Elisabetta Corsi
La Sapienza Università di Roma
Our Little Daily Death
Francesco Sambiasi’s Treatise on Sleep
and Images in Chinese
Ascendit mors per fenestras nostra
(Death has come up into our windows, Jer 9.21)
The aim of this preliminary research on the Shuihua erda 睡畵二答 (“Two
answers on sleep and images”), a short treatise in Chinese by Francesco Sambiasi,
S.J. (1582-1649, Bi Fangji 畢方濟), is to offer an interpretation of both its puzzling
title and often misunderstood content. This could not have been done without
placing it within the larger context of the transmission of Renaissance natural
philosophy to China, a cultural process that Jesuit missionaries saw as a necessary
aid to evangelisation.1
This paper grew out of my current research on the transmission of the Aristoteles Latinus to
China under the auspices of the Society of Jesus, particularly the Physica and Parva Naturalia. The
two paragraphs on Aristotelian philosophy are taken from my essay “From the Aristoteles Latinus
to the Aristoteles Sinicus. Fragments of an unfinished project”, in Malek, Roman, SVD and Gianni
Criveller, PIME, Light a Candle. Encounters and Friendship with China, Sankt Augustin, Nettetal,
Collectanea Serica, Institut Monumenta Serica, Steyler Verlag, 2010, pp. 115-130. All translations
are mine, except otherwise indicated. I have used the copy of Shuihua erda held at the Archivum
Historicum Societatis Iesu (henceforth ARSI), JapSin II, 59a-b (another copy JapSin II, 59 D), printed
in one juan on bamboo paper by the Shanglun zhai in 1629. On Francesco Sambiasi, S.J., see Luther
Carrington Goodrich and Chaoying Fang (eds.), Dictionary of Ming Biography, 1368-1644, New
York, Columbia University Press, 1976, vol. II, p. 1150-1151; Louis Pfister, Notices biographiques et
bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l’ancienne mission de Chine (1552-1773), Variétés Sinologiques,
59-60, Shanghai, Imprimerie de la mission catholique, 1932-1934, pp. 136-143; Joseph Dehergne,
Répertoire des Jésuites de Chine de 1552 à 1800, Roma, Paris, Institutum Historicum S.I., Letouzey
& Ané, 1973, p. 238; Maurice Courant, Catalogue des Livres Chinois, Coréens, Japonais…, Paris,
Bibliothèque Nationale, Département des Manuscrits Orientaux, E. Leroux, 1900-1912, no. 3385;
Philippe Couplet, Catalogus Patrum Societatis Jesu…, Paris, [s.n.], 1686, in ARSI, Rome, JapSin I,
1
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As we will see from the following lines, this text is very often erroneously cited as
an essay on the rules of western perspective.2 Joseph Needham seems to have been
among the first to define it as a treatise on the laws of perspective and to wonder
about its curious title. His opinion has been later borrowed by Luther Carrington
Goodrich:
“He [Francesco Sambiasi] also composed two short colloquies on sleep and
allegorical pictures, Shui hua er ta (1629), which contains a preface by Li Chihtsao; it deals with the laws of perspective”.3
Earlier, Louis Pfister had listed the Shuida 睡答 and the Huada 畵答 as two
separate “Dialogues on sleep and painting” but also pointed out that:
“On trouve aussi ces deux ouvrages rèunis en un seul volume intitulé: Choei hoa
eul ta, Court traité allégorique sur le sommeil et la peinture, avec une preface par
Li Tche-tsao”.4
His opinion was based on Alexander Wylie’s entry in his Notes on Chinese
Literature:
193. On the transmission to China of De anima and, more specifically, on Francesco Sambiasi’s 靈言
蠡勺 Lingyan lishao, see Isabelle Duceux, La introducción del aristotelismo en China a través del De
anima. Siglos XVI-XVII, Mexico, El Colegio de México, 2009; on the transmission of Categories and
the 名理探 by Francisco Furtado, see Robert Wardy, Aristotle in China. Language, Categories and
Translation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
2
Joseph Needham (et al.), Science and Civilization in China, vol. 4., part 3, secs. 28-29: Physics
and Physical Technology: Civil Engineering and Nautics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
1971, pp. 111-112.
3
Luther Carrington Goodrich, Chaoying Fang (eds.), Dictionary of Ming Biography, vol. II, p.
1151.
4
Louis Pfister, Notices Biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jesuits de l’ancienne mission de
Chine, 1552-1773, Repr.: San Francisco, Chinese Materials Center, Inc., 1976 (1st ed. 1932), p. 143
(136-143).
