Search Results: confucius sinarum philosophus sive scientia sinensis by confucius

The first Western edition of Confucius
Confucius Sinarum Philosophus sive Scientia Sinensis Latine Exposita
Philippe Couplet, Prospero Intorcetta, Chrétien Herdtrich, François de Rougemont
Paris, 1687
First Edition. Folio(34 x 21.5 cm.) i-viii, 1-108, 1-21, blank leaf, 1-159, 1-8, ix-cxxiv, i-xx, 1-106, map leaf, 105-108, colophon leaf. With two full-page engraved plates: a portrait of Confucius and Couplet's map of China.
Textblock with some mild browning and light sporadic stains, repaired contemporary vellum. An attractive, Near Fine copy of a really important book.
"The first widely accessible Latin translation of three of the four Confucian classics, The Daxue(The Great Learning), Lunyu(The Analects), and The Zhongyong(The Doctrine of the Mean), as well as a biographical sketch of Confucius…This seminal work was the culmination of a century of Jesuit attempts to translate and interpret the Confucian classics. The bulk of this collective work was composed in China under the leadership of the… Read More

Paris: [Andreas Cramoisy] for Daniel Horthemels,, 1687. The peak of Jesuit Sinology in the seventeenth century" - the first European translation of Confucius First edition of the influential first European translation of three of the four canonical books of Confucianism - the Analects, Great Learning and Doctrine of the Mean, complete with Philippe Couplet's Tabula Chronologica Sinicae Monarchiae, listing Chinese kings from BCE 2952 to 1683 CE. The engraved portrait of Confucius was the first to be published in the West. "The Confucius Sinarum Philosophus was widely reviewed in Europe and today is recognized as one of the most influential texts in the Jesuit transmission of Chinese culture to Europe" (China on Paper, p. 173). The book opens with a dedication to Louis XIV, followed by the "Proemialis Declaratio" (Introductory Exposition), a lengthy discussion of Confucianism. Following the "Declaratio" is a portrait of Confucius and a biography based on the Kongzi shijia found in Sima Qian. The… Read More