Martino Martini

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Martino Martini
Portrait of Martino Martini
Personal details
Born(1614-09-20)20 September 1614
Trento, Bishopric of Trent, Holy Roman Empire
Died6 June 1661(1661-06-06) (aged 46)
Hangzhou, China
NationalityTridentine, Holy Roman Empire
DenominationChristianity
OccupationMissionary, cartographer and historian

Martino Martini (

ancient Imperial China.[1]

Early years

Frontpage of Novus Atlas sinensis, by Martino Martini, Amsterdam, 1655.

Martini was born in

Superior General of the Jesuits. He pursued his theological studies in Portugal (1637–1639), where he was ordained priest (1639, in Lisbon
).

In the Chinese Empire

He set out for China in 1640 and arrived in

Great Wall. He made great use of his talents as missionary, scholar, writer and superior
.

Soon after Martini's arrival to China, the

Qing Dynasty. Martini agreed and had his head shaved in the Manchu way, and his Chinese dress and hat were replaced with Qing-style ones. The Qing then allowed him to return to his Hangzhou church and provided him and the Hangzhou Christian community with the necessary protection.[2]

The Chinese Rites affair

Further information: Chinese Rites controversy

In 1651 Martini left China for Rome as the Delegate of the Chinese Mission Superior. He took advantage of the long, adventurous voyage (going first to the Philippines, from thence on a Dutch privateer to Bergen, Norway,[3] which he reached on 31 August 1653, and then to Amsterdam). Further, and still on his way to Rome, he met printers in Antwerp, Vienna and Munich to submit to them historical and cartographic data he had prepared. The works were printed and made him famous.

When passing through

Leyden, Martini was met by Jacobus Golius, a scholar of Arabic and Persian at the university there. Golius did not know Chinese, but had read about "Cathay" in Persian books, and wanted to verify the truth of the earlier reports of Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci and Bento de Góis who believed that Cathay was the same place as China, where they lived or, visited. Golius was familiar with the discussion of the "Cathayan" calendar in Zij-i Ilkhani, a work by the Persian astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, completed in 1272. When Golius met Martini (who, of course, knew no Persian), the two scholars found that the names of the 12 divisions into which, according to Nasir al-Din, the "Cathayans" were dividing the day, as well as those of the 24 sections of the year reported by Nasir al-Din matched those that Martini had learned in China. The story, soon published by Martini in the "Additamentum" to his Atlas of China, seemed to have finally convinced most European scholars that China and Cathay were the same.[4]

On his way to Rome, Martini met his then 10-year-old cousin

Jesuit
missionary explorer and the world-renowned cartographer of New Spain.

In the spring of 1655 Martini reached Rome. There, in Rome, was the most difficult part of his journey. He had brought along (for the Holy Office of the

Propaganda Fide issued a decree in favour of the Jesuits
(23 March 1656). A battle was won, but the controversy did not abate.

Return to China

Main article:
Immaculate Conception Cathedral of Hangzhou

In 1658, after a most difficult journey, he was back in China with the favourable decree. He was again involved in pastoral and missionary activities in the Hangzhou area where he built a three naves church that was considered to be one of the most beautiful in the country (1659–1661). The church was hardly built when he died of cholera (1661). David E. Mungello wrote that he died of rhubarb overdosing which aggravated his constipation.[5]

Travels

Martini travelled in at least fifteen countries in Europe and seven provinces of the Chinese empire, making stops in India, Java, Sumatra, the Philippines and South Africa. After studying in Trento and Rome, Martini reached

Zhejiang Province) and Shanghai
.

Traversing the

Kaapstad (a stop of twenty days in the fort, the Dutch Governor Jan van Riebeeck had built in 1652), Bergen, Hamburg, the Belgian Antwerp and Brussels where he met the archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, the Dutch Leiden (with the scholar Jacobus Golius) and Amsterdam, where he met the famous cartographer Joan Blaeu
.

He reached almost certainly some cities in France, then

Domingo Navarrete), Macao, and finally Hangzhou, where he died.[6]

Post-mortem phenomenon

Martini's grave in Hangzhou

According to the attestation of Prosper Intorcetta (in Litt. Annuae, 1861), Martini's corpse was found to be undecayed after twenty years. It became a longstanding object of cult, not only for Christians, until, in 1877, suspecting idolatry, the hierarchy had it reburied.[7]

Modern views

Today's scientists have shown increasing interest in the works of Martini. During an international convention organized in the city of Trento (his birthplace), a member of the Chinese academy of Social Sciences, Prof. Ma Yong said: "Martini was the first to study the history and geography of China with rigorous scientific objectivity; the extent of his knowledge of the Chinese culture, the accuracy of his investigations, the depth of his understanding of things Chinese are examples for the modern sinologists". Ferdinand von Richthofen calls Martini "the leading geographer of the Chinese mission, one who was unexcelled and hardly equalled, during the XVIII century ... There was no other missionary, either before or after, who made such diligent use of his time in acquiring information about the country". (China, I, 674 sq.)[citation needed]

Martino Martini in popular culture

In the television series How I Met Your Mother (series 8 episode 24 titled "Something New"), as Robin and Barney converse, two maps from Martino Martini's Atlas are seen hanging in brown frames on the walls of a posh restaurant in New York City: to be precise, the top one represents Beijing province and the bottom one Fujian.

