By Greg Hugh, Staff Writer

 

A group of Chinese Heritage Foundation (CHF) members and invited guests were fortunate to attend an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) before it ended on August 29, 2010. The special tour was arranged by CHF Board Member, Yin Simpson that featured a lecture by our own docent (specially-trained volunteer of MIA), Charlie Ellias, followed by a special dinner at the Tea House on University Avenue in Minneapolis coordinated by CHF Board member, Margaret Wong, with a special menu recommended by Tea House owner, Yolanda Wang. By Greg Hugh, Staff Writer

A group of Chinese Heritage Foundation (CHF) members and invited guests were fortunate to attend an exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) before it ended on August 29, 2010. The special tour was arranged by CHF Board Member, Yin Simpson that featured a lecture by our own docent (specially-trained volunteer of MIA), Charlie Ellias, followed by a special dinner at the Tea House on University Avenue in Minneapolis coordinated by CHF Board member, Margaret Wong, with a special menu recommended by Tea House owner, Yolanda Wang.

Matteo Ricci’s monumental world map of 1602 is the oldest surviving Chinese map to show the Americas - and the first known map to combine western and eastern cartography and which placed China at the world’s center. Only six complete copies of the woodblock print are known to exist. Now, the Twin Cities is home to the only example in the United States, acquired last year by the James Ford Bell Trust after it emerged from a private Japanese collection. It is titled Kunyu wanguo quantu, or Complete map of all the nations of the world.  Although the exhibit at MIA has concluded, “The Impossible Black Tulip,” as the map is popularly called, will eventually reside at the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota.

“Presenting Global Positioning gives us a great opportunity to place the Ricci map in the context of our own strong collection of Asian art, as well as provide our audiences with insight into East and West world trade in the seventeenth century,” said Kaywin Feldman, Director and President of the MIA. “We are honored to have this magnificent document at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts before it goes to its home at the James Ford Bell Library.”

Museum visitors were able to gain a sense of the richly stimulating 17th century Chinese society in which Ricci worked through a number of objects hand-picked from the MIA’s extensive Asian collection. Ming dynasty objects, Chinese export porcelain, Western maps, and Counter-Reformation devotional images all will help to evoke the cultural, religious, and intellectual exchange between China and Europe in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, as will a group of rare Chinese woodblock prints from a Bible published by Ricci’s Jesuit colleague Giulio Aleni.

Rachel McGarry, MIA’s Adjunct Assistant Curator for Prints & Drawings said, “Ricci’s map uniquely captures the exciting, strange, and contradictory world of the Age of Exploration, when the earth seemed both to expand and to shrink. Cultures virtually unknown to one another were thrust together, new lands and seas were meticulously mapped and catalogued, yet despite this explosion of knowledge, the fantastical, the legendary—giants and dwarves, satyrs and dragons—were still believable.”

Ricci was born in Macerata, a small town in the Marche region in Italy in 1552; he traveled to China as a Jesuit missionary in 1582 and remained there until his death in 1610. His religious devotion was matched by his intellectual curiosity. A professor of rhetoric with interests in science, astronomy, and geography, Ricci first gained favor in China with the powerful literati class. Adopting the dress of Chinese intellectuals and speaking extraordinarily fluent Chinese, Ricci shared the recent advances of Western science and introduced his new colleagues to the latest scientific instruments of Europe—complex astrolabes, exacting quadrants, terrestrial globes, and accurate timepieces. In his own words, Ricci “amazed the entire philosophical world of China.” His efforts were rewarded with an invitation to enter the Forbidden City in 1601, making him possibly the first westerner to be admitted.

Robert D. Jacobsen, Chair of Asian Art at the MIA said, “While Ricci found a sophisticated intellectual climate in Ming China and a country with a long and distinguished mapping tradition that for over two thousand years had been a major player in international trade, he also encountered scholars who were ravenous for better geographic information about contemporary Europe and the New World discoveries. The Ricci map gave China its first overview of the total globe.”

Ricci set to work on his outsized map just after this visit.

A copy of the Matteo Ricci World Map of 1602, Kunyu wanguo quantu (Complete map of all the nations of the world), owned by the James Ford Bell Trust

The map’s enormous size—approximately 5 by 12 feet, printed from woodblocks on six large sheets of paper—was necessary to make room for Ricci’s extensive commentary. Writing in Chinese characters, he elaborated on such things as geographic systems, cosmography, and astronomy. Yet the best reading may be his colorful accounts of various regions of the world. For instance, he described the rhinoceros of Africa with some accuracy as “a beast with a head like a horse, a horn on his forehead, and an extremely thick hide.” Other descriptions rely on legend, such as the crane-fearing dwarves “only about 1 foot high” in Russia, the humans “with the feet of oxen” in Turkey, and “the one-eyed people” who inhabited the region of Kazakhstan.

Although our personal docent, Charlie was not able to read the Chinese text that was included by Ricci, quite a few of the inquisitive group were able to do so and were fascinated with the commentaries.  As a matter of fact, one of the group detected that the map may have been edited and intends to do some additional research as to why.

The Ricci Map was recently sold to the James Ford Bell Trust by London’s renowned rare book seller, Bernard J. Shapero, for the benefit of the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota. The map was recently on display at the Library of Congress. After the exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the map will move to its intended home in the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota. The map will be featured as part of the Matteo Ricci and the Jesuits in China Exhibit which begins on September 15, 2010.  For information go to www.bell.lib.umn.edu.

As noted earlier, the group gathered at the Tea House after the tour and enjoyed a scrumptious multi-course dinner that was leisurely paced, graciously served in a fantastic setting so that all could enjoy the meal and camaraderie amongst the gathering.  Evidently no one was anxious to go home but since the restaurant was closing, the group concluded by celebrating the birthday of Ming Tchou, founder of CHF.

To learn more about the Chinese Heritage Foundation visit their Web site at www.chineseheritagefoundation.org or plan to attend their Open House on October 18, 2010. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Editor’s Note: Much of the material for this article was obtained from The Minneapolis Institute of Art.