Navarrete, Domingo Fernandez

Tratados historicos, politicos, ethicos, y religiosos de la monarchia de China.

Madrid, en la Imprenta Real. Por Juan Garcia Infançon, 1676. Folio. xx + 544 pp. Title-page with woodcut printed in red & black within woodcut border, engraved arms on dedication leaf, printed in double columns. 18th-century cats-paw calf, spine gilt, very minor worm traces mostly affecting margins, paper flaw at Y1, edges red. Modern morocco-backed box. First edition. Written by a Dominican monk who had resided in China from 1658 until 1670, this work although sympathetic to the Chinese was anti-Jesuit, and the Society of Jesus attempted to have it suppressed. “The work was translated and summarized into English, French, German and Italian and became particularly popular in England. In France, the work’s anti-Jesuit potential was exploited by the Jansenists. Voltaire thought Friar Navarrete a sage and Quesnay and the Physiocrats were influenced by him” (D. E. Mungello). Even though the book was designed as an attack upon the Jesuits, it also became a popular source of information on China, India, and Makassar, the places Navarrete had visited, It helpt to spread the idea in Europe that China was a model state and far superior in many regards to the countries of Europe.
Navarrete expresses doubts in this book regarding the authenticity of the Nestorian Monument on two grounds. Time has shown him to be mistaken on both counts. The book contains a translation of Niccolò Longobardi’s Latin manuscript anti-accomodation treatise (c. 1623) “De Confucio ejusque doctrina tractatus” on pp. 246–89. A French edition of this treatise appeared in 1701 (entitled Traité sur quelques points de la réligion des Chinois), reprinted with marginal notes by Leibniz in 1735. A large section of Navarrete’s work (pp. 289–450) relates to the voyages of the author in Mexico and the Philippines. Cordier, BS, 1, cols. 31–2. Lust 21. Walravens (1987), 124. D. E. Mungello, Curious land, 1989, pp. 170–71 & p. 298.

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