ABSTRACT: This thesis examines the cartographic works of Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), who spent his last twenty-seven years in Ming China. In particular, by focusing on Ricci's 1602 map, I examine the broader significance of Ricci's cartographic production to understand how it reflected early modern Chinese-European exchanges. In addition to the 1602 map, I use Ricci's letters to construct a framework for his cartographic involvement. In his writings, Ricci revealed his rationale for mapmaking and explained his collection of information. Only one year after his entry into China, in 1584, Ricci compiled a world map in the Chinese language and featured China towards the center of the map. In 1602, he completed the third revision of his map, adding a significant amount of details to his previous versions. This map was reproduced during and after Ricci's lifetime and has become a celebrated map in cartography. In my thesis, I contend that more than a proselytizing tool to attract the attention of the Chinese elites, Ricci used cartography to organize, preserve and transmit the information he collected during his travel in China. In my thesis, I show that while Ricci established himself as a religious man, under the influence of both his humanist education and his travel, he also became increasingly interested in the natural world that surrounded him. Ricci's letters and map reveal his intellectual development. In particular, Ricci's long tenure in China witnessed two phases of his intellectual transformation. The first phase, from 1582 to 1595, displayed Ricci's humanist education as he learned about China through the writing and translation of ancient Chinese and Western classics. In the second phase, from 1596 to 1610, however, Ricci presented himself as a scientist as he applied his scientific skills to collect information while traveling. In the process, he became increasingly interested in cartography which he came to view as a powerful tool to organize and present information. In time, Ricci's cartographic works became more sophisticated, reflecting both his European education and the Chinese culture.

1. 全國政區總圖 [General maps] -- 2. 地方行政區圖 [Local administrative maps] -- 3. 河運水利及河工圖 [Flood control and embankment maps] -- 4. 軍事交通圖 [Military and traffics maps] -- 5. 城市地圖 [City maps] -- 6. 邊界及周邊國家 [Political and boundary maps] -- 7. 山陵寺廟宮苑帝陵 [Maps of temples, palaces and royal gardens] -- 8. 民生经济圖 [Maps of social and economic conditions] -- 9. 複合式地圖 [Mixed-theme maps].

Publisher note:

Reading Imperial Cartography: Ming-Qing Historical Maps in the Library of Congress
皇輿搜覽 - 美國國會圖書館所藏明清輿圖
Author/Editor: Lin, Tien-jen. Translator: Zhang, Min.
Publisher: Published by Academia Sinica Digital Center in association with the Library of Congress
Date of Publication: 2013.11
ISBN: 978-986-03-9363-7

The bi-lingual annotated atlas contains 157 pre-1900 historical Chinese maps from the Library of Congress. The maps selected for the book are either of academic significance, made with exquisite craftsmanship or rare to be seen among the collection institutes. They are organized into 9 categories: (1) general maps (2) local administrative maps (3) flood control and embankment maps (4) military and traffics maps (5) city maps (6) political and boundary maps (7) maps of temples, palaces and royal gardens (8) maps of social and economic conditions (9) mixed-theme maps.

The book is published in both in English and Chinese. The contents include preface, introduction, map descriptions, and an appendix of the historical Chinese maps collected in the Library of Congress. Each map description contains the bibliographic information, notes on the map content and a reference for relative study. Part of the Chinese maps housed in the Library of Congress used to be imperial collection, but were scattered into other countries at the end of the Qing dynasty.

The publication is carried out by Academia Sinica Digital Center as a continuing effort to further expand the outcome of the Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program (TELDAP) which ended in 2012. This publication project derived from a sub-project under the "International Collaboration and Promotion of TELDAP", titled "Searching for the Qing Court Maps - The Digital Program of Seeking the Scattered Chinese Historical Cartography."

Reference: Heirman, Ann , De Troia, Paolo and Parmentier, Jan (2009) 'Francesco Sambiasi, a Missing Link in European Map Making in China?', Imago Mundi, 61: 1, 29 — 46

Reimagining the globe and cultural exchange : the East Asian legacies of Matteo Ricci's world map /  edited by Laura Hostetler.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Foreword: Maps, Missionaries, and the Global Exchange of Knowledge in the Early Modern World / M. Antoni J. Ucerler, S.J.
Preface and Acknowledgements / Laura Hostetler
Introduction: Reflections on Form and Content / Laura Hostetler

Part 1. Jesuit Circuits of Communication and Publication
1 Jesuit Contributions to Global Connectivity and Global Consciousness in the Early Modern Era / José Casanova
2 From Manuscript to Print: At the Origins of Early Jesuit Missionary Strategies of Communication / Robert Danieluk, S.J.
3 Dutch Publications on the Jesuit Mission in China in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries / Paul Begheyn, S.J.

Part 2. Jesuit World Maps in Chinese, from Ricci to Verbiest
4 Parallels, Engagement, and Integration: The Ricci Maps and Their Afterlives in Ming-Qing China as a Case Study of Intertwined Global Early Modernity / Qiong Zhang
5. A Detailed Comparative Investigation of Maps / AOYAMA Hiro’o
6 Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam: Jesuit Mapping in China by Giulio Aleni, Francesco Sambiasi, Niccolò Longobardi, Manuel Diaz, and Others / Paola Demattè
7 The World Revealed: Science, Mythology, and the Natural World in Ferdinand Verbiest’s Kunyu Quantu 坤輿全圖 (1674) / Mark Stephen Mir

Part 3. Reverberations of Ricci’s Maps in East Asia
8 Representing an Ideal World Order of the Past: The Cultural Function of the Jesuit World Maps in Eighteenth-Century Korean Government / LIM Jongtae
9 Entering Asia: The Repositioning of Japan / Kären Wigen
10 China’s Nine-Dash Line: Cartographic Science and the Adoption of New Map Languages in the Transition from Empire to Nation State / Laura Hostetler

Postlude. Reflections on the Curation of Cartographic Knowledge
11 Writing Technologies and Special Collections: Agents and Arbiters of Change through the Transmission of Knowledge / Marguerite Ragnow
12 East Asian Map Collections in the Library of Congress: A Unique Source for the Study of Cartography and East–West Cultural Exchange / Ralph E. Ehrenberg

"How did Asia come to be represented on European World maps? When and how did Asian Countries adopt a continental system for understanding the world? How did countries with disparate mapping traditions come to share a basic understanding and vision of the globe? This series of essays organized into sections on Jesuit Circuits of Communication and Publication; Jesuit World Maps in Chinese; Reverberations of Matteo Ricci's Maps in East Asia; and Reflections on the Curation of Cartographic Knowledge, go a long way toward answering these questions about the shaping of our modern understandings of the world"-- Provided by publisher.

Local access dig.pdf [Reimagining the Globe.pdf]

ABSTRACT: In 1986 the Kendall Whaling Museum (Sharon, Massachusetts) acquired a panel of a Chinese map as an example of the Chinese representation of the monstrous fish (whales) mentioned by Herman Melville in his assessment of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century depictions of whales. Only later was the panel identified as a rare seventeenth-century variation of Matteo Ricci's world map of 1602.
In this paper, the museum's map is compared with other manuscript and printed maps by Matteo Ricci. Discussion centers on the origins of the manuscript copies of Ricci's 1602 map and their inter-relationships. A census of woodblock prints of Ricci's maps (1602, 1603, post- 1644) and of the Chinese manuscript copies is included.
KEYWORDS: World maps; Matteo Ricci,printed and manuscript maps; Jesuits and maps; China, seventeenth century maps.
Local access dig.pdf. [Day-Ricci World Map.pdf]