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Elisabetta Corsi
“The Shwuy hwa urh ta is a short treatise by the same (i.e. Sambiasi), on Sleep
and Pictures allegorized, with a preface by Lè Che-tsaou”.5
On the contrary, Samuel Edgerton, who is not a sinologist, in his well-known
study on the geometrization of pictorial space and its impact on art and science
during the Renaissance, noted:
“As far as I know, only one other Jesuit missionary (apart from Ricci and Giovanni
Nicolao (1560-?)’s pupil, Emmanuel Pereira (1636-1681) in Beijing during the
early seventeenth century, Father Francesco Sambiasi (1582-1649), tried seriously
to introduce Western artistic ideas to Chinese painters. Sometime around 1630
he published a brief Chinese-language tract, Hua Da, «Dialogue on Painting»,
an imaginary conversation between himself and a mandarin scribe, one Li
Zhizao (perhaps the same who helped Ricci prepare the Chinese mappamundi a
quarter of a century earlier). The texts purports to be an argument as to why the
Western art of portraiture seems so «alive». Actually, Sambiasi, as he admitted in
this discussion, was trying to convince his companion that certain Renaissance
theories of physiognomy and decorum in painted pictures were compatible with
Chinese Taoist aesthetics. Otherwise, the treatise says nothing of perspective
and chiaroscuro”.6
Edgerton’s description of Shuihua erda seems quite to the point, although one
wonders about the exact meaning of a “Chinese Taoist aesthetics”. As a matter of
fact, the treatise does not deal with aesthetics at all, not only because the idea of
attributing aesthetical qualities to art works had not yet been developed during the
late Renaissance, but also because Sambiasi, when asked by the “mandarin scribe”,
presumably Li Zhizao himself as he is the author of the introduction to the text, why
Western portraits seemed so alive,7 he replies that he knows nothing of painting,
Repr.: Taipei, Literature House, ltd., 1964, p. 175 (1st ed. 1867).
Samuel Edgerton, The Heritage of Giotto’s Geometry. Art and Science on the Eve of the Scientific
Revolution, Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 1991, p. 267.
7
西國之畵人也靈氣燁然如生先生必能言之可得聞乎, “Western persons are painted (in such
a way) that their vital spirits are so resplendent that they make them look alive. Sir, can you tell me
why?” (f. 1a)
5
6
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but that he is willing “to use his tongue as a brush and Li’s heart as a cut of silk,
onto which ideas would be imparted as if they were the five basic colours.” In so
doing, he would explain how painting can convey moral qualities and why there
is an exact correspondence between the human and animal semblances and their
souls, a correspondence that has to be equally maintained in painting.8
The sources and content of the treatise are also not identified in the, otherwise
very thorough, Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome. A
Descriptive Catalogue, Japonica-Sinica I.IV, an indispensable tool for any scholar
interested in the theological and pastoral works that the Jesuits composed in literary
Chinese, ranging from the beginning of the 17th century until the suppression of
the Society (including the numerous reprints that ran until the 20th century).9 The
author, Albert Chan, S.J. considers the Shuihua erda as two separate treatises that
“deal with physiological and philosophical problems”.10
It was in the course of my research on the transmission of linear perspective
to China under the auspices of the Society of Jesus, that I came across the Shuihua
erda. I soon became aware of the fact that this work has nothing to do neither with
linear perspective nor with optics or geometry. The treatise consists of two parts,
one on sleep and the other one on images. In fact the cover of the edition preserved
at the Jesuit Archives in Rome bears a label with the title in Chinese and a Latin
inscription: De Somniis et ‫ ׀‬pictura ‫ ׀‬a p. Franc. Sambiasi ‫ ׀‬S.J. The fact that they have
not been bound together by a later copyist or editor but that they were conceived
as integrated parts is not only proved by a series of crossed references but, more
importantly, by an introduction to both texts penned by Li Zhizao (covering the
first three and one-half folios), also dated 1629. Indeed, the two parts of the Shuihua
erda may be considered as two fragments of a larger, coherent project. Besides, its
concern is not with the problem of perceiving and representing space but with that
of images as they are produced during sleep through dreams and in the state of
wakefulness through the eyes. I would argue that the term utilized, 畵 hua, may be
taken to mean both “the sense image” or species, “an immaterial quality impressed
on the surrounding medium as a seal on soft wax, it resembles the object as the
畵與余弗解業雖然請以予舌為毛頴以子心為絹素以至理為五采 (f. 1b).
Albert Chan, S.J., Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome. A Descriptive
Catalogue, Japonica-Sinica I.IV, London, New York, M.E. Sharpe, 2002.
10
Ibidem, p. 365.
8
9
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Elisabetta Corsi
portrait does the sitter”,11 or the image (phantasma) as it is produced by imagination
(phantasia), a necessary condition of all cognitive processes.
Furthermore, the second part of the treatise, the Huada (Answers on images)
deals with physiognomy, a field of knowledge that could be defined as “the science
of connections between mental affections and human features”.
