An unexpected host for Westerners
Imperial palace for centuries was a hub of European scientific knowledge and culture
Many scholars and historians view the Forbidden City as, not only China’s imperial palace from 1420 to 1911, but also as a bridge connecting the East and the West.
At the time when the West got its first glimpse of ancient China through Marco Polo’s travel writings in the 13th century, the country had little contact with the outside world until Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci became the first Westerner to make his way to the imperial court in 1601.
“The Forbidden City had provided a bridge for communication between China and the rest of world … These missionaries, like Ricci, brought new knowledge in such subjects as astronomy, mathematics, medicine, geography and art to China,” said Zhu Yong, director of the Palace Museum Cultural Communication Institute.
Their letters and notes about China provided firsthand reports to Europe, which described a country with an advanced civilization evolving outside of the Biblical history of God’s interaction with man, Zhu said.
“Looking at the Forbidden City from a Western perspective will broaden our observations and our understanding of the palace,” he added.
Ricci is widely regarded as the founder of Chinese studies in the West. He did not realize his dream to come to the emperor’s court in Beijing until after he had spent about two decades in the country, totally adapting to China, including its customs and language.
He described his journey in his letter: “I am discovering little by little.”
Zhu retraces Ricci’s journey in China in his book, Yuanlu Qu Zhongguo (Long Way to China), which was published in Chinese in 2019.
Ricci arrived and settled in Beijing in January 1601, under the order of Emperor Wanli (1563-1620), according to the book.
After he entered the Forbidden City, Ricci wrote: “The great courtyards in the Forbidden City palace … could have held 30,000 people, and the emperor’s elephants, the 3,000 royal guards, and the huge walls all increased the sense of majesty and power,” according to The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci by US historian Jonathan Spence.
Spence quotes Ricci as writing that it took eight packhorses and more than 30 porters to carry his ritual gifts to Beijing. These included three paintings, a large clock with hanging weights, a spring-driven desk clock and a harpsichord, which was believed to indicate how European powers should show their wealth and skills to the emperor.
The attempt failed. Although the clocks caused a stir in the court, Zhu said the emperor viewed them as “diabolical tricks and witchcraft “that would not advance social development.
Ricci never got the chance to meet Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) Emperor Wanli in person. But his two chiming
clocks attracted the emperor’s interest, and Ricci was allowed to reside in Beijing to maintain them.
The Palace Museum today houses more than 1,500 Western clocks from the 17th to 19th centuries. They are generally considered to be among the best pieces in existence worldwide.
Numerous foreigners followed in Ricci’s footsteps after he died in Beijing in 1610 at age 57. Some rose to high office in the imperial court.
German Johann Adam Schall von Bell (Chinese name Tang Ruowang) and Belgian Ferdinand Verbiest (Chinese name Nan Huairen) stood out for enhancing cultural and scientific communication between the East and the West.
Von Bell was a mathematician and astronomer who became a bureaucrat in Qing Emperor Shunzhi’s (1638-61) court. He worked to revise the Chinese calendar to more accurately predict eclipses.
Verbiest became a household name after serving as Emperor Kangxi’s (1654-1722) science teacher.
“However, their knowledge and science didn’t make the officials understand what a dramatic change the world had been through,” Zhu said.
“It’s a pity that we missed this good opportunity to learn from the West.”
The fact that the Asian civilization was at a height diminished motivation to absorb knowledge from the rest of the world, he explained.
Historian Yan Chongnian told the Guangzhou newspaper Southern Weekly that the emperor did not realize that China should learn Western science, which became a severe disadvantage.
While wielding limited influence in scientific development, some of these priests in the imperial court brought Western techniques to traditional Chinese painting.
Italian Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione (Chinese name Lang Shining) and French missionary Jean-Denis Attiret (Chinese name Wang Zhicheng) were the most important among them from the Kangxi to Qianlong periods.
In the preface of Castiglione’s Shixue (The Science of Vision), official Nian Xiyao wrote: “China has cultivated a great tradition of depicting nature in landscape paintings but neglected the accurate representation of projection and the measurement of buildings and implements. If one desires to depict these objects correctly, one must use the Western technique.”
Castiglione designed many murals in the Forbidden City using painting techniques that were popular in European cathedrals and theaters.
Unfortunately, invading British and French expeditionary forces stole or smuggled cultural relics from the Summer Palace in 1860.
As a result, just dozens of his works survived and are housed in the Palace Museum in Beijing and the Palace Museum in Taipei.
In Attiret’s long letter, he wrote: “Since my residence in China, my eyes and taste have grown a little Chinese.” The letter was translated into English and published in 1752 and had great influence in Europe.
Their letters, notes, paintings and books are precious historical materials helping scholars and historians get a glimpse into the palace hundreds of years ago, architectural historian Yang Naiji told the Palace Museum’s in-house magazine.
The Forbidden City was renamed the Palace Museum in 1925, one year after the last emperor, Puyi, went into exile. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, welcoming millions of tourists from home and abroad. The museum received a record 19 million visitors last year.
“From the Forbidden City to the Palace Museum, the palace complex has played, still plays and will play a vital role in communication between the East and the West,” Zhu said.