Pleasing the Emperor: Revisiting the Figured Chinese Manuscript of Matteo Ricci’s Maps

Abstract

Aside from John Day’s important survey of the figured manuscript copies of Matteo Ricci’s map, there has been little investigation of the reasons they were made, the sources of their content or how they circulated. Key to understanding these maps is the text Zhifang waiji [職方外紀] (1623) edited by Giulio Aleni and Yang Tingyun. This text was actually the work of Diego de Pantoja and Sabatino de Ursis in Beijing, composed on the orders of the Wanli emperor. At the same time, a figured manuscript copy of Ricci’s map was composed, which was copied by other scholars in Beijing and circulated at court. These efforts, however, were largely aimed at pleasing the Wanli Emperor rather than impressing the literati with the extent of Jesuit knowledge.