Sleep occupies a privileged place in the process during which the “vital spirits”
move the soul to constant contemplation of the home country because, while we are
asleep, we “often dream of the things we encountered during our waking hours and
which made a deep impression upon us”.12
In the 17th century, a series of problems connected with the nature and
functions of the soul engaged the minds of physiologists and psychologists (if we
can call them psychologists), philosophers and theologians in equal measure. Their
problem was to try to understand the functioning of the brain, the dynamics of the
cognitive process, the formation of mental images and sentiments during sleep and
wakefulness, the nature of dreams, the constitution of the soul and its relationship
to the body. In the language of Ignatius of Loyola we would speak of “discernimiento
de espiritus” (discernment of spirits) and “afecciones desordenadas” (disordered
affections) of the soul. For the physiologists of the 16th century, the “spirit” was the
first instrument of the soul. Limited space prevents from dwelling at any length
on the complex doctrine of the “spirit”; it must be emphasized, however, that
Renaissance psychology of Aristotelian origin conceived the soul as being in a very
close relationship with the body: “to every activity of the organic soul corresponds a
parallel one at psychological and biological levels”.13
The importance of this doctrine is highlighted by the work of Agostino Nifo,
a philosopher of whom I shall speak later. Nifo wrote treatises on physiognomy
and the interpretation of dreams. It is equally obvious in the writings of Marsilio
Ficino, who wrote a work on melancholy that aroused a great deal of interest in
his times. Melancholy is the elder sister of nostalgia and Ficino attributed it to an
11
Katharine Park, “The organic soul”, in Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, Cambridge History
of Renaissance Philosophy (henceforth CHRP), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 471.
12
Antonio Prete, Nostalgia. Storia di un sentimento, Milan, Raffaello Cortina Editore, 1992, p. 53.
13
Katharine Park, “The organic soul”, CHRP, p. 468. On the origins of a new scientific discipline:
psychology, see Marina Massimi, “A Psicologia dos Jesuítas: Uma Contribuição à História das Idéias
Psicológicas”, Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica, vol. 14, 2001, 3, pp. 625-633.
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excess of bile in the blood, with the following symptoms: depression, hallucinations
and, sometimes, excessive creativity. During the 16th century treatises on memory
flourished intensely. Given that this faculty possesses both psychic and biological
characteristics, the regulations concerning its development provide both dietetic
and mental remedies.14 This vast range of interests is born of and nourished by
the culture of Aristotelianism (I prefer to speak of a “culture of Aristotelianism
rather than simply to “Aristotelianism”). Aristotelianism, which Edward Grant very
appropriately defined as “an elastic and absorbing body (of thought)” upon which
divergent opinions often converge, represents to a certain degree the true essence
of ancient European culture.15 Whilst the Middle Ages could define it as the set of
reflections and commentaries on Aristotle’s writings on natural philosophy, the new
translations from Greek to Latin during the 16th century revealed the essence of
Stoic, Platonic and neo-Platonic thought, thereby helping to bring about the gradual
transformation of Aristotelianism into a complex and syncretistic set of ideas and
concepts that are not easily expressed in a unified definition.16 If we were to adopt
an operative (and temporary) definition of the culture of Aristotelianism, we could
say it is a mixture of different exegetical traditions that are more or less directly
connected to the Aristotelian corpus and which include the traditions that took their
cue from St. Thomas, Averroes and his Latin and Greek followers.
The Aristotelian culture of the Society of Jesus
The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus17 prescribe the texts of Aristotle in
logic, natural philosophy and metaphysics; whilst St. Thomas and positive theology
occupy the place of honor in the theological discipline.
Katharine Park, “The organic soul”, CHRP, pp. 469-470.
See the lengthy essay “La filosofia naturale del Medioevo, gli aristotelici e l’aristotelismo”
in Edward Grant, Le origini medievali della scienza moderna. Il contesto religioso, istituzionale e
intellettuale, Torino, 2001, Einaudi, pp. 191-251, especially p. 249.
16
Ibidem, pp. 248-251.
17
Cfr. Monumenta Paedagogica Societatis Iesu, serie 3, vol. 3, Rome, Institutum Historicum
Societatis Iesu, 1938, pp. 150-151.
14
15
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“464,1. ... En la Teologia leérase el Viejo y Nuevo Testamento y la doctrina
scolástica de Sto. Tomás. Y de lo positivo escogerse han los que más convienen
para nuestro fin”.
“470.3. ... En la Lógica y Filosofia Natural y Moral seguirse ha la doctrina de
Aristóteles, y en las otras Artes liberales”.18
In compliance with the cultural habits of the times, the classical works were
read in annotated editions when they were considered to be too abstruse. This
practice led to the production of a series of textbooks for the teaching of various
disciplines. The exegesis of the Aristotelian body of thought mainly took the form
of a commentary and the Conimbricensis Collegii Societatis Iesu commentarii (15921606) enjoyed a predominant importance in this area. By way of example, the
commentary to the De anima compiled by Emmanuel de Goes was the fundamental
textbook for the course of Christian philosophy. The work is composed of the Greek
text, Latin translation and a concise commentary. The discussion of psychological
problems was nevertheless reserved to the section of the quaestiones at the end of
every chapter.19 It has been pointed out that the innovative practice of reserving
an independent section to an essentially philosophical-psychological analysis of
the problems contributed to the formation of truly systematic treatises, which were
independent of the commentaries.20
It is therefore possible to observe the gradual appearance of new academic
disciplines that begin to distinguish between the soul as a dogmatic-theological
problem and the soul as a problem proper to natural philosophy. At the same time, it
may be pointed out that the Jesuits contributed notably to the gradual emancipation
of the sciences of nature.21 Even though the philosophical reflection must harmonize
with dogmatic theology, the complex nature of the topic implies an immense richness
and variety of different viewpoints.
