RCCHC "China and the World: Historical Interactions" Talk Series #19 – Printing Chinese in Europe in the early 18th century: Paris, Étienne Fourmont (1683–1745) and the buis du Régent
RCCHC
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Date
24 Mar 2025
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Organiser
RCCHC
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Time
16:30 - 18:00
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Venue
EF312 Map
Speaker
Prof. Michela BUSSOTTI
Summary
Many attempts to print Chinese were made in Europe since the last years of the 16th century and in the following decades: they were small-sized projects, with a few Chinese characters included in publications in Latin letters. Things changed around 1700, by which time Paris had become an important center for Orientalist studies in Europe. During the first decades of the 18th century, Étienne Fourmont (1683–1745) coordinated the production of thousands of Chinese wooden types, known as the “buis du Régent” because they were made in part during the regency (1715–1723) of Philippe d’Orléans.
Based on Fourmont's archives, manuscripts and books kept at the National Library of France and on the wooden type still preserved at the National Printing House of France, this presentation will explain how Fourmont realized his project and how printing Chinese - for him and his contemporaries, in France and in Europe - was linked to projects of publishing multilingual dictionaries. This would come to a realization only a century later, when a “Chinese-Latin-French Dictionary” was published in Paris (1813), thanks to Fourmont's types.
Keynote Speaker
Prof. Michela BUSSOTTI
Michela BUSSOTTI holds a MA in Oriental Languages and Literatures from the University of Venice and a Doctorate from the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris). In 2001 she joined EFEO [Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient] as a researcher. In 2004 she became Maître de Conferences and, in 2018, Directeur d'Etudes. From 2001 to 2006, she was appointed to the EFEO center in Beijing. From the time of her doctoral research she has been focusing on the history of books. On this subject she has published extensively paying special attention to book publishing activities in central China and illustrated books of the late imperial period.
Michela BUSSOTTI is currently “directrice d'études” (full professor) at the EFEO (French School of Asian Studies) and a member of the research group UMR 8173 - China, Korea, Japan (EHESS, CNRS, Université Paris cité) in Paris. Specialising in the history of books, she dealt with various forms of publication produced in the Huizhou area (illustrated books, local monographs and family genealogies) in the late imperial period. Her studies also cover the history of Chinese printing, the history of printing Chinese in Europe and cultural exchanges between East and West, i.e. the multilingual dictionaries (Chinese-European languages) compiled in the 16th-19th centuries. She received Stanislas Julien Prize 儒蓮獎 (2003) from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres for the book Gravures de Hui, EFEO, 2001 [2002].
