Orientalism in early modern France
Encyclopedia
Orientalism in early modern France refers to the interaction of pre-modern France with the Orient
, and especially the cultural, scientific, artistic and intellectual impact of these interactions, ranging from the academic field of Oriental studies
to Orientalism
in fashions in the decorative arts.
were made by the Church in Rome, with the establishment of the Studia Linguarum
in order to help the Dominicans liberate Christian captives in Islamic lands. The first school was established in Tunis
by Raymond Penaforte in the 12th and early 13th century. In 1311, the Council of Vienne
decided to create schools for the study of oriental languages in the universities of Paris
, Bologna
, Oxford
, Salamanca
and Rome
.
sought an alliance
with the Ottoman Empire
. Ottoman embassies soon visited France, one in 1533
, and another the following year
.
Guillaume Postel
became the first French Orientalist after 1536, when he went to Constantinople
as a member of the 12-strong French embassy of Jean de La Forêt
to the Turkish sultan
Suleiman the Magnificent
. Postel brought back numerous books in Arabic
, either religious or scientific in content (mainly mathematics
and medicine
), to France.
Scientific exchange is thought to have occurred, as numerous works in Arabic, especially pertaining to astronomy
were brought back, annotated and studied by Postel. Transmission of scientific knowledge, such as the Tusi-couple
, may have occurred on such occasions, at the time when Copernicus was establishing his own astronomical theories.
Guillaume Postel envisioned a world where Muslims, Christians and Jews
would be united in harmony under one rule, a message he developed two decades before the Universalist Jean Bodin
. He claimed that Islam was only a branch of Christianity, a simple heresy
that could be reintegrated into Christianity, in his book Alcorani seu legis Mahometi et evangelistarum concordiae liber (1543).
Postel also studied languages and sought to identify the common origin of all languages, before Babel
. He became Professor of Mathematics and Oriental Languages, as well as the first professor of Arabic, at the Collège royal
.
. The embassy included numerous scientists, such as the botanist Pierre Belon
, naturalist Pierre Gilles d'Albi, the future cosmographer André Thévet
, philosopher Guillaume Postel
, traveler Nicolas de Nicolay
, or the cleric and diplomat Jean de Monluc
, who would publish their findings upon their return to France and contribute greatly to the early development of science in France.
, one of the first such theorists, declared his admiration for the power and administrative system of the Ottoman Empire. He presented as a model Turkish frugality, the Ottoman system of punishments for looting, and promotion on merit in the Janissaries. Such views would be echoed by 18th century comparative works such as L'Espion Turc or the Lettres persanes.
published La Soltane, a tragedy
highlighting the role of Roxelane in the 1553 execution of Mustapha
, the elder son of Suleiman
. This tragedy marks the first time the Ottomans were introduced on stage in France. Turquerie
and chinoiserie
were notable fashions that affected a wide range of the decorative arts.
were signed between Henry IV of France
and Sultan Ahmed I on 20 May 1604, giving a marked advantage for French trade, against that of the English and the Venetians. In these capitulations, the protection of the French king over Jerusalem and the Holy Land
is also recognized. Brèves was interested in establishing an Arabic printing press under his own account in order to introduce Oriental studies in France. He had Arabic, Turk, Persian and Syriac types cast while in Istanbul
. He also brought to France a large collection of Oriental manuscripts. These excellent types, followed those of Guillaume Le Bé
at the end of the 16th century.
While in Rome he set up a publishing house, the Typographia Savariana, through which he printed a Latin-Arab bilingual edition of a catechism of Cardinal Bellarmino
in 1613, as well as in 1614 an Arabic version of the Book of Psalms. For the editorial work and the translations, Brèves used the services of two Lebanese Maronite priests, former students of the Maronite College, Gabriel Sionita
(Jibrā'īl aṣ-Ṣahyūnī) and Victor Scialac
(Naṣrallāh Shalaq al-'Āqūrī).
In 1610–11, Al-Hajari, a Moroccan envoy to France, met with the Orientalist Thomas Erpenius in September 1611 in Paris
, and taught him some Classical Arabic
. Through the introduction of Erpenius, Al-Hajari also met with the French Arabist Etienne Hubert
, who had been a court physician for Moroccan ruler Ahmad al-Mansur in Marrakech
from 1598 to 1601.
