page_title: Kunyu Wanguo Quantu
section_title: Details
hierarchical_section_title: Kunyu Wanguo Quantu / Details
caption_attribution_description: English: Kunyu_Quantu_of_Ferdinand_Verbiest_1674
context_page_description: Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, printed in China at the request of the Wanli Emperor during 1602 by the Italian Catholic missionary Matteo Ricci and Chinese collaborators, Mandarin Zhong Wentao and the technical translator, Li Zhizao, is the earliest known Chinese world map with the style of European maps. It has been referred to as the Impossible Black Tulip of Cartography, "because of its rarity, importance and exoticism". The map was crucial in expanding Chinese knowledge of the world. It was eventually exported to Korea then Japan and was influential there as well, though less so than Alenio's Zhifang Waiji.
context_section_description: The map includes images and annotations describing different regions of the world. Africa is noted to have the world's highest mountain and longest river. The brief description of North America mentions "humped oxen" or bison (駝峰牛 tuófēngníu), feral horses (野馬, yěmǎ), and names Canada (加拿大, Jiānádà). The map identifies Florida as Huādì (花地), the "Land of Flowers." Several Central and South American places are named, including Guatemala (哇的麻剌, Wādemálá), Yucatan (宇革堂, Yǔgétáng), and Chile (智里, Zhīlǐ).
  The map's cartographer, Matteo Ricci, gave a brief description of the discovery of the Americas. "In olden days, nobody had ever known that there were such places as North and South America or Magellanica (using a name that early mapmakers gave to a supposed continent including Australia, Antarctica, and Tierra del Fuego), but a hundred years ago, Europeans came sailing in their ships to parts of the sea coast, and so discovered them."
  The Museo della Specola Bologna has in its collection, displayed on the wall of the Globe Room, original copies of panels 1 and 6 of the six panels comprising the 1602 Ricci map. During restoration and mounting, a central panel—a part of the Doppio Emisfero delle Stelle by the German mathematician and astronomer Johann Adam Schall von Bell—was inserted between the two sections by mistake.
  In 1958, Pasquale D’Elia, sinologist at the University of Rome  certified the authenticity of the Chinese maps in this museum’s possession, (see op. cit.) stating that "it is the third edition of a geographical and cartographical work that made Ricci famous throughout China. He had already made a first edition in 1584 at Shiuhing, followed by a second in 1600 at Nanking, and two years later a third in Peking.
  In 1938, an exhaustive work by Pasquale d'Elia, edited by the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, was published with comments, notes, and translation of the whole map. The maps carry plentiful instructions for use and detailed illustrations of the instruments that went into their production, as well as explanations regarding conceptions of "systems of the terrestrial and celestial world". There is a long preface by Matteo Ricci in the middle of the map, where it depicts the Pacific Ocean. D’Elia’s translation reads:
  "Once I thought learning was a multifold experience and I would not refuse to travel [even] ten thousand Li to be able to question wise men and visit celebrated countries. But how long is a man’s life? It is certain that many years are needed to acquire a complete science, based on a vast number of observations: and that’s where one becomes old without the time to make use of this science. Is this not a painful thing?
  And this is why I put great store by [geographical] maps and history: history for fixing [these observations], and maps for handing them on [to future generations].
  
  Respectfully written by the European Matteo Ricci on 17 August 1602."
  The figure of the Nove Cieli (Nine Skies) is printed to the left of the title, illustrated as per sixteenth-century conceptions. The accompanying inscription explains the movement of the planets.  The right-hand section (panel 6) has other inscriptions giving general ideas on geography and oceanography. Another inscription records an extract of the Storia dei Mongoli regarding the motions of the Sun.
  In the top of the left-hand section (panel 1), there is an explanation of eclipses and the method for measuring the Earth and the Moon. Both sections carry the characteristic Jesuit seal, the IHS of the Society of Jesus. At the bottom left, in the Southern Hemisphere, is the name of the Chinese publisher of the map and the date: one day of the first month of autumn in the year 1602.
  The map also incorporates an explanation of parallels and meridians, a proof that the sun is larger than the moon, a table showing the distances of planets from the earth, an explanation of the varying lengths of days and nights, and polar projections of the earth that are unusually consistent with its main map.
caption: 1674 Kunyu Quantu of Ferdinand Verbiest 2 hemispheres
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