Xavier Ehrenbert Fridelli (11 March 1673 – 4 June 1743) was an Austrian

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

missionary and cartographer in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Life

Born in

Linz Linz (Pronunciation: , ; ) is the capital of Upper Austria and List of cities and towns in Austria, third-largest city in Austria. Located on the river Danube, the city is in the far north of Austria, south of the border with the Czech Repub ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, Fridelli entered the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

in 1688 and in 1705 arrived in China. Fridelli was an important contributor to the cartographical survey of the Chinese empire, begun in 1708 and completed in 1718 (according to others, 1715). Baron Richthofen says this is "the most comprehensive cartographic feat ever performed in so short a space of time".(China, Berlin, 1877, I, 661, see 631 sq.) Together with

Jean-Baptiste Régis Jean-Baptiste Régis (11 June 1663 or 29 January 1664 – 24 November 1738) was a French Jesuit missionary and geographer in imperial China. Biography and works Régis was born at Istres, in Provence. He was received into the Society of Jesus o ...

, Pierre Jartoux, and others, he designed the maps of

Zhili Zhili, alternately romanized as Chihli, was a northern administrative region of China since the 14th century that lasted through the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty until 1911, when the region was dissolved, converted to a province, and renamed ...

, the

Amur The Amur River () or Heilong River ( zh, s=黑龙江) is a perennial river in Northeast Asia, forming the natural border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China (historically the Outer Manchuria, Outer and Inner Manchuria). The Amur ...

district,

Khalkas The Khalkha (; ) have been the largest subgroup of the Mongols in modern Mongolia since the 15th century. The Khalkha, together with Chahars, Ordos and Tumed, were directly ruled by Borjigin khans until the 20th century. In contrast, the Oira ...

(Mongolia),

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

Guizhou ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = , image_map = Guizhou in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_alt = Map showing the location of Guizhou Province , map_caption = Map s ...

, and

Huguang Huguang was a province of China during the Yuan and Ming dynasties. It was founded by the Yuan dynasty in 1274. During the Yuan dynasty it included the areas of modern Hubei south of the Yangtze river, Hunan, Guizhou, and Guangxi. During the Min ...

(

Hunan Hunan is an inland Provinces of China, province in Central China. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the Administrative divisions of China, province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Gu ...

and

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

), for which purpose the traversed the whole empire from south to north. At the time of his death, Fridelli had been rector for many years of the Southern or Portuguese church ( Nantang), one of the four Jesuit churches at

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, where he died. He was buried in the Jesuits' Zhalan Cemetery in Beijing.

References

; Attribution * The entry cites: ** Five letters in N. Welt-Bott (Augsbirg, 1726, and Vienna, 1758), nos. 103, 106, 194, 589, 674; ** MSS report in the Vienna state library, no, 1117; **

Jean-Baptiste Du Halde Jean-Baptiste Du Halde (, Pinyin: ''Dù Hèdé''; 1 February 1674 – 18 August 1743) was a French Jesuit historian specializing in China. He did not travel to China, but collected seventeen Jesuit missionaries' reports and provided an encyclop ...

''Description de l'Empire de la Chine''
(the Hague, 1736), I, preface, p. xxxviii; ** , ''Deutsche Jesuitenmissionäre'' (Freiburg im Br., 1899), 87, 186 {{DEFAULTSORT:Fridelli, Xavier Ehrenbert 1673 births 1743 deaths 18th-century Austrian Jesuits Austrian Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in China Austrian expatriates in China Clergy from Linz 17th-century Austrian Jesuits Austrian cartographers