Makers › Scientist
Tang Ruowang
German Jesuit astronomer who helped compile the Chongzhen calendar treatises, headed the Qing astronomical bureau and was condemned in the calendar case of 1664
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 Johann Adam Schall von Bell
Tang Ruowang was the Chinese name of Johann Adam Schall von Bell, a Jesuit from Cologne who joined the order in Rome in 1611, reached Macao in 1619 and Beijing in 1623. In 1630 the minister of rites Xu Guangqi, who was directing calendar reform, brought him into the calendar bureau, where with Giacomo Rho and others he compiled the Chongzhen Calendar Treatises (Chongzhen lishu); he also supervised the casting of cannon for the Ming. After the Qing took Beijing he presented a calendar computed by Western methods, and from 1644 he ran the Directorate of Astronomy, whose Shixian calendar the dynasty adopted; the Shunzhi emperor gave him the title Master Who Penetrates the Mysteries. In 1664 Yang Guangxian attacked Western astronomy and Christianity, and Schall was jailed and in 1665 sentenced to death by slicing, but an earthquake in the capital led to his release. He died in Beijing in 1666, and the Kangxi court cleared his name in 1669.
Life and times
Dates 1592 CE–1666 CE (birth by another account 1591)