page_title: Johann Schreck
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Johann Schreck / Early life
caption_attribution_description: The field mill featured in the Yuanxi Qiqi Tushuo Luzui ("Collected Diagrams and Explanations of the Wonderful Machines of the Far West") of 1627, compiled and translated by the German Jesuit Johann Schreck (1576&#8211;1630) and Ming Dynasty Chinese author Wang Zheng (1571&#8211;1644), drawn after the 1607 treatise of Vittorio Zonca showing Pompeo Targone's field mill of 1580. However, long before it was used in the Huguenot Wars in Europe, it was actually invented in China at least by the Later Zhao (319&#8211;351) era when it was mentioned in around 340 AD. In an ironic twist, it reentered China as a 16th century European innovation; by that time it was completely forgotten in China.
context_page_description: Johann Schreck, also Terrenz or Terrentius Constantiensis, Deng Yuhan Hanpo 鄧玉函, Deng Zhen Lohan, was a German Jesuit, missionary to China and polymath. He is credited with the development of scientific-technical terminology in Chinese.
context_section_description: Schreck studied medicine starting in 1590 at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, the University of Altdorf. After graduating, he is also known to have worked as an assistant to the mathematician François Viète in Paris in around 1600. After Viète's death in 1603 he moved to the University of Padua, where he was a student of Galileo Galilei, but studied medicine.
  Schreck had an exceptional facility with languages; he spoke German, Italian, Portuguese, French and English.  Like most educated men of his time, he wrote his letters in Latin. He also mastered Ancient Greek, Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic. Later in his life, he learned Chinese.
caption: The field mill in the Chinese book Yuanxi Qiqi Tushuo Luzui (Collected Diagrams and Explanations of the Wonderful Machines of the Far West), compiled and translated by Johann Schreck and his Chinese colleague Wang Zheng in 1627
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