Book Description

The book presents two manuscripts by Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623-1688) written in 1676 in Beijing, addressed to the Tsar, and brought to Moscow by the legate Nicolas Spathary Milescu. Both texts contain the oldest version of the Astronomia Europaea. They were recently discovered in the form of a copy produced by Chrysanthos Notaras in Moscow in 1693. The manuscript had languished in obscurity in the library of the Metochion of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem in Constantinople for centuries.  The book features an edition of the Latin text, English translation and notes. The introduction situates the manuscripts within the context of Verbiest’s Latin works and highlights those sections of the manuscripts that were subsequently included in the well-known Compendium Latinum and Astronomia Europaea edition (Dilingen, 1687) as well as those that were eventually omitted. The introduction also traces the historical trail of the Moscow manuscripts and especially that of the Constantinopolitan copy – the sole surviving evidence – and sheds light on the hitherto unknown reception of 17th century Jesuit astronomy, mechanics and physics in Russia and the South-Eastern Europe during the post-Byzantine era.