Athanasius Kircher: Hauptwerke

As a treasury of European interest in China, Athanasius Kircher’s encyclopedia China illustrata inspired scholarly discussions of Chinese culture for almost a century, and it has greatly contributed to the popularization of China among the European public. In several ways, it can be seen as a pioneer work: The inscription of the Nestorian stele in Chinese original language with transcription, literal translation and paraphrasing, provided for the first time a comprehensive text, which should be used by religious historians as well as Chinese language enthusiasts again and again; a delicacy was the publication of a Chinese catechism written by Jesuit missionaries; the artistically and typographically well-prepared information of nature and landscape, of history and philosophy, of people and customs made the relatively thin work to one of the most widely read books of the European early modern time and rich source for compilers. On top of that, it was a book written from a European perspective! In his introduction Wenchao Li examines the relations of all editions, deals with the extensive sources used by Kircher and discusses the reception of the encyclopedia.