China and the West

Wenzel Pantaleon Kirwitzer ist als Missionar in Guangdong tätig.

Niccolò Longobardi besucht die jüdische Gemeinde in Kaifeng (Henan).

Johann Adam Schall von Bell ist wegen seinen Kenntnissen in Mathematik und Astronomie nach China geschickt worden.

Jerónimo de Macedo de Carvalho ist Administrator von Macao.

König Christian IV. erteilt Jens Munk den Auftrag, den Seeweg nach China durch die Nordwestpassage zu finden. Er landet an der Hudson Bay.

Giulio Aleni tauft Ma Chengxiu.

Lazzaro Cattaneo baut eine Kirche in Jiading (Shanghai).

Giulio Aleni erteilt dem Gelehrten Ma Chengxiu Unterricht in Mathematik und europäischen Naturwissenschaften.

Nicolas Trigault ist als Missionar in Nanchang und Hangzhou tätig und gründet die Mission in Henan, Shaanxi und Shanxi.

Bacon, Francis. Novum organom = The new organon [ID D26975].
Chinese inventions of printing, gunpowder, and the mariner's compass were brought to Europe by Arab traders during the Renaissance and Reformation. Francis Bacon was unaware of the origins of these inventions but deeply impressed by their significance when he wrote :
"It is well to observe the force and virtue and consequence of discoveries. These are to be seen nowhere more clearly than those three which were unknown to the ancients [the Greeks], and of which the origin, though recent, is obscure and inglorious ; namely printing, gunpowder, and the magnet. For these three have changed the whole face and stage of things throughout the world, the first in literature, the second in warfare, the third in navigation; whence have followed innumerable changes ; insomuch that no empire, no sect, no star, seems to have exerted greater power and influence in human affairs than these three mechanical discoveries."

"At length then, we have come to an instance of the fingerpost in this case, and it is this. If we find for certain that when there is a flood on the opposite coasts of Florida and Spain in the Atlantic, there is also a flood on the coasts of Peru and the back of China in the South Sea…"

"Again, if you observe the refinement of the liberal arts, or even that which relates to the mechanical preparation of natural substances, and take notice of such things as the discovery in astronomy of the motions of the heavens, of harmony in music, of the letters of the alphabet (to this day not in use among the Chinese) in grammar…"

"And such it seems may be found by exposing bodies on steeples in sharp frosts; by laying them in subterranean caverns; by surrounding them with snow and ice in deep pits dug for the purpose; by letting them down into wells ; by burying them in quicksilver and metals ; by plunging them into waters which petrify wood; by burying them in the earth, as the Chinese are said to do in the making of porcelain, where masses made for the purpose are left, we are told, underground for forty or fifty years, and transmitted to heirs, as a kind of artificial minerals; and by similar processes."

Giulio Aleni tauft Han Lin.

Emmanuel Diaz, o Novo darf nach Beijing zurückkehren und besucht chinesische Christen.

Lopo Sarmento de Carvalho ist Administrator von Macao.

Gründung der Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, der Päpstlichen Gesellschaft zur Verbreitung des Glaubens. In China werden Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts apostolische Vikariate eingerichtet.

Anti-christliche Vorkommnisse in Nanjing.

Jõao da Rocha wird Superior der Chinamission.

Francesco Sambiasi ist in als Missionar in Jiading (Shanghai) und Shanghai tätig.

Heiligsprechung von Francisco de Xavier durch Papst Gregor XV.

Johannes Schreck berichtet über chinesische Medizin und Akupunktur.

Athanasius Kircher wird nach Heiligenstadt versetzt um Grammatik zu lehren. Daneben erlernt er Hebräisch, orientalische Sprachen und befasst sich mit Mathematik.