The First Telescope in the Korean History I. Translation of Jeong`s Report

Abstract

In 1631 A.D. Jeong Duwon, an ambassador of the Joseon dynasty was sent to the Ming dynasty. There he met João Rodrigues, a Jesuit missionary, in Dengzhou of Shandong peninsula. The missionary gave the ambassador a number of results of latest European innovations. A detailed description on this event was written in `Jeong's official report regarding a message from an European country' () which is an important literature work to understand the event. Since the document was written in classical Chinese, we make a comprehensive translation to Korean with detailed notes. According to the report, the items that Rodrigues presented include four books written in Chinese that describe European discoveries about the world, a report on the tribute of new cannons manufactured by Portuguese in Macao, a telescope, a flintlock, a Foliot-type mechanical clock, a world atlas drawn by Matteo Ricci, an astronomical planisphere, and a sun-dial. We discuss the meaning of each item in the Korean history of science and technology. In particular, Jeong's introduction is an important event in the history of Korean astronomy, because the telescope he brought was the first one to be introduced in Korean history. Even though king Injo and his associates of the Joseon dynasty were well aware of the value as military armaments of new technologies such as telescopes, cannons, and flintlocks, they were not able to quickly adopt such technologies to defend against the military threat of Jurchen. We revisit the reason in view of the general history of science and technology of east-Asian countries in the 17th century.

Keywords

• telescope
• history of astronomy
• cultural exchange
• Jeong Duwon
• João Rodrigues
• Joseon dynasty