Reconstructing Giovanni Vacca’s Collection in the Vatican Library-Reference-Cited by-同舟云学术

Reconstructing Giovanni Vacca’s Collection in the Vatican Library

Published:2023-06-28 Issue:1 Volume:2 Page:53-74
ISSN:2772-8633
Container-title:The Vatican Library Review
language:
Short-container-title:Vatican Libr. Rev.

Author:

Bréard Andrea¹^ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg Germany Nürnberg

Abstract

Abstract This article reconstructs an important but specific portion of Giovanni Vacca’s personal library: his books related to mathematics in Chinese language. Collected during his stay in China from 1907 to 1908, they were donated to the Vatican Library after his death. The article combines detailed archival and bibliographic research with an analysis of handwritten annotations in mathematical books in the Library’s collection R. G. Oriente in order to identify which books were previously owned by Vacca. This not only allows us to contextualize his sojourn in China and understand better his intellectual interests in Chinese science and the way he read and translated Chinese mathematical texts, but it also contributes to a more detailed picture of the Chinese book market in the early twentieth century.

Publisher

Brill

Reference26 articles.

1. Atti del Comitato italiano dell’Associazione internazionale per la esplorazione dell’Asia centrale e dell’Estremo Oriente (1907), in Rivista Degli Studi Orientali 1.1, 117–121.

2. Blåsjö, Viktor & Jan P. Hogendijk (2018): On Translating Mathematics, in Isis 109.4, 774–781.

3. Bréard, Andrea (2019): (Philo-) Logica-Mathematica—Giovanni Vacca’s (1872–1953) Attempts of Translation between Mathematical Formulas and Chinese Text via Simplified Latin, in Geschichte der Germanistik. Historische Zeitschrift der Philologien 55/56, 16–33.

4. Bréard, Andrea [白安雅] & Han, Qi [韓琦] (forthcoming 2023): From “Mathematical Linguistics” to “Chinese Philology” via the History of Chinese Science: Giovanni Vacca’s Disciplinary turn, in Dutournier, Guillaume [杜杰庸] & Fölster, Max J. [马勊思] & Li, Xuetao [李雪涛] (eds.): The China Experience and the Making of Sinology 《中国经历与汉学生成——旅居中国的西方学者》论文集. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz (Lun Wen—Studien zur Geistesgeschichte und Literatur in China).

5. Cassina, Ugo (1953): Giovanni Vacca: La vita e le opere, Rendiconti Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere, Classe di Scienze Matematiche e Naturali 86, 185–200.