Coming to China in 1643, Italian Jesuit Martini (Martino Martini) experienced the tumultuous years of the subrogation of Ming Dynasty by Qing Dynasty. During his stay in China, Martini deliberately collected Chinese geography books including maps. In 1650, Martini departed from China to return to Europe. During the long journey, he compiled an atlas of China by collating the collected data. After his return to Europe in 1653, he made a special trip to Amsterdam in the Netherlands to meet with map publisher Joannis Blaeu and negotiated the publication of this Atlas of China. In 1655, the atlas compiled by Martini was named Novus Atlas Sinensis and published by Blaeu in Latin. Novus Atlas Sinensis is large format atlas (32.5 × 50cm) which was made exquisitely. The first edition of the atlas includes a whole map of China, 15 provincial maps and the last one is a map of the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Martini’s Novus Atlas Sinensis is a milestone because it is the first official publication of the Chinese atlas in Europe and later generations even regard Martini as “father of Chinese geography”. This atlas was later translated into French, Spanish and other languages, having a profound impact on Europe. Here the whole map of China is selected form Novus Atlas Sinensis. Compared with the previous maps of China drawn by Europeans, the whole map of China painted by Martini is clearly more accurate. Especially, Liaodong Peninsula, Shandong Peninsula and the meandering coastline of China were properly drawn. Besides, the location of Hainan Island and Taiwan Island is close to the actual geography. As can be seen from this map, Europeans represented by Martini had a far better knowledge of China’s coastal areas than China’s mainland and of southern China than northern China.  

This copy is from Novus Atlas Sinensis (1655) collected in the Harvard University Library Map (MA 17.60.6 pf ) 

Reference:

^[1]. Martini, M., & Bertuccioli, G. (2002). Novus atlas Sinensis. Trento: Università degli Studi di Trento.

^[2]. Mungello, D. E. (1985). Curious land: Jesuit accommodation and the origins of sinology (pp. 116-124). Stuttgart: F. Steiner.

^[3]. 張西平等. (2012). 把中國介紹給世界: 衛匡國研究. 上海: 華東師範大學出版社.