{"id":471,"date":"2011-08-09T19:52:50","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T19:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/news\/specialcollections\/?p=471"},"modified":"2011-08-09T19:52:50","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T19:52:50","slug":"sinicae-historiae-decas-prima","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/2011\/08\/09\/sinicae-historiae-decas-prima\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinic\u00e6 histori\u00e6 decas prima is Featured Book for August 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Sinic\u00e6 histori\u00e6 decas prima :
\nres \u00e0 gentis origine ad Christum natum in extrema Asia, sive magno Sinarum imperio gestas complexa <\/a><\/span><\/span> by Martino Martini. Monachii :\u00a0L. Straubii,\u00a01658.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

362 p. :\u00a0ill. ;\u00a020 cm.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Call Number: DS 741.3\u00a0.M38\u00a0 Rare Book Collection<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Sinic\u00e6 histori\u00e6 decas prima<\/em> is the August 2011 Book of the Month. <\/strong> This famous\u00a0work\u00a0was written by\u00a0Martino Martini,\u00a0a 17th century Italian Jesuit priest who has been recognized as the\u00a0founder of Chinese geographical science.<\/p>\n

Martino Martini\u00a0was born\u00a0in Trento, an alpine village in northern Italy, on 20 September 1614.\u00a0 He finished the equvialency of his high school studies in Trento in 1631, and immediately\u00a0entered the Austrian province of the Society of Jesus.\u00a0 He\u00a0was sent on to study classical letters and philosophy at the Roman College in\u00a0Rome (1634\u20131637).\u00a0 As\u00a0 his interest was more attuned to astronomy and mathematics, Martini changed tutors, and\u00a0continued his\u00a0studies under Athanasius Kircher.\u00a0 Martini was also intrigued by the history of Imperial China, and requested to be sent as a missionary to China.\u00a0 His request was granted by Mutius Vitelleschi, the then Superior General of the Jesuits.\u00a0 Martini finished his theological studies in Portugal (1637\u20131639) where he was ordained a priest in Lisbon in 1639.<\/p>\n

In 1640, at the age of 26, Martini traveled to China\u00a0and it was a journey that lasted two years.\u00a0 He stayed in China for eleven years, surviving several dynastic upheavals and regime changes while attending to the needs of the mission and also studying ancient Chinese history.<\/p>\n

Martini left China in 1651 as part of a Chinese mission to Rome.\u00a0 It was a return trip that took four years, with long stops in\u00a0the Philippines, Bergen, Norway, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Vienna and Munich before arriving in\u00a0Rome.\u00a0 During his extended stays\u00a0in the various European cities,\u00a0Martini submitted his\u00a0historical and cartographic data about China to several printers.\u00a0\u00a0It was from these works\u00a0published in Antwerp, Vienna and Munich that\u00a0Martini received fame as a cartographer and historian.<\/p>\n

Martini returned to China in 1658, and died there in 1661 during an cholrea epidemic.<\/p>\n

Although the BU Libraries’ Special Collections copy of\u00a0Sinic\u00e6 histori\u00e6 decas prima<\/em> has suffered from age; it\u00a0still remains a visually stunning example of\u00a0Renaissance book production. The book was rebound at least once, and its\u00a0contemporary leather\u00a0binding is highly decorated with blind stamped panels\u00a0on both its\u00a0covers and spine.\u00a0 The spine has four raised bands and has an earlier\u00a0library’s paper label\u00a0still adhering to it.\u00a0 The label has\u00a0the shelf number 63 handwritten in black ink.\u00a0 The boards have beveled edges.<\/p>\n

Inside the book, there are 18th century red\/blue\/yellow colored marbled front and back paste-down endpapers; however, the marbled free endpapers are missing. There is a half title page in addtion to the full title page; the latter has a printer\u2019s device.\u00a0 There are handwritten notes in ink on the t.p. The book’s pages have been cropped to fit into the binding.\u00a0 However, little information has been lost.\u00a0 One is still able to see that the pages were illustrated with head-pieces, tail pieces\u00a0and decorated initials.\u00a0 Also still evident are guide words, running titles, \u00a0and side-notes.<\/p>\n

Of particular interest are the book’s fore-edges that have gauffered gilt edges.\u00a0 The gauffering consists of two lines of crimping along all edges.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gauffred (or gauffered or goffered) edges are those decorated by the impression of heated tools, usually of the pointille type.\u00a0 The BU Libraries’ Special Collections has several examples of this type of decoration.\u00a0 Gauffering can be found on both gilt and silver fore-edges in the Rare Book Collection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sinic\u00e6 histori\u00e6 decas prima : res \u00e0 gentis origine ad Christum natum in extrema Asia, sive magno Sinarum imperio gestas complexa by Martino Martini. Monachii :\u00a0L. Straubii,\u00a01658. 362 p. :\u00a0ill. ;\u00a020 cm. Call Number: DS 741.3\u00a0.M38\u00a0 Rare Book Collection Sinic\u00e6 histori\u00e6 decas prima is the August 2011 Book of the Month. This famous\u00a0work\u00a0was written by\u00a0Martino […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-books","7":"category-featured-book"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libnews.binghamton.edu\/specialcollections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}