Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix

BIBLIOTECA UNIVERSITARIA DI GENOVA – PERCORSI TEMATICI
UNIVERSALITAS & PERVASIVITAS
il costituirsi e diffondersi della S.J. e suoi echi (1540 - 1773)
di A. Pisani
Schede autori Attività missionaria
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (29 October 1682 – 1 February 1761) was a French Jesuit
traveller and historian distinguished as the first historian of New France. He was born at SaintQuentin in the province of Picardy. He was descended from a line of lesser nobility. His father held
the post of deputy attorney general, and ancestors had served in positions in great trust and
responsibility. At the age of sixteen he entered the Society of Jesus; and at the age of twenty-three
was sent to Canada, where he remained for four years as professor at Quebec. He then returned and
became professor of belles lettres at home, and travelled on the errands of his society in various
countries. In 1720-1722, under orders from the regent, he visited North America for the second
time, and went along the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi River, and later into the West Indies. In
later years (1733–1755) he was one of the directors of the Journal de Trevoux. He died at La Flèche
on 1 February 1761. His works, enumerated in the Bibliographie des Peres de la Compagnie de
Jesus (by Carlos Sommervogel), fall into two groups.
The first contains works on Japan:
Histoire de l'établissement, du progrès et de la décadence du Christianisme dans I'empire
des japons (Rouen, 1715; English trans. History of the Church of Japan, 1715)
Histoire et description générale du Japon (1736), a compilation chiefly from Engelbert
Kaempfer.
The second group includes his historical work on America:
Histoire de I'Isle Espagnole ou de Saint-Domingue (1730), based on manuscript memoirs of
P. Jean-Baptiste Le Pers and original sources
Histoire de Paraguay (1756)
Vie de la Mère Marie de I'Incarnation, institutrice et première supérieure des Ursulines de
la Nouvelle-France (1724)
Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle-France (1744; in English 1769; tr. J. G.
Shea, 1866–1872), a work of capital importance for Canadian history.
BIBLIOTECA UNIVERSITARIA DI GENOVA – PERCORSI TEMATICI
UNIVERSALITAS & PERVASIVITAS
il costituirsi e diffondersi della S.J. e suoi echi (1540 - 1773)
di A. Pisani
Schede autori Attività missionaria
References: This article incorporates text from the article "Pierre Francois Xavier De Charlevoix"
in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
External links: Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online; Catholic Encyclopedia
article "Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier de" in The Canadian Encyclopedia Online
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Fran%C3%A7ois_Xavier_de_Charlevoix
This page was last modified on 2 July 2010 at 09:18 - Text is available under the Creative
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Vedi anche: breve profilo biografico di Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix nel sito
dell’Enciclopedia Treccani