Correspondence as Infrastructure: Joseph-Nicolas Delisle and Jesuit Telescopic Observations From Qing China

This article examines how Joseph-Nicolas Delisle (1688–1768) organised the circulation and use of telescopic astronomical observations received from Jesuit missionaries in Qing China. Drawing on his correspondence and manuscript indices, it reconstructs the documentary practices through which observations were extracted from letters, classified, and compared with observations from elsewhere. Rather than focusing on Delisle’s published works, the article shows that correspondence networks, archival organisation, and the management of observational data were integral to his astronomical research. It argues that these practices enabled Delisle to incorporate telescopic observations from Qing China into the same comparative framework as observations from Europe and other parts of the world, illustrating the integration of long-distance observational networks in eighteenth-century astronomy.