An unpublished astronomical manuscript by the "father superior of Chinese Astronomy" (Needham)

Gaubil, Antoine, Jesuit missionary, astronomer, and historian at the Imperial Court in Beijing (1689-1759). "Catalogue pour la lune et les 5 planètes". Autograph manuscript.

€ 28.000,00

A chronological survey of the movements and positions of the moon and the five planets between 147 BC and AD 1735, compiled from Chinese works. Beyond the tables of observations, Gaubil offers highly interesting notes and remarks on the observations themselves, Chinese astronomical terminology, as well as the history, practice, and relevance of lunar observation in China, especially with respect to the lunar calendar, dynastic chronology, and astrology.

Two particularly interesting notes are found towards the end of the manuscripts on pp. 29 and 31, respectively. In the first note, Gaubil mentions his source and prides himself with surpassing comparable Chinese compilations: "It is from the astronomy of the dynasties that I have drawn the calculations or observations shown in these 29 pages. Several Chinese have made these kinds of compendiums, but they are unselective, truncated and full of errors" (transl.). The following note directs the reader's attention to the high esteem that Jesuit astronomers enjoyed at the Imperial Court in Beijing: "The mandarins appointed by the Emperor to work with the Jesuits to reform the Calendar gave an account of their commissions. In particular, they pointed out the shortcomings of the Ephemerides for the year 1634. It is here that they state that the Chinese do not speak of the latitude or declination of the planets, and that even the longitudes of the planets are very often incorrect" (transl.).

Gaubil sent the manuscript to his editor Étienne Souciet SJ (1671-1744), librarian at the Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris, who added his note of receipt on 17 August 1752 in ink to the first page. Gaubil himself noted, "sent catalogue of constellations", apparently indicating another manuscript. The later pencil foliation ("153-168"), possibly added by Souciet, appears to indicate a publication project, but the manuscript was not published in Souciet's Observations and is not listed by Pfister.

Antoine Gaubil, who arrived in Beijing in 1722 and would remain there for the rest of his life, was the most important astronomer among the French Jesuits in China, and one of the greatest disseminators of Chinese science and wisdom in Europe in the 18th century. His work on astronomy and as a historian and translator of important Chinese texts such as the "I Ching" earned him the praise of Alexander von Humboldt as the wisest of the Jesuit missionaries. Needham even considers him "the interpreter general and father superior of Chinese astronomy".