蒋友仁的《坤舆全图》与《地球图说》

Michel Benoit's Great Universal Geographic Map and Illustration of the Earth

法国传教士蒋友仁于乾隆年间绘制《坤舆全图》及编纂《地球图说》,为中国人带来了哥白尼的日心说,介绍了开普勒三定律以及欧洲天文学的一些最新进展,这些已为学界所熟知。但关于该图的绘制时间和图说的成书时间,看法不一,相关论著述及矛盾之处甚多。《耶稣会士中国书简集——中国回忆录》中的材料印证了鞠德源的观点,即蒋友仁于乾隆二十五年(1760)完成初绘,并在乾隆三十二年(1767)增补该图,实际上绘制过两次。该图是在南怀仁所绘《坤舆全图》的基础上,根据"新辟西域诸图"和"西来所携手辑疆域梗概"等资料进行内容增补,该图至今仅见手绘本,未见刻本。蒋友仁在绘制《坤舆全图》的同时,应该已经完成了一部类似《地球图说》的书稿,并按照乾隆的旨意补上了相关地图和天文图,且翰林院也遵旨对该书稿进行了润饰。因此,所谓"在深宫禁院中整整躺了三十年,才由中国学者钱大昕详加润饰地图的说明文字"一说,恐与事实不符。乾隆皇帝不仅在蒋友仁1760年初次进呈后就特别重视该地图,且专门派学者参与修改润饰,并因《坤舆全图》对世界知识产生了浓厚的兴趣。

It has been well-known to academia that Michel Benoit, a French missionary, has drawn a Great Universal Geo-graphic Map and an Illustration of the Earth, which introduced Copernicus' s heliocentric theory, Kepler's three laws ofplanetary motion and some latest developments in European astronomy for Chinese in the reign of Qianlong Emperor. How-ever, people have different views regarding the drawn time of this map and the completion time of this illustration, whilethere are also a lot of contradictions stated in related works. Materials in Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses Ecrites des Mis-sions Etrangères: Mémoires de la Chine have confirmed JU De-yuan's opinion that Michel Benoit finished the early draw-ing of this map in the 25 th year of Qianlong(1760) and supplemented it in the 32 th year of Qianlong(1767), which meansthat Benoit had drawn this map twice in practice. Based on the former Great Universal Geographic Map drawn by FerdinandVerbiest, the latter Great Universal Geographic Map by Michel Benoit, of which the hand-drawn version could be found on-ly without any block-printed version found so far, had supplemented some contents according to the references of The Col-lected Maps of New-Expanded Western Regions and The Outline of Territories Edited by Western from the West. WhileMichel Benoit was drawing Great Universal Geographic Map, he might have finished a manuscript similar to Illustration ofthe Earth and have supplemented some related geographical maps and astronomical maps in accordance with Qianlong'simperial edict, with the embellishment of this manuscript by Imperial Academy following imperial edict. Therefore, thestatement that'(this illustration) has been only neglected and locked into the deep and forbidden palace for full 30 years be-fore Chinese scholar QIAN Da-xin embellished its commentaries in detail'is perhaps not correspond with the fact. Qian-long Emperor not only paid special attention to this map after Michel Benoit's first presentation in 1760, but also appointedscholars to participate in its modification and embellishment. Due to such a Great Universal Geographic Map, Qianlong Em-peror developed a strong and keen interest in the knowledge of the world.