A. HALLERSTEIN - LIU SONGLING:the multicultural legacy of Jesuit wisdom and piety at the Qing dynasty court

Hallerstein is devoted to one of the major 18th century scientists. The project is an artistic interpretation of the life of the Baron Ferdinand Augustine von Hallerstein – in Chinese Liu Songling (*Ljubljana 1703 – + Beijing 1774), who spent 35 years as the court astronomer, missionary, cultural ambassador and mandarin (having the status of the Head of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau) in Beijing, China, between the years 1739 -1774. He was even the first demographer, as he precisely calculated the exact number of Chinese population of the time (198,214,553); he also participated in Chinese cartography. He was a Carniola man, a Jesuit from Mengeš, better known in scientific circles around Europe than in his homeland or in China, where only recently he has again attracted the attention of historians. He gained fame in Europe with his astronomic scientific work; he also discovered a comet that was named after him. His scientific activity contributed greatly to the world immaterial heritage, he is known from London to Paris and Saint Petersburg, having been a member of Academies of Science in all the three cities, from Germany and Vienna where he mainly published his scientific disputes, to Rome and Lisbon, the city of his correspondence and of his personal friend – the Queen of Portugal. It was from Portugal that he travelled to India as a missionary, where he worked in Goa and Macau and then continued his travel to Beijing. In Budapest, translations of his letters were published already in the 18th century, while in Slovenia we have only recently began to discover the details of his life. The former Beijing Astronomical observatory, now a museum, still hosts the armillary sphere with rotating rings, which was made under Hallerstein\\\'s leadership and is considered the most prominent astronomical instrument. TO ORDER THE BOOK, CONTACT US BY E-MAIL: zamisel@kibla.org PRICE: 33,00 € + shipping costs