S. Arzubialde, J. Corella, J. M. Garcia Lomas (ed.), Constituciones de la Compañía de Jesús,
Bilbao, Maliaño, s.d., Mensajero, Sal Térrea, p. 195.
19
Eckhard Kessler, ‘The intellective soul’, CHRP, p. 513.
20
Ibidem, p. 508.
21
Cfr. C. H. Lohr, S.J., “Les jésuites et l’aristotélisme du XVIe siècle”, in Luce Giard (ed.), Les
jésuites à la Renaissance, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1995, p. 80 (79-91).
18
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During the 16th century, psychology was understood as the philosophical study
of the soul, since there was no clear boundary between a so-called psychological
science and a biological science. Agostino Nifo spoke of psychology as a scientia
media, since it stood between metaphysics and physics. The theoretical formulations
in connection with psychology, proper to the 16th century, evolved around a small
but significant number of texts: the De anima and the Parva Naturalia.
Aristotle discusses the function of the soul in the De anima as the vital principle
of every “animated” being, including plants and animals. The soul therefore regulates
not only the cognitive and emotional processes, but the physiological processes too.
The Parva Naturalia, or Small writings on natural philosophy are, instead, a set of
brief treatises in which Aristotle presents questions relative to the psychology and
the biology of humans and animals, the origin of sleep and wakefulness, the nature
of dreams and divination during sleep. In other words, as we have already pointed
out, the functions that are common to the soul and the body. The Small writings
include three small works on Sleep and wakefulness, On dreams and On divination
during dreams.
Nevertheless, in the course of the 16th century, all discussions on the well-known
tripartition of the soul in vegetative, sensitive and intellective, and the debate on the
nature of its functions and affections, distanced themselves considerably from the
original Aristotelian formulations. At the same time, the rediscovery, translation and
publication of the Greek commentaries on Aristotle’s psychological work made a
considerable contribution to bringing about this development.22 By way of example,
although Aristotle spoke of the functions of the memory and common sense, he did
not refer to the five inner senses (common sense, imagination, fantasy, judgment
and memory) situated in the brain, whereas these were an argument of discussion
in the theological treatises of the Renaissance. Another point of divergence lies
obviously in the theological aspects, especially those related to the immortality of
the soul, whose theological justification was ratified by the Lateran Council of 1513.
This was made possible through the inclusion of Neoplatonism in the nucleus of the
Aristotelian tradition, as in the thought of Agostino Nifo,23 who also wrote a treatise
Katharine Park and Eckhard Kessler, “The concept of psychology”, CHRP, p. 459 and Katharine
Park, “The organic soul”, p. 471.
22
23
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on sleep and wakefulness.
Given the importance of Thomistic philosophy in its study programs, the Society
of Jesus played a very important part in the effort to reconcile Aristotelianism with
Christianity. Nevertheless, this did not prevent the members of the Society from
defending diverging positions and developing original lines of thought.24 The
following are some examples.
Francisco Toledo, author of an important commentary to the De anima, which
was published in Cologne in 1575, followed Averroé’s traditional division but, at
the same time, he also subdivided the text into chapters according to the Greek
tradition.25
We have already said that Jesuit literature on the De anima is quite abundant; in
addition to Emmanuel de Goes’ already quoted work, which was inserted into the
Conimbricensis Collegii Societatis Iesu commentarii, the work of Francisco Suárez,
which was published posthumously in 1621,26 also deserves a mention since they are
commentaries that enjoy greater representativeness.
In the main natural philosophy textbook, Commentaria una cum quaestionibus
in VIII libros De Physica auscultatione, which was published in Cologne in 1574,
Francisco Toledo, in discussing the animated entities, which was one of the subjects
of the three books of the De anima, also illustrates the “affections” ex anima
procedentibus, such as, for example, sleep and wakefulness, youth and maturity, life
and death.27
We have already said that during the 16th century, thanks especially to the work
of Agostino Nifo (ca. 1470-1538), the Aristotelian notion of the tripartition of the
discussion of the evolution of the Christian-dogmatic concept of the soul through the progressive
estrangement from the integral notion of the human being proper to biblical anthropology, see Juan
José Tamayo Acosta, Para comprender la escatologia cristiana, Estella (Navarra), Editorial Verbo
Divino, 2000, pp. 200-221.
24
Eckhard Kessler, “The intellective soul”, CHRP, p. 511.
25
Ibidem.
26
Ibidem, p. 514.
