Aristotelian Cosmology and Furtado\u27s Huan You Quart

The Jesuit missionary from Portugal, Francisco Furtado (1587-1653), with help of Li Zhizao (1565-1630), published the Huan You Quan, Chinese version of the Commentary of De Caelo of Aristotle in Hangzhou in 1628, which intended to introduce once again the heliocentric, Aristotelian cosmology into China. The first introduction of it had been made by Matthew Ricci (1543-1610) in 1604, with the publication of the Qiankun Tiyi, Chinese version of Commentary of the Sphere of Sacrobosco by Clavius. At that time, in Beijing, the imperial high official, Xu Guangqi (1562-1633) just started the official introduction of the Tychonic astronomical system in order to prepare the delayed calendrical reform for the Ming dynasty. The enterprise was supported mainly by the same Jesuit missionaries from Rome, Johann Terrentius (John Schreck), Johann Adam Schall von Bell, and so on. The latter followed the Tychonic world system, while the former the Aristotelian, Ptolemaic system. But, back in Rome, after Galileo published the Nuncius Sidereus in 1610, Christoph Clavius, the professor of mathematics at Collegio Romano, who had supported the geocentric idea even after the publication of De Revolutionibus by Copernicus in 1543, silenced about the Ptolemaic world system until his death in 1612. It was clear that the idea could not be maintained any more. Thus many astronomers and missionaries were rather free to choose cosmologies, which were able to properly interpret the astronomical discoveries by Galileo, as far as they were not the heliocentric idea. Thus Tychonic world system was the first, the most powerful, candidate to be chosen to rely on. The successor of Clavius as the mathematical professor at Collegio Romano, who was influential for the Holy Office, must thus have been tolerant about the cosmology. As a result, the missionary astronomers, who came to Beijing to help Xu Guangqi\u27s initiative, chose the Tychonic astronomy to edit the Chongzhen Lishu, inaugurated in 1629. But, some of the other missionaries did not necessarily have the same idea with those at Beijing astronomical bureau. Therefore Furtado\u27s action can be understood as their intention of making clear of their support of the traditional Aristotelian cosmology. Especially he made clear of his stance in the Huan You Quan, writing his refusal of the fluidity and adherence to the solidity of spheres, while the missionaries in Beijing were on the side of the idea of fluidity and wavering on corruptibility, while holding firmly to celestiality and, without saying that, to the centrality of the Earth in the universe. Such belief in the fluidity of the heavens reflected the opinion of the majority after the debate in the 1620\u27s in Europe