Albert D'Orville

Albert Dorville (also Albert Le Comte d'Orville , Chinese  吴 尔 铎 绍伯 , Pinyin Wu Er-duo Shao-bo ; born August 12, 1621 in Brussels , Belgium , † April 8, 1662 in Agra , India ) was a Belgian Jesuit , Missionary in China and cartographer.

resume

Dorville came from a noble family and spent his youth at the court of the Duke of Neuburg . In 1646 he joined the Society of Jesus and studied theology at the Catholic University of Leuven . There he heard Martino Martini at his Chinese lectures , which he held with the help of a magic lantern in order to win missionaries for China. These lectures were very successful. In addition to Dorville, François de Rougemont , Philippe Couplet and Ignatius Hartogvelt (1629–1658) and Ferdinand Verbiest were included in the preparations. In 1654 Dorville was ordained a priest and went to Rome , where he met Martino Martini, whom he accompanied on the trip to China. The tour group with 17 Jesuits left Lisbon in April 1657 and reached Macau on July 17, 1658 . Some of the young missionaries lost their lives on the crossing. Initially, the newcomers spent some time in Macau learning Chinese . Dorville was then sent to Shanxi Province as a missionary .

Research trip

Soon afterwards he was called to Beijing and commissioned to accompany Johann Grueber on a trip to Europe . Grueber was commissioned to defend the astronomer Adam Schall against the charge of “promoting superstitious practices” in Rome . Adam Schall was suspected of editing the Chinese calendar . At the same time, conflicts between Portugal and the Netherlands were unfolding, which made the sea route unsafe. Therefore, the ambassadors decided to take the overland route and in this way open up a new route from Europe to China. They wanted to reach Goa by land and left Beijing on April 13, 1661. They entered Tibet on July 13 and spent two months (October and November) in Lhasa ("Lassa"). Dorville made geographic records along the way . It recorded exactly the geographical longitude and the geographical latitude of the places crossed. The two travelers crossed the Himalayas , penetrated into Nepal and spent a month in Kathmandu (January 1662). From there they made the descent into the Ganges basin and reached India on February 8th, where they visited Patna and Benares , before finally arriving in Agra on March 31st . Dorville was seriously ill and exhausted by the time. He died on April 8, 1662, a week after arriving in Agra.

meaning

On the further journey from Goa to Europe, Grueber was accompanied by Heinrich Roth , a Sanskrit scholar. On arrival in Rome in 1664 Grueber gave a report of the trip. The records and observations were received with great interest, but an alternative route to China was not discovered. For centuries, travelers relied on the crossing from Goa to Macau and later Hong Kong to get to China.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://encyclopedia.stochastikon.com
2. ↑ George Minamiki: The Chinese rites controversy from its beginning to modern times.

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• Johann Grueber: Voyage à la Chine des PP. J. Grueber et d'Orville , 1696.

literature

• J. Dehergne: Répertoire des Jésuites de Chine de 1552 à 1800 , 1973. P. 79.
• R. Tronnier: In: Journal of the Society for Geography, No. 5, Berlin 1904.
• C. Wessels: Early Jesuit travelers in Central Asia (1603-1721) , The Hague, 1924, pp. 164-202.
• F. Braumann (ed.): Johannes Grueber. As a scout for the Pope in China (1656–1664) , Stuttgart, 1985.
• Grueber and Dorville's Journey across Tibet. In: The Geographical Journal. Vol. 24, No. 6 (Dec 1904), pp. 663-670
• George Minamiki: The Chinese rites controversy from its beginning to modern times . Loyola University Press, Chicago IL 1985, ISBN 0-8294-0457-0 .