27
“Animata autem, quia animam habent communiter, prius de anima agitar in libris tribus de
anima, et de quibusdam ex anima procedentibus, videlicet de somno, vigilia, iuventute senectute, vita,
morte, et similibus, in libro qui Parva Naturalia dicitur, tractatur”, Venezia, 1600, f. 6rb. Cfr. William
A. Wallace, “Traditional natural philosophy”, CHRP, pp. 209-213.
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soul in vegetative, sensitive, and intellective faculties combines with the Platonic
concept of its immortality. There was quite an intense and animated debate on this
problem: at the beginning of the century Pietro Pomponazzi and the nominalists
of the “second scholastic period” were involved in it. I believe we can assume that
the De anima of Agostino Nifo and, especially, the De immortalitate anima, had a
considerable influence on the formation of a theory of the human soul akin to the
one expressed by Francisco Toledo in the De physica auscultatione.
Agostino Nifo was born at Sessa Aurunca and taught at the universities of
Padua, Naples and Salerno. His philosophical writings reveal his active involvement
in the intellectual debate concerning the relationship between Christianity and the
philosophical systems of Plato and Aristotle.28 The current state of the research,
however, makes it impossible to assess fully the impact of Agostino Nifo’s thought
on Jesuit thinkers such as Francisco Toledo and Pedro de Fonseca.
I believe it is appropriate to remember at this point that the first Jesuit colleges
were founded at Messina in 1548 by Jerónimo Nadal and at Palermo in 1549 by
Jacobo Laínez, two of the founding members of the Society. The study curriculum,
which would later be given a normative status in the Ratio studiorum (the first
edition of which goes back to 1586; it was subsequently modified in 1591 and
promulgated in 1599), was adopted first by these two colleges as well as the Collegio
Romano (founded in 1551) and the Colegio das Artes at Coimbra. We can therefore
assume that the Sicilian intellectual world had a direct influence on the formation
of the study programs adopted by these colleges. I am referring especially to the
already mentioned commentaries on the body of Aristotelian writings of the college
of Coimbra, which were soon to become the natural philosophy textbooks in the
colleges of Portuguese assistance and in the mission lands.29
Natural philosophy, philosophia naturalis, or physica, was the name for a nucleus
of disciplines whose object was to investigate natural phenomena without resorting
to quantitative methods. Ugo Baldini aptly noted that:
Edward P. Mahoney, ‘Plato and Aristotle in the thought of Agostino Nifo (ca. 1470-1538)’, in
Giuseppe Roccaro (a cura di), Platonismo e aristotelismo nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia (secc. XIV-XVI),
Palermo, 1989, Officina di Studi Medievali, p. 96 (81-102).
29
The Society had four assistances: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Germany and these were
subdivided into provinces, except for Portugal, which was a province on its own. The missions were
considered to be separate provinces.
28
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“In accordance with academic custom, the course of physica in Jesuit schools
consisted in reading and commenting on an ordered succession of Aristotle’s
works: Physica, De caelo, De generatione et corruptione, Metereologica, De anima.
The program, therefore, was not a succession of unvarying topics with respect
to different theoretical models, instead it identified with the content of those
works; in a very real sense, therefore, they were the discipline. In this context, the
Aristotelian-scholastic theses and concepts had a theoretic and meta-theoretical
function; they supplied the methods and solutions, but also criteria of meaning
and of a scientific nature”.30
Natural philosophy, or physica, together with theology and metaphysics, pure
and mixed mathematics, mathesis pura et mixta, including optics, perspective,
astronomy and acoustics, are the essence of the Society’s pedagogical program. As
we have already seen, natural philosophy also deals with the problem of the soul and
the so-called affections of the soul. The question of the tripartition of the soul is thus
intrinsically connected to the problem of the nature of the cognitive processes and
their location in the intellective soul.
The culture of Aristotelianism in China
During the first-half of the 17th century, courses in natural philosophy, physica
and “mixed mathematics”, began to be implemented in Jesuit Colleges in Goa, Funai
and Macao. A good number of Jesuits missionaries of the first and second generation
were also engaged in the spreading of Aristotelianism inside China.
In a recent study on the transmission of Renaissance humanism, Nicolas
Standaert subdivided the transmission process of the Renaissance culture in China
into three phases: a first “spontaneous” phase, which lasted about thirty years (15821610); a second phase which corresponds to a more organic and systematic project
comprising the translation of various books brought to China by Nicolas Trigault
(ca. 1620-1630); finally, a third phase, which began after the dynastic transition
in the 1640s and the return of the Jesuit missionaries to the imperial court. From
Ugo Baldini, Saggi sulla cultura della Compagnia di Gesù (secoli XVI/XVIII), Padova, CLEUP,
2000, pp. 242-243.
