In 2015, a previously unknown manuscript was discovered in the Nanjing Library. It contained a Chinese mining and metallurgy handbook, and was identified as a copy of the Kunyu gezhi 坤輿格致, known as the lost Chines...In 2015, a previously unknown manuscript was discovered in the Nanjing Library. It contained a Chinese mining and metallurgy handbook, and was identified as a copy of the Kunyu gezhi 坤輿格致, known as the lost Chinese translation of Georgius Agricola’s(1494–1555) De re metallica(1556) by Jesuit Adam Schall von Bell(1592–1666). A closer look at the text, however, reveals that, besides parts of Agricola’s book, content by at least four other European authors was included: Vannoccio Biringuccio(1480–1539), Modestinus Fachs(?–before 1595), Lazarus Ercker(1528/30–1594), and José de Acosta(1539/40–1599/1600). This study demonstrates how their books became available in China, why they were selected as sources for the Kunyu gezhi, and how they were eventually used and incorporated. From this, it becomes apparent that Schall and his collaborators spared no effort to conduct this ambitious knowledge transfer project, and to present European technology at its best to the emperor.展开更多
The more than thirty legal disputes and cases mentioned in The Plum in the Golden Vase （Jinpingmei） make this late Ming novel an invaluable source for the study of law and legal culture in premodern China. This lect...The more than thirty legal disputes and cases mentioned in The Plum in the Golden Vase （Jinpingmei） make this late Ming novel an invaluable source for the study of law and legal culture in premodern China. This lecture illustrates that the cases in the novel describe in considerable detail each of the formal steps in the Ming process of legal adjudication. But the work also conveys the message that despite the formal process, the legal system does not deliver justice. However, an alternative system of justice that is mostly implicit in the text, the justice of a disinterested and moral Heaven, ultimately prevails. Finally, the contemporary implications of this traditional understanding of law and justice are explored.展开更多
基金This research is part of“Translating Western Science,Technology and Medicine to Late Ming China:Convergences and Divergences in the Light of the Kunyu gezhi坤輿格致(Investigations of the Earth’s Interior1640)and the Taixi shuifa泰西水法(Hydromethods of the Great West1612),”a project supported by the German Research Foundation(DFG)from 2018 to 2021.
文摘In 2015, a previously unknown manuscript was discovered in the Nanjing Library. It contained a Chinese mining and metallurgy handbook, and was identified as a copy of the Kunyu gezhi 坤輿格致, known as the lost Chinese translation of Georgius Agricola’s(1494–1555) De re metallica(1556) by Jesuit Adam Schall von Bell(1592–1666). A closer look at the text, however, reveals that, besides parts of Agricola’s book, content by at least four other European authors was included: Vannoccio Biringuccio(1480–1539), Modestinus Fachs(?–before 1595), Lazarus Ercker(1528/30–1594), and José de Acosta(1539/40–1599/1600). This study demonstrates how their books became available in China, why they were selected as sources for the Kunyu gezhi, and how they were eventually used and incorporated. From this, it becomes apparent that Schall and his collaborators spared no effort to conduct this ambitious knowledge transfer project, and to present European technology at its best to the emperor.
文摘The more than thirty legal disputes and cases mentioned in The Plum in the Golden Vase （Jinpingmei） make this late Ming novel an invaluable source for the study of law and legal culture in premodern China. This lecture illustrates that the cases in the novel describe in considerable detail each of the formal steps in the Ming process of legal adjudication. But the work also conveys the message that despite the formal process, the legal system does not deliver justice. However, an alternative system of justice that is mostly implicit in the text, the justice of a disinterested and moral Heaven, ultimately prevails. Finally, the contemporary implications of this traditional understanding of law and justice are explored.
