AMIOT, JOSEPH

AMIOT, JOSEPH. – Jesuit missionary in China, born in Toulon on 8 February 1718, died in Beijing on 9 October 1793. A versatile intellect, in addition to the sacred sciences he devoted himself to the study of history, languages, and the arts. Ordained a priest, in 1749 he asked to be assigned to the missions; that same year he departed for China, arriving in Macao in 1750 and in Beijing in 1751, attached to the French Mission (founded separately for the French Jesuits in 1687 by Louis XIV with a dual purpose, religious and scientific). He remained there until his death in the exercise of his ministry, while at the same time applying himself with tireless zeal to the most varied scientific studies, in which he trained a young Chinese, Yang, his companion in work for more than thirty years. He became a highly accomplished master of the Chinese and Tartar languages, of the history and antiquities of China, and of the languages and scripts of its tributary nations, winning the esteem and confidence of the emperor Kien-Long and widespread fame among scholars in Europe. His scientific reports, addressed especially to the Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres of Paris, were published for the most part in the collection Mémoires concernant l'histoire, les arts, les mœurs et les usages des Chinois par les Missionnaires de Pékin (15 vols. in-4°, Paris 1776–79), through the efforts of his patron, the Minister of State Bertin. After the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, he continued his work as a missionary and scientist in Beijing, like the other former Jesuits, even when, in 1785, the Lazarists succeeded the Jesuits in the French Mission.