How mechanical clocks were introduced to China
The first western mechanical clock was introduced to China on the historic date of December 27th 1582. It was sent by Lisbon to the Portuguese priest Rui Vicente who ordered that it be given to the Chinese mission.
Fernando Correia de Oliveira
Circa 1577 there was already a small community of Portuguese settlers in Macao, made up of traders, soldiers and Jesuit priests. Macao was the only open port in the Chinese Empire and, over the coming centuries, it would be used by all the western countries in their dealings with China. Macao, along with Goa, was also the base for the so-called Padroado do Oriente (Orient’s Patronage), the monopoly license granted by the Pope in Rome to the Portuguese Church to coordinate and evangelise the Far East countries. Francisco de Sousa, one of the Portuguese Jesuits working in Macao, wrote in 1582 about an incident with the mainland Chinese authorities, “expecting more that the Portuguese would be expelled from Macao than for priests to be allowed to enter the continent.” The Chinese accused the Portuguese of introducing other western foreigners and Japanese pirates into Macao, which was forbidden by the Governor of Canton.
Introduction to China of the first western mechanical clock
An official delegation from Macao - the Capitão (military authority) and the Bishop (religious authority) - travelled to Chaoqin on the mainland to give an explanation to the Governor. The Capitão sent the Ouvidor (judge) to represent him while the bishop sent the Italian Jesuits Miguel Rugieri and Francisco Pacio, who were working within the Portuguese Padroado. After a first and most cordial meeting during which the Chinese and Portuguese delegations exchanged gifts, the Macao group declared it had “a steel machine with wheels inside that move by themselves and that shows outside all the hours of the day and the night, with the sound of a bell telling the number of each one of them.” And so, to the great curiosity of the Chinese Governor, on the historic day of December 27th 1582 the first western mechanical clock was introduced to China. "Of medium size, worked by excellent artifice”, it was sent by Lisbon to the Portuguese priest Rui Vicente, who ordered that it be given to the Chinese mission.
Francisco de Sousa noted that the clock “prompted as much astonishment as pleasure in the Chinese Governor, and this would be double if the clock could be adapted to Chinese use. They divide the day from midnight to midnight as we do, but they divide it not into 24 hours but rather 12. Nor do they count the hours by numbers, saying one, two, three, but give each one a mysterious meaning, related to their beliefs.” Many western and Chinese historians affirm that the clock presented to the Governor of Canton was crucial to appease him and to ensure a continued Portuguese presence in Macao. Clocks were also used as gifts to the mandarins and eunuchs, some years later, to open the imperial court in Beijing. The first delegation of the Jesuits Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci (Italians), and António de Almeida and Duarte de Sande (Portuguese) arrived in the capital on January 24th 1601.
The Jesuits entered China as clockmakers
The Emperor, knowing about clocks, said he wanted to see them. He had heard of large and medium clocks, and others with music. The Jesuits were summoned to the imperial chamber to make them work and to teach the eunuchs how to use them. The Emperor ordered that a high tower be built in the imperial garden, where the largest of the clocks was installed. When, some days later, the court pressed for the Jesuits to leave (they where there as ambassadors of the Portuguese king and not as missionaries), the eunuchs protested, fearing they would be unable to keep the clocks working or repair them should something go wrong. And so as many western and Chinese historians now affirm, the Jesuits entered the Chinese court and became established in Beijing primarily as clockmakers, gradually winning the Emperor’s good grace with their marvellous machines.
A story tells how the Empress dowager, the Emperor’s mother, on hearing of these miraculous machines that worked alone, asked to see one. Thus the Emperor sent a clock to his mother, conveniently forgetting to disable the striking system so that the Empress, tired of hearing its chimes, would quickly give it back. The Jesuits have many letters from that time describing the excitement that clocks caused in the Chinese court. When news of this reached Europe, “the Christian princes, full of zeal for the conversion of such a large empire, helped the missionaries in a generous manner and soon the Emperor’s rooms were full of clocks of all kinds, most of them of rare invention and extraordinary work.”
Clocks were considered as marvellous automata
The clocks that arrived in Macao came from Europe, namely Germany and France, and were brought there by traders or missionaries. However, the price was so high that the Jesuits began making clocks themselves, known by the Chinese as “the bells that play by themselves.” The Portuguese Jesuits Gabriel de Magalhães and Tomás Pereira were two of the most important clockmakers working directly with the Emperor Kangxi, who was particularly taken with clocks: he even wrote poems glorifying these marvellous machines. Tomás Pereira, a musician, made his own instruments and, as a clockmaker, built an enormous clock with chimes which he installed in the main Christian church in Beijing. Gabriel de Magalhães made a special complicated clock for the first Qing dynasty Emperor Shuanzi, and another even more complicated one for the next Emperor Kangxi. In addition to giving the hour, the clock played music to which automata appeared. Kangxi loved it so much he ordered that it be put in his bedroom.
Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci, Adam Schall, Gabriel de Magalhães, Manuel Dias, Ferdinand Verbiest, Tomás Pereira and Terentius were given mandarin status, as scientists working at Beijing Observatory where they built astronomical instruments with which to observe the skies. Although the Chinese were genuinely enthralled by the mechanical clocks introduced in the sixteenth century through Macao and the Portuguese Padroado, they viewed them only as marvellous automata, kept to impress with their mysterious sounds and movements. The western mentality, with its clock-inspired efficiency and “time is money” philosophy, was foreign to the Middle Empire until just 30 years ago… ■
(1) Tomás Pereira’s clock schem (in Athanasius Kircher, Mursurgia Universalis, Amsterdan, 1650) - the clock was built around 1640 and puted in a tower of Beijing’s main christian church.
(2) The jesuits worked as mathematicians in the beijing observatory, constructing most of the scientific instruments, as astrolabs, armillar spheres and sundials.
