RCCHC "Science, Technology, Society and Culture" Talk Series 20 - Taming the foreign falcon: Ludovico Buglio's Jincheng yinglun and the translation of European falconry in the Qing dynasty

This lecture takes falconry as a point of departure to explore the fascinating intersections between natural history and missionary scholarship in Qing China. It begins with a brief overview of the European history of falconry—from its medieval aristocratic traditions to its symbolic role in courtly life—before turning to its corresponding practices and cultural significance in the imperial Chinese context.

At the center of the discussion is the seventeenth-century Jesuit missionary Ludovico Buglio and his treatise A Presentation on Falcons (Jìnchéng yīng lùn), an ambitious attempt to translate European knowledge of falconry into Chinese. By analyzing this work, the lecture highlights the linguistic and conceptual challenges Buglio faced in rendering highly specialized terminology, techniques, and metaphors across distinct cultural and epistemological frameworks.

Finally, the lecture broadens the lens to consider issues of cross-cultural exchange and knowledge translation in the Qing dynasty more generally: How were European practices reinterpreted and adapted for Chinese audiences? And what does this process reveal about the complex dynamics of Jesuit cultural mediation between different worlds?