30
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approximately 1678 until 1683, the missionaries tried to promote the unfinished
project of introducing Aristotelian philosophy into the Chinese education system.31
Work was done on translating Aristotle’s works during the second and third
phases. The authors who carried out this task on the commented corpus of the texts
of Coimbra were: Francisco Furtado, Alfonso Vagnone, Giulio Aleni and Francesco
Sambiasi. Subsequently, Ferdinand Verbiest, with his work Qiongli xue 窮理學, was
to be the principal author of the project that aimed at introducing a philosophy
course into the Chinese education system according to the modalities proper to the
tradition of the 16th century.32 According to Nicolas Standaert, treatises such as the
Xingxue cushu 性學粗疏, (A brief exposition of natural philosophy) by Giulio Aleni,
S. I., or the Lingyan lishao 靈言蠡勺, (The humble discussion of questions regarding
the soul) by Francesco Sambiasi, S. I., represent a true and proper challenge to the
modern scholar because of the complex nature of these translations, a complexity
that seems greater by far than the complexity of the works of a scientific nature.33
I would like to corroborate this point by appealing to the work we are discussing
in this paper, that is the Shuihua erda, by Francesco Sambiasi, whose sources,
mainly the Parva Naturalia and the Phisiognomica, were not identified because
of the abstruse nature of the text and it is therefore never quoted, not even in the
Handbook of Christianity of China.34 It is obvious that, in order to understand the
meaning of a work like Sambiasi’s, it is necessary to explore the intellectual milieu
in which the works on sleep and dreams were generated, in Europe, beginning with
the treatise of Gerolamo Cardano (whose first edition goes back to 1562 and which
was subsequently republished in 1585), in which the ratio somniantis is part of the
Nicolas Standaert, “The transmission of Renaissance culture in seventeenth-century China’”
Renaissance Studies, vol. 17, 2003, n. 3, passim (367-391).
32
Cfr. id., “The investigation of things and fathoming of principles (gewu qiongli) in the
seventeenth-century contact between Jesuits and Chinese scholars”, in John Witek S.I. (ed.), Ferdinand
Verbiest (1623-1688) Jesuit Missionary, Scientist, Engineer and Diplomat, Nettetal, Steyler Verlag,
2004, pp. 395-420; and Noël Golvers, “Verbiest’s introduction of Aristoteles Latinus (Coimbra) in
China: new western evidence”, in Noël Golvers (ed.), The Christian Mission in China in the Verbiest
Era: Some Aspects of the Missionary Approach, Leuven, Leuven University Press, Ferdinand Verbiest
Foundation, 1999, pp. 33-51, for the discovery in European archives of documents that illustrate the
procedure for drafting the Chinese version of the Aristoteles latinus.
33
Nicolas Standaert, “The transmission”, p. 386.
34
Nicolas Standaert, Handbook of Christianity in China, Leiden, Boston, Köln, Brill, 2001.
31
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hieroglyphic complex of allegory, without forgetting the small but important work
of Giuseppe Zambeccari on sleep and wakefulness (1685).
Shuihua erda, “Two answers on sleep and images”35
Francesco Sambiasi was born in Cosenza in 1582, studied at the Jesuit college
in Naples and was sent to China in 1609. He reached Macao the following year and
soon proceeded to the mainland, then reaching Hangzhou. Later on, he resided in
Jiading, guest of Sun Yuanhua 孫元化, Ignatius Sun,36 a civil servant of high rank
and a mathematician, author of several works on geometry and military science.
Finally, Sambiasi moved on to Nanjing where he was employed in the Astronomical
Observatory and then to Guangzhou, where he was said to have built a church just
before his death, occurred in 1649.
Shuihua erda, probably dictated by Sambiasi to his friend, Ignatius Sun, is an
imaginary dialogue between a Chinese literatus and a Jesuit missionary. Both its
date of composition, 1629, and the intellectual milieu from which it grew out, are
very meaningful. Recent research has shown that, during the last quarter of the
Ming dynasty, a renewed interest in psychological problems, mainly related to the
nature of human feelings and emotions, gave birth to new visual practices.37 Among
them, portraiture reached a new status as a pictorial genre particularly favoured by
intellectuals. It is worth noting that, portraiture generated an early interest among
well-known painters such as Gu Kaizhi 顧愷之 (ca. 345-ca. 406) and Wu Daozi 吳
道子(approximately 5th-6th centuries CE), but soon lost its prestige to be confined
to the realm of academic painting, a genre to which the Chinese intellectual élite
35
For an insightful analysis of dream culture in both Catholic and Buddhist contexts in the
Ming-Qing period, see R. Po-chia Hsia 夏伯嘉, “Religious Belief and Dream Culture: A Comparative
Study of Catholicism and Buddhism in the Ming-Qing Period 宗教信仰與夢文化 /明清之際天主
教與佛教的比較探索”, The Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica 中央
研究院歷史語言研究所集刊, 76, Part 2, 2005, pp. 209-248.
36
See Arthur W. Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period (1644-1912) (henceforth ECCP),
Washington, The Library of Congress, 1944, vol. II, p. 686.
37
See Richard Vinograd, Boundaries of the Self. Chinese Portraits 1600-1900, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1992.
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did not grant full artistic dignity. I am referring to the intellectual élite residing in
the Jiangnan 江南, the prosperous southern region of China that had been the core
of the empire from time immemorial. It seems worth noting that Sambiasi spent all
his life in the Jiangnan, because most of the present research is still focusing on the
Jesuits serving at the imperial court in Beijing.