Works

D.E. Mungello
) note the discrepancy between the picture and the content of the book: the severed head held by the warrior has a queue, which is a Manchu hairstyle (also imposed by Manchu on the population of conquered China), and is not likely to be had by a Ming loyalist.
  • Martini's most important work is Novus Atlas Sinensis, which appeared as part of volume 10 of
    Geographica Blaviana
    and the 1690 Atlas van der Hagen.
  • Of the great chronological work which Martini had planned, and which was to comprise the whole Chinese history from the earliest age, only the first part appeared: Sinicæ Historiæ Decas Prima (Munich 1658), which reached until the birth of Jesus.
  • His De Bello Tartarico Historia (Antwerp 1654) is also important as Chinese history, for Martini himself had lived through the frightful occurrences which brought about the overthrow of the ancient Ming dynasty. The works have been repeatedly published and translated into different languages. There is also a later version, entitled Regni Sinensis a Tartaris devastati enarratio (1661); compared to the original De Bello Tartarica Historia, it has some additions, such as an index.
  • Interesting as missionary history is his Brevis Relatio de Numero et Qualitate Christianorum apud Sinas, (Brussels, 1654).
  • Besides these, Martini wrote a series of theological and apologetical works in Chinese, including a De Amicitia (Hangzhou, 1661) that could have been the first anthology of Western authors available in China (Martini's selection drew mainly from Roman and Greek writings).
  • Grammatica Linguae Sinensis (1652–1653). The first manuscript grammar of Mandarin Chinese and the first grammar of the Chinese language ever printed and published in M. Thévenot Relations des divers voyages curieux (1696)[10]
  • Several works, among them a Chinese translation of the works of
    Francisco Suarez
    , which has not been found yet.

See also

References

  1. ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Martino Martini" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  2. ISBN 0-8248-1219-0.. Also, p. 99 in De Bello Tartarico Historia
    .
  3. ^ Mungello, p. 108
  4. ISBN 978-0-226-46734-4
    . Volume III, "A Century of Advance", Book Four, "East Asia", p. 1577.
  5. ISBN 978-0-8248-1540-0
    .
  6. ^ Opera Omnia, 1998, pp. 509–533, with maps p. 59, p. 96, p. 156, p. 447, p. 470-471 and pp. 534–535; Masini, 2008, pp. 244–246.
  7. ^ http://www.cczj.org/company.asp?id=195&page=2
  8. ^ "Martin Martini" in Notices biographiques et bibliographiques sur les jésuites de l'ancienne mission de Chine (1552-1773), par le P. Louis Pfister,...Tome I, XVIe et XVIIe siècles -Impr. de la Mission catholique (Shanghaï)-1932, pp. 256-262.
  9. ^ A very high quality zoomable scan can be seen at gallica.bnf.fr: "Quantung imperii sinarum provincia duodecima". Retrieved 13 July 2016.
  10. ISBN 9789081436588

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Martino Martini.

LENTINI, Orlando, Da Martino Martini a Zhang Weiwei, pp. 45–64; Von COLLANI, Claudia, Two Astronomers: Martino Martini and Johann Adam Schall von Bell, pp. 65–94; RUSSO, Mariagrazia, Martino Martini e le lettere portoghesi: tasselli per un percorso biografico, pp. 95–112; GOLVERS, Noel, Martino Martini in the Low Countries, pp. 113–136; Uta Lindgren, Martini, Nieuhof und die Vereinigte Ostindische Compagnie der Niederländer, pp. 137–158; PIASTRA, Stefano, Francesco Brancati, Martino Martini and Shanghai's Lao Tang (Old Church): Mapping, Perception and Cultural Implications of a Place, pp. 159–181. WIDMAIER, Rita, Modallogik versus Probabilitätslogik: Logik der Tatsachenwahrheit bei G. W. Leibniz und Martino Martini bei den virulenten Fragen im Ritenstreit, pp. 183–198; CRIVELLER, Gianni, Martino Martini e la controversia dei riti cinesi, pp. 199–222; MORALI, Ilaria, Aspetti teologici della controversia sui riti e loro attualità a 50 anni dal Concilio Vaticano II: contributo ad una Teologia delle Religioni autenticamente cattolica, pp. 223–250; ANTONUCCI, Davor, Scritti inediti di Martino Martini: ipotesi di lavoro e di ricerca, pp. 251–284; PATERNICÒ, Luisa M., The Manuscript of the Sinicae Historiae Decas Prima in the Vatican Library, pp. 285–298; Castelnovi, Michele, Da Il Libro delle Meraviglie al Novus Atlas Sinensis, una rivoluzione epistemologica: Martino Martini sostituisce Marco Polo, pp. 299–336; BERGER, Katrien, Martino Martini De Bello Tartarico: a comparative study of Latin text and his translations, pp. 337–362; YUAN XI, Una ricerca terminologica sull’opera teologica martiniana Zhenzhu lingxing lizheng, pp. 363–388.

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