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Fr. Pierre Martial Cibot
(1727 - 1780) came to China in 1759 and stayed there
until his death in Peking. He was a prolific author and had a predilection
for Botany. A considerable number of interesting observations were
thus recorded by him concerning the plants of the capital city and their
economic uses. Trees mentioned included Chinese oaks,
Celtis sinensis,
Lagerstroemia indica, and the peaches and apricots of Peking. He did not use
scientific botanical names, but gave good popular descriptions with the
names generally then added. His treatises include one on Chinese
Hot-houses, in which he furnished details with respect to the primitive
but practical mode of Peking gardeners to protect Southern plants in winter,
and how they proceeded to force flowers in the winter.
In 1782, Cibot's "Essai Sur Les Jardins de Plaisance des Chinois" was published as a piece near the end of Vol. 8 of Mémoires. The first edition of this vast repertory of the scientific labors of the Jesuits in China in the second half of the 18th century was published in seventeen volumes between 1777 and 1814. All of Cibot's papers -- many unsigned -- were printed in the Mémoires. 1 |
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"Essai Sur Les Jardins de Plaisance des Chinois"
("Essay on the Pleasure Gardens of the Chinese"), Vol XIII in Mémoires concernant
l'histoire, les sciences, les arts, les mœurs, les usages,&c des Chinois, par les
missionaires de Pe-Kin
(1782):
Les arbres qu'on avoir forcés à croître dans les vases, &
à y donner de plus belles fleurs & de plus gros fruits qu'en pleine terre, encouragerent
à de nouvelles entreprises. On en vint à les contourner d'une maniere plus bizarre
que curieuse. Les cedres & les sapins surent rapetissés dans les proportions
les plus gracieuses & les intéressantes. On parvint a les réduire à quelques
pouces de hauteur, & à les perpétuer sous cette forme par les graines qu'ils portoient. |
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1
Sirén,
Osvald
Gardens of China
(New York: The Ronald Press Company; 1949),
pp. 136-138;
Bretschneider, Emil, M.D.
Early European Researches into the Flora of China, (bound with) the 'Journal of the North-China
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society" (American Presbyterian Mission Press;
New Series, No. XV, 1880. Whole actually published in 1881), pp.
124-126, which gives the publication info as 16 volumes between 1776 and
1814. Pg. 124 gives Cibot's date of death as 1784;
cf. his biography in the Catholic Encyclopedia online, http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=2960 , gives the date as 1780.
2
"Essai Sur Les Jardins de Plaisance des Chinois" (pp. 301-326), pg.
314.
Translation by RJB starting from two electronic versions,
http://babelfish.altavista.com/ and
http://dictionary.reference.com/translate/,
of text clean-typed from GoogleBooks digitalized image. |