The Jiangnan seemed therefore particularly receptive to the thesis presented by
Sambiasi and it is probable that the writing of the treatise was somewhat inspired by
the Chinese converts who were very close to the Italian missionaries, that is Ignatius
Sun and Li Zhizao 李之藻,38 who authored the preface to the Shuihua erda.
It does not seem hazardous to note striking affinities between the late Ming and
early modern European intellectual arenas, since they shared the same interest in
exploring the psychological attitudes of human beings and the cognitive value of
passions.39
The missionary project of transmitting to China the Renaissance philosophy that
was born out of Aristotelianism, and in particular, the transmission of the Parva
Naturalia, greatly contributed to shape the intellectual field in which European
psychology could interact with the Chinese tradition of introspection and selfexamination as necessary conditions to the improvement of the self (xiushen 修身).40
In particular, the transmission of Parva Naturalia, on which Shuihua erda is based,
seemed to respond to a specific Chinese demand, since the Ratio Studiorum did
not prescribe its teaching in Jesuit colleges. Its content is also disseminated in other
Chinese texts related to natural philosophy and psychologia, such as the Xingxue
cushu 性學粗疏 (composed in 1624 and printed in Fujian in 1646) by Giulio Aleni
(1582-1649). An early resume of the content of this book was provided by Pfister:
ECCP, vol. I, pp. 452-454.
See Peter Burke, “Res et verba: conspicuous consumption in the early modern world”, in John
Brewer and Roy Porter, Consumption and the World of Goods, London, New York, Routledge, 1994,
pp. 148-161, for a discussion, from a comparative perspective, of the relationship between ‘the
presentation of self ’ and the constitution of an élite culture based on the conspicuous consumption
of luxury items.
40
In this respect see Pei-Yi Wu, “Self-Examination and Confession of Sins in Traditional China”
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 39, 1, 1979, pp. 5-38.
38
39
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“Sing-hio ts’ou-chou, «Psychologia compendiosa» réponses à des questions faites
par des lettres sur des sujets tant sacrés que profanes, 8 vol., Hang-tcheou, 1623;
réimprimé à T’ou-sè-wè, 1873-1922 (Catalogus 1917, supplément, n° 83). Dans
le 1er vol., l’auteur traite des trois âmes: végétative, animale et spirituelle. L’âme
de l’homme est unique et différente pour chaque individu; elle n’est pas l’air, ni
une portion de la divinité, elle ne vient ni du ciel, ni des parents, mais elle est
créée par Dieu. Dans le 2°, il montre la différence qu’il y a entre l’âme et le corps:
celle-là est immortelle et incorruptible, et nullement sujette aux changements
de la métempsycose. Le 3° roule sur les fonctions de la vie, la croissance du
corps, les 4 éléments; le 4° sur les 5 sens; le 5° sur les sens internes et la faculté
de concevoir, de discerner et de retenir les sensations; dans le 6°, il parle de la
différence entre les êtres spirituels et corporels, entre l’appétit et la volonté; il
revient dans le 7° sur la mémoire, et disserte sur le sommeil, les songes etc.; enfin
le 8° est consacré à expliquer la respiration, la longueur ou la brièveté de la vie,
l’enfance et la vieillesse, la vie et la mort.”41
As it is evident from an examination of the content of the eight chapters and forty
paragraphs into which this compact and well-structured text is subdivided, notions
taken from De Anima, De memoria et reminiscentia, De sensu, and De somnis et
vigilia, are blended together, while controversial issues concerning the doctrine
of soul are expurgated. In so doing, the authors manage to build up a Christian
anthropology that, through the Scholastic mediation, conjugates the classical pagan
philosophical tradition with Christian theology.42
It may be worth pointing out, in this context, that Jesuit missionaries in China
almost never made verbatim translations of Classical sources, but most of the time
used summula, or florilegia or “common place books”, or even their own studybooks and classroom-notes, to excerpt significant passages of the Classics and adapt
them, by using the Chinese philosophical lexicon, in order to make them acceptable
to their Chinese “reading community” consisting of converts and middle-class
gentry. In other words, they accommodated the texts to their recipients, therefore
making use of an exegetical practice that stemmed from medieval Scholastic biblical
Pfister, Notices, pp.134-135.
I am presently working on an annotated Italian translation of the Xingxue cushu, based on the
edition held at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, R.G. Oriente III, 223, int.3.
41
42
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hermeneutics.43
This is precisely the case with Shuihua erda, a text that, although based on
the Aristotelian notion of the tripartition of the soul, shows an awareness of the
Renaissance developments of this thesis through the introduction of the five inner
senses.44 To sleep is necessary to all living creatures since they periodically need
to rest (安an) and regenerate (養yang). Sleep and wakefulness depend upon the
sensitive soul and are regulated by common sense, through which knowledge
of the sensation is made possible (in the sense that it makes us feel that we feel).
