Gonyeo manguk jeondo (Map of the Myriad Countries of the World) by Mateo Ricci

This map is a copy, made in 1708, the thirty-fourth year of King Sukjong, at the Gwansanggam of Joseon, of the illustrated revised edition of the Gonyeo Manguk Jeondo (Map of the Myriad Countries of the World) originally produced in China in 1602 by Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) and the Ming-dynasty scholar Yi Jijo. By order of King Sukjong it was painted by Yi Guk-chwe and Yu U-chang together with the court painter Kim Jin-yeo, and its eighth panel carries an inscription by Choe Seok-jeong recording the circumstances of its making. It is an eight-panel oval world map, made at a time when the China-centred Honil Gangni Yeokdae Gukdo Jido was the mainstream type of world map. This map, however, reflects the Western geographical knowledge that had by then reached Korea, showing a new image of the world. Its main content depicts the five continents, including Europe and Africa, with more than 850 place names, and the peoples and products of each continent are described in the manner of a geographical gazetteer. Colophons by Matteo Ricci, Yi Jijo and others are inserted in the map's margins, and outside the main map are drawings of the southern and northern hemispheres, a theory of nine concentric heavens based on celestial structure, diagrams of solar and lunar eclipses, and a diagram of the celestial and terrestrial spheres. A variant of this map is held at Bongseonsa Temple, and it has recently been restored and reproduced by the Silhak Museum in Gyeonggi Province using glass photographic plates. The Gwansanggam also produced an accompanying celestial chart, the Geonsangdo, alongside this map. This map itself, once kept at Bongseonsa Temple in Gyeonggi Province, was lost during the Korean War and has only recently been rediscovered in Japan. It is one of the most beautiful maps made in the Joseon period, and one that transformed the worldview of intellectuals who until then had held a Sinocentric view of the world.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Gwanak-gu, Seoul

Designation

Treasure · 보물