Article ID: CBB523644956

The Astronomical Images in the First Chinese Treatise on the Telescope by Johann Adam Schall von Bell Revisited (September 2020)

unapi

Shi, Yunli (Author)


NTM: Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Technik und Medizin
Volume: 28
Issue: 3
Pages: 451-479


Publication Date: September 2020
Edition Details: Special Issue: Imagining the Heavens. Historiographical Challenges and Eurasian Perspectives
Language: English

A reanalysis of the eight astronomical images that Johann Adam Schall von Bell incorporated in the first Chinese treatise on the telescope to illustrate the telescopic discoveries made by Galileo Galilei shows that they were borrowed from the works on telescopic astronomy by Galileo Galilei and Johann Georg Locher, a student of Christopher Scheiner. Except minor changes to both Galileo’s illustrations of the telescopic view of the moon and nebulae and Locher’s illustration of sunspots, Locher’s images about the phases of Venus and Jovian satellites were redrawn presumably to convey a clearer commitment to Tycho Brahe’s system of the world and most of the contents in Locher’s image of Saturn was replaced by Schall’s own observation. These changes seem to be the result of two important factors that confined the transcultural transmission of astronomical knowledge from Europe to China through the Jesuits in the seventeenth century, namely the official standpoint of the Catholic Church on the ongoing cosmological issues and the cultural tradition of Chinese astronomy.

...More
Associated with

Article Sonja Brentjes; Dagmar Schäfer (September 2020) Visualizations of the Heavens Before 1700 as a Concern of the History of Science, Medicine and Technology. NTM: Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Technik und Medizin (pp. 295-304). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB523644956/

Similar Citations

Chapter Reeves, Eileen; van Helden, Albert; (2007)
Verifying Galileo's Discoveries: Telescope-Making at the Collegio Romano (/isis/citation/CBB000930911/)

Article Corradini, Pietro; (1994)
The Chinese Imperial Astronomical Office and the Jesuit missionaries (/isis/citation/CBB000068109/)

Book Roberto Buonanno; (2014)
The Stars of Galileo Galilei and the Universal Knowledge of Athanasius Kircher (/isis/citation/CBB135161948/)

Article Filippo Camerota; (2004)
Galileo's Eye: Linear Perspectives and Visual Astronomy (/isis/citation/CBB435301788/)

Book Bucciantini, Massimo; Camerota, Michele; Giudice, Franco; (2012)
Il Telescopio di Galileo: Una Storia Europea (/isis/citation/CBB001450193/)

Book Barbieri, Cesare; (2010)
Galileo's Medicean Moons: Their Impact on 400 Years of Discovery (/isis/citation/CBB001033191/)

Book Reeves, Eileen; (2008)
Galileo's Glassworks: The Telescope and the Mirror (/isis/citation/CBB000774287/)

Article Gingerich, Owen; Van Helden, Albert; (2011)
How Galileo Constructed the Moons of Jupiter (/isis/citation/CBB001023568/)

Book Galileo Galilei; (2016)
Sidereus Nuncius, or the Sidereal Messenger (/isis/citation/CBB151181487/)

Article Tinguely, Frédéric; (2005)
L'Oeil de verre: la rhétorique de l'autopsie dans le Sidereus Nuncius (/isis/citation/CBB000670801/)

Book Wootton, David; (2010)
Galileo: Watcher of the Skies (/isis/citation/CBB001033187/)

Article Spiller, Elizabeth A.; (2000)
Reading through Galileo's Telescope: Margaret Cavendish and the Experience of Reading (/isis/citation/CBB000660472/)

Book Hans Gaab; Pierre Leich; (2018)
Simon Marius and his Research (/isis/citation/CBB163647651/)

Article Peter D. Usher; (2002)
Shakespeare's Support for the New Astronomy (/isis/citation/CBB799349495/)

Authors & Contributors
Van Helden, Albert
Reeves, Eileen A.
Roberto Buonanno
Liu, Liyuan
Leich, Pierre
English, Neil
Concepts
Astronomy
Telescopes
Observation
Scientific apparatus and instruments
Science and religion
Copernicanism
Time Periods
17th century
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
20th century
19th century
18th century
16th century
Places
Italy
China
Naples (Italy)
Tuscany (Italy)
Institutions
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
Imperial Astronomical Bureau
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment