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Xu Guangqi
Shanghai scholar-official who learned Western science from Matteo Ricci, co-translated Euclid, directed the Chongzhen calendar reform and died a grand secretary
On an observatory terrace at night, a large bronze armillary sphere stands on a stone base while two people stand with their backs turned facing the view; stars are joined into constellation lines overhead, and a sundial and tiered dripping water vessels stand at the right.
Also known as Zi Zixian · Hao Xuanhu
- Roles
- Scientist
Xu Guangqi, courtesy name Zixian, came from Shanghai county in Songjiang; he topped the Shuntian provincial examination in 1597 and gained his jinshi in 1604, having already been baptized a Catholic in Nanjing. In Beijing he studied astronomy, mathematics and gunnery with Matteo Ricci, and in 1607 the two published their translation of the first six books of Euclid's Elements (Jihe yuanben). After the Ming defeat at Sarhu he asked to train troops at Tongzhou, and in the 1620s he urged the casting of Western cannon, until Wei Zhongxian's faction had him removed. Recalled in 1628 and made minister of rites, he persuaded the Chongzhen emperor to reform the calendar and ran a calendar bureau in which the Jesuits Longobardo, Schreck and Rho translated European astronomy, work later gathered as the Chongzhen Calendar Treatises. He entered the Grand Secretariat in 1632 and died in office the next year with the posthumous name Wending; his son later presented his Complete Treatise on Agricultural Administration (Nongzheng quanshu), which the emperor ordered printed.
Life and times
Dates 1562 CE–1633 CE