Leighton Library, Dunblane

Scotland's oldest purpose-built independent library founded in 1687

Leighton Library has 1659 edition of "Sinicae historiae decas prima" by Martini

Added at 08:53 on 20 September 2025

The Leighton Library has a 1659 edition of "Sinicae historiae decas prima" by Italian missionary, cartographer and historian (mainly working on ancient Imperial China), Martino Martini who was born #OnThisDay 20 September 1614. He planned this to be the first of a series of chronological works covering the whole Chinese history from the earliest age, but only this first part appeared (which reached up until the birth of Jesus).

He wasn’t just translating Chinese history - he was interpreting it through a European lens, making it digestible for scholars back home.

It wasn’t just academic - it was strategic, in that Jesuits used works like this to show European elites that Chinese civilisation was ancient, sophisticated, and worthy of respect.

< Leighton Library has 1759 first edition of "The history of Scotland, during the reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI" by William Robertson