Translating Western Science, Technology and Medicine to Late Ming China: Convergences and Divergences in the Light of the Kunyu gezhi (Investigations of the Earth's Interior; 1640) and the Taixi shuifa (Hydromethods of the Great West; 1612)

这个项目的推动因素是2015年中国版乔治亚斯·阿格利科拉(Georgius Agricola)(1494-1555)的《De Re Metallica》(1556)的轰动一时的重新发现。这部著名的矿业经典的中文翻译，由明朝官员李天静(1579-1659)发起，由著名的德国耶稣会传教士约翰·亚当·舒尔·冯·贝尔(1592-1666)进行，丢失了350多年。我们的目标之一是将这本名为《地球内部调查》的中文版本翻译成英文，并收录所有相关的历史记录。这将阐明耶稣会士高度选择性和复杂的翻译方法，无论是关于西方参考文献中的段落，还是关于新的矿物学思想和概念，从而将为向中央王国传播欧洲有用和可靠的知识的范围和限制提供独特的见解。此外，重要的是要弄清楚这本译本是如何被中国读者接受和理解的，以及这本采矿和冶金论文的命运是什么，直到它最近出人意料的重新发现。此外，出于比较的原因，我们将调查另一部重要的、基本上被忽视的文本--《太溪水法》(大西部的水文方法，序言1612)，通过解决与它类似的研究问题。这本技术手册主要由意大利耶稣会传教士萨巴蒂诺·德·乌尔西斯(Sabatino de Ursis，1575-1620年)撰写，包含了关于水和水管理的理论和实践方面的系统论述，包括关于温泉治疗和蒸馏方法的医疗益处的讨论。我们对这两篇论文的全面研究涉及两个不同的技术和经济领域，但有重叠之处，特别是在水资源管理和自然哲学方面，我们将充分考虑到最近对全球化早期期间知识从西方向东方转移的历史的研究。最后，它还将把这些17世纪早期的事件与后来时期的事件进行比较，特别是19世纪末新教传教士所做的努力。我们的案例研究还将适当关注历史语境，即政治、社会、经济和文化条件和发展的背景，从而突出中国与欧洲的趋同和差异。该项目的最终目的将是通过微观历史案例研究与宏观历史比较社会学的方法相结合，为近代早期欧洲与中国之间关于“大分化”起源的争论做出贡献。这项工作是在教科文组织世界记忆计划研究和教育小组委员会的主持下进行的，不仅对东西方互动和交流史，而且对德国文化史都具有特别重要的意义。

This project was prompted by the sensational rediscovery in 2015 of the Chinese version of Georgius Agricola’s (1494-1555) De re metallica (1556). The Chinese rendering of this famous mining classic, initiated by the Ming official Li Tianjing (1579-1659) and carried out by the famous German Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1592-1666), was lost for more than 350 years. One of our aims is to translate this Chinese version, entitled Kunyu gezhi (Investigations of the Earth’s Interior; 1640), into English, with the inclusion of all relevant historical records. This will elucidate the Jesuits’ highly selective and complex approach to the translation, both with regard to passages in the Western reference texts as well as to new mineralogical ideas and concepts, and thus will provide unique insights into the scope and limitations of the transmission of European useful and reliable knowledge to the Middle Kingdom. Moreover, it is important to find out how this translation was received and perceived by Chinese readers and what the fate of this mining and metallurgy treatise was until its recent unexpected rediscovery. Furthermore, for comparative reasons we will investigate another important and largely neglected text, the Taixi shuifa (Hydromethods of the Great West; preface 1612), by addressing similar research questions to it. This technological manual, mainly composed by the Italian Jesuit missionary Sabatino de Ursis (1575-1620), contains a systematic discourse on both the theoretical and practical aspects of water and water management, including discussions about the medical benefits of hot spring treatments and distillation methods. Our comprehensive study of these two unique treatises dealing with two different technical and economic fields, but with overlapping especially in water management and natural philosophy, will take fully into account recent research on the history of knowledge transfers from West to East during the period of early globalization. Eventually, it will also compare these early seventeenth-century events with those of later periods, especially the Protestant missionaries’ efforts of the late nineteenth century. Our case studies will also pay due attention to historical contextualisation, i.e. the background of political, social, economic and cultural conditions and developments, and hence highlight convergences and divergences between China and Europe. The ultimate aim of the project will be to make a contribution to the debate about the origin of the "Great Divergence" between Europe and China during the Early Modern Period, and this by combining our micro-historical case studies with the approaches of a macro-historical comparative sociology. This endeavour, carried out under the auspices of the UNESCO Subcommittee on Research and Education, Memory of the World Programme, is of extraordinary importance not only for the history of West-East interactions and exchanges, but also for German cultural history.