 7–9, 2014."

Abstract: This paper addresses an extremely favorable portrayal by an envoy of Joseon Korea, Jeong Du-won, of the Portuguese Jesuit João Rodrigues, whom Jeong met in the course of his tributary mission to Ming China in 1630–1631. In his subsequent report to the Joseon king, Jeong portrayed Rodrigues as a benign gift-giver, while portraying himself as a passive recipient of Western gifts. Jeong’s characterization of the Jesuit and his gifts has provided modern historians with an important case to illustrate their Eurocentric account of Western Learning in Korea, an account in which the Koreans played simply the passive role of recipient of European culture. While questioning this Eurocentric account, I shall situate Jeong’s portrayal of the Jesuit in its political contexts—Jeong’s China mission and the bureaucratic politics of the Joseon dynasty. The image of Rodrigues as the benign gift-giver was created by Jeong, the Joseon envoy who served as the transmitter of higher culture from China to Korea. In his self-serving rhetorical efforts to legitimize the “barbarian” informant from the West, he managed to legitimize his own achievements within the China mission.
Keywords: Jeong Du-won, João Rodrigues, Western Learning, tributary mission, Jesuits in China, cultural encounter

Local access dig.pdf. [Lim-Rodrigues.pdf]