BONJOUR, GUILLAUME. - Orientalist and exegete, b. at Toulouse in 1670, d. in China on 23 Dec. 1714. He belonged to the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine.
The early years of his scholarly career were largely devoted to research in chronology and archaeology. Summoned to Rome in 1695 by Cardinal de Noris, of the same Order and a cultivator of the same studies, he applied himself especially to the study of Egyptian antiquities and of the Coptic language, of which he is one of the principal restorers. From this period come his book In monumenta coptica seu aegyptiaca Bibliothecae Vaticanae brevis exercitatio (Rome 1699) and his Coptic grammar (manuscript in the Bibl. Angelica no. 475). In 1701 he was appointed a member of the Congregation for the reform of the calendar; then, in 1705, Cardinal Barbarigo entrusted him with the direction of his new seminary at Montefiascone, where he taught biblical sciences until 1707.
Having returned to Rome, he felt called to the missionary life. From Clement XI he received the task of delivering the cardinal's biretta to Th. de Tournon, exiled at Macao. After an arduous journey toward China, he arrived at Macao in 1710, then continued on. At Peking he was well received by the emperor. Together with the Jesuit missionaries he composed part of the map of the Chinese empire, printed at Peking in 1718, namely sheets 11-13 of the provinces of Yun-nan, Se-Ciuan and the territory of Hani. He was honorably buried at Peking.
Other printed works: Dissertatio de nomine Patriarchae Joseph (Rome 1696); Triduum de canone librorum ss. concertatio (Montefiascone 1704); Selectae in Sacram Scriptorum dissertationes (ibid. 1705). Other works of his remained unpublished (cf. E. Narducci, Catalogus Cod. Mts. in Bibl. Angelica, I, Rome 1893).