It's a map so rare that only seven copies exist, and most of those are in poor condition.
The James Ford Bell Trust tomorrow will unveil Matteo Ricci's 1602 "Impossible Black Tulip," a massive map showing the world with China at its center, for the first time in North America at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
The first map known to combine Eastern and Western cartography, the Ricci Map has been referred to as "the impossible black tulip of cartography," because of its remarkable size -- 5 feet high and 12 feet wide -- and frailty, being printed on very thin rice paper.
Quite simply, it's so big and frail that its mere survival has been described as astonishing, according to Ford W. Bell, president of the American Association of Museums and a trustee for the James Ford Bell Trust.
"This is one of the two best in terms of quality, as far as we know," Bell says.
"It was meant to be put in screens, so it's very large," Bell says. "It's printed in six panels on rice paper. They were printed from enormous engraved wooden blocks. So, it's a very large dramatic, map."
The Trust, which supports the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, acquired the map last year from the firm of Bernard J. Shapero, a noted dealer of rare books and maps in London, for $1 million.
It will be displayed at the Library of Congress for three months, during which it will be scanned, making a permanent digital image available to scholars and students. The map will then be displayed for a limited time at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts before moving to its permanent home in the James Ford Bell Library.
The cartographer Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), a Jesuit priest called the "Apostle of China," created the map at the request of Chinese emperor Wanli (1563-1620), who wanted the map to serve as a resource for explorers and scholars.
"Ricci was a very smart missionary," Bell says. "He put China right at the center of this new universe, this new globe, to underscore its importance. Ricci, of course, was the first Westerner to enter Beijing. He was revered by the Chinese, and he was buried there."
As for the other extant examples, two are in the collection of the Vatican, one in a French private collection and the remaining three in public collections in Japan.