Nonetheless, “since sleep is the result of a temporary impotency of the sensitive
soul, it is equal to a «little death», this way it allows us to go through a premature
experience of death”.45
In one of the most significant passages of his work, Sambiasi echoes a wellknown say by Leonardo:
“Eyes are the window of the soul and the eyelids are the doors that protect this
window. It should not constantly be open, lest light, smoke, rain, wind and dust
may penetrate. Eyes should be employed to watch only that which is good and
desirable. Since they are not placed at the back but at the front of our body, eyes
should look ahead, towards a path we have not yet walked. Human beings should
not be satisfied with the good endeavours they have already fulfilled, because
they ought to always go ahead. When his eyesight is defective, the human being
cannot do anything good and this means that he is useless.”46
For a detailed discussion of this specific process of “accommodation”, may I refer the reader
to my essay “El debate actual sobre el relativismo y la producción de sabers en las misiones católicas
durante la primera edad moderna: ¿una lección para el presente?”, in Elisabetta Corsi (ed.), Órdenes
religiosas entre América y Asia. Ideas para una historia misionera de los espacios coloniales, Mexico, El
Colegio de México, 2008, pp. 38-40 (17-54).
44
There was an old tradition of speculating on the five spiritual senses. In this context, see Fabio
Massimo Tedoldi, La dottrina dei cinque sensi spirituali in San Bonaventura, Rome, Pontificium
Athenaeum Antonianum, 1999.
45
‘人死絕無能矣睡暫無能故似之小死哉’ 。(f. 2a)
46
‘眼著心之牖也眼上啓閉者護牕之闥也牕勿常啓惟以納光煙雨風塵閉勿使入惟吾之所欲
視善眼不生于後生于前為矚未到之程非戀已成之妹教人進也人廢眼無復前塗是等廢人人廢
傷哉 。 (f. 3a-b)
43
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Towards the end of the treatise, Sambiasi’s imaginary interlocutor asks him
how to paint a pure soul. The missionary answers that when a soul is flawless, the
body is absolutely perfect and the clearness of his mind almost reaches holiness.
Nonetheless, this quality is nearly impossible to be conveyed through painting.47
Francesco Sambiasi is heir to the late Renaissance culture, witness to the dramatic
change within physiognomy – a turn away from traditional chiromancy and
metoposcopy towards more rationalistic formulations. This transition has recently
been noted by Tommaso Casini in an essay that explores the relationship between
portrait writings and biographies of illustrious men, illustrated elogia, during the
16th century.48
The fact that the connection between sleep and dreams and physiognomy
established by the Shuihua erda, had already been envisioned by Montaigne (15331592) in the Essays (1580), should not pass unnoticed in this context.
“When we dream our soul lives and exercise her faculties as much as she does
during wakefulness. The only difference is that she does so more slowly, but not
in the sense that the difference between the two states is the same as the one that
occurs between the brightest light and darkness. Indeed, it is much closer to the
difference that occurs between darkness and shadow. Neither I see so clearly
when I sleep, nor my eyesight is flawless and without clouds when I am awake.”49
Calderon de la Barca’s idea of “life is a dream” is sympathetic to the Chinese
tradition, as shown by innumerable poems on sleep and dreams. It is a poetical
motive aptly captured by Li Zhizao in the preface to the Shuihua erda, where he
compares human life to a dream and to a pictorial image.
47
欲畫好心若何先生躩起曰善哉斯問殿乃最矣但好心起于五星其體至霛其通至廣其用至
神不可以摹畫求也 。(f. 6a)
48
“La questione fisiognomica nei libri di ritratti e biografie di uomini illustri del secolo XVI”, in
Alessandro Pontremoli (ed.), Il volto e gli affetti. Fisiognomica ed espressione nelle arti del Rinascimento,
Firenze, Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2003, pp. 103-117. See also Flavio Caroli, Storia della fisiognomica.
Arte e psicologia da Leonardo a Freud, Milano, Leonardo Arte, 1995; idem, L’anima e il volto. Ritratto
e Fisiognomica da Leonardo a Bacon, Milano, Electa, 1998.
49
I used the Italian translation: Saggi, Milano, Adelphi Edizioni, 2005 (1st ed. 1966), pp. 18311832).
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In a essay entitled “The voices of the other”, Carlo Ginzburg says that Jesuit
missionaries left Europe with Montaigne’s Essays, if not literally into their bags, at
least on their minds,50 because he offered them a framework through which they
could read and interpret the information they acquired about ancient civilizations,
as well as recently discovered lands and populations. I do not know if Sambiasi ever
read the Essays. Since they were placed in the Index in 1676, he may well have been
able to have a copy in hands for perusal, although this fact cannot be established.
It is my hope that this paper may represent a contribution to a redefinition of
the nature and quality of the scientific teaching in Jesuit colleges in Europe as well
as in mission lands. In this context, it may seem significant to find in the Shuihua
erda echoes of the writings of intellectuals like Montaigne, who greatly contributed
to shape those rationalistic trends that characterized the coming century and
anticipated the modern age.
“Le voci dell’altro. Una rivolta indigena nelle Isole Marianne”, in Rapporti di forza. Storia,
retorica, prova, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2000, p. 100 (87-108).
50
96