YIKUANG, PRINCE QING & LI HONGZHANG: YIKUANG, PRINCE QING: (1838-1917) Manchu Noble and Politician of the Qing dynasty. First Prime Minister of the Imperial cabinet in 1911, & LI HONGZHANG: (1823-1901) also known as Li Hung-Chang. Chinese Politician, General and Diplomat of the Imperial Court and late Qing Empire. Minister and Viceroy. Very rare A.L.S., with red ink Chinese stamp, and beneath `Li Hungsing´, Pechino (Beijing), in Italian, one page, card folio, April 1892, in old Chinese characters. The written text entitled `Cina´ (“China”), in Italian, being a memorial poem of four verses on the occasion of the four hundred years celebration of the discovery of the new continent of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492, Yikuang stating `Four hundred years ago America was discovered by Humans in the very far horizon, on our maps we had the Divine Land, and now the New World, with great extension, as big as the world known till then.´ and further saying `Colon´s feat discovering the new continent deserves veneration from each generation. His fight and his achievement in the middle of the huge extensions of sea deserve praise.´ Further concluding with a question `leaving aside Magallanica and other lands, who will be able to discover the two other continents that the legend talks about?´ The document contains two written sentences in a slightly smaller letter size, explaining what Prince Qing´s statement refers to. The document bears a contemporary translation into English affixed to the verso. Very small overall, minor age wear, otherwise, VG £1000-1500 €1200 - 1800 The poem is written in a very old Chinese language, a dead language not in use since many centuries, but which was kept in the Imperial Court only in the written form. A similar situation to Latin in Europe.Prince Qing refers in a poetic way to the old belief that after discovering America, men would conquer Magallanica. Terra Australis, or Magallanica, was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. The existence of Terra Australis was based on the idea that continental land in the northern hemisphere should be balanced by land in the south. When he mentions the Divine Land he probably refers to China also in a poetic way.The year date is written as the eighteenth year of Guangxu throne. Guangxu (1871-1908) was the eleventh Emperor of the Qing dynasty. He ruled, under Empress dowager Cixi who launched a coup in 1898, after which he was put under house arrest until his death.