A protégé of Savary de Brèves, André du Ryer
published the first ever translation of the Qu'ran in a vernacular language, L'Alcoran de Mahomet
(1647), and published in the West the first piece of Persian literature Gulistan
(1634).
According to McCabe, Orientalism played a key role "in the birth of science and in the creation of the French Academy of Sciences
".
France started to set up numerous consulates throughout the Ottoman realm, in Tripoli
, Beirut
, Alexandria
, and Chios
. Intense trade also started to develop, centered on the city of Marseille
, called "the door of the Orient". In Egypt, French trade was paramount, and Marseille was importing in large quantities linens, carpets, dyes, hides, leather, or waxes. In 1682, the Sultan of Morocco, Moulay Ismail, following the embassy of Mohammed Tenim, allowed consular and commercial establishments, and again in 1699 ambassador Abdallah bin Aisha
was sent to Louis XIV.
in 1607, and from Mehmed IV
to Louis XIV
in 1669 in the person of ambassador Müteferrika Süleyman Ağa, who created a sensation at the French court and triggered a fashion for things Turkish. The Orient came to have a strong influence in French literature, as about 50% of French travel guides in the 16th century were dedicated to the Ottoman Empire.
In Paris, Suleiman set up a beautiful house where he offered coffee
to Parisian society, with waiters dressed in Ottoman style, triggering enthusiastic responses, and starting the fashion for coffee-drinking. Fashionable coffee-shops emerged such as the famous Café Procope
, the first coffee-shop of Paris, in 1689. In the French high society wearing turban
s and caftans became fashionable, as well as lying on rugs and cushions.
through the Capitulations
led to French money being drained to the Levant
and Persia for the purchase of luxury goods such as knotted-pile carpets. Due to these concerns, and also because French luxury arts had collapsed in the disorders of civil violence in the Wars of Religion
, Henri IV
attempted to develop French luxury industries that could replace imports. The king provided craftsmen with studios and workshops. These efforts to develop an industry for luxury goods was continued by Louis XIII and Louis XIV.
During the 17th century, from being an importer, France became a net exporter of silk, for example shipping 30,000 pounds sterling worth of silk to England in 1674 alone.
s, enjoying its greatest period circa 1650–1685. The manufactory had its immediate origins in a carpet manufactory established in a former soap factory (French savon) on the Quai de Chaillot downstream of Paris
in 1615 by Pierre DuPont, who was returning from the Levant
and wrote La Stromatourgie, ou Traité de la Fabrication des tapis de Turquie ("Treaty on the manufacture of Turkish carpets", Paris 1632). Under a patent (privilège) of eighteen years, a monopoly was granted by Louis XIII
in 1627 to Pierre Dupont and his former apprentice Simon Lourdet, makers of carpets façon de Turquie ("in the manner of Turkey
"). Until 1768, the products of the manufactory remained exclusively the property of the Crown, and "Savonnerie carpets" were among the grandest of French diplomatic gifts.
had long been imported from China
, and was a very expensive and desired luxury. Huge amounts of gold
were sent from Europe to China to pay for the desired Chinese porcelain wares, and numerous attempts were made to duplicate the material. It is at the Nevers manufactory
that Chinese-style blue and white wares were produced for the first time in France, using the faience
technique, with production running between 1650 and 1680.
Chinese porcelain was collected at the French court from the time of Francis I. Colbert
set up the Royal Factory of Saint-Cloud in 1664 in order to make copies (In the original "Contre-façons", i.e. "Fakes") of "Indian-style" porcelain.
France was one of the first European countries to produce soft-paste porcelain
, and specifically frit porcelain, at the Rouen manufactory
in 1673, which was known for this reason as "Porcelaine française". These were developed in an effort to imitate high-valued Chinese hard-paste porcelain
.
France however, only discovered the Chinese technique of hard-paste porcelain
through the efforts of the Jesuit Father Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles
between 1712 and 1722. Louis XIV had received 1,500 pieces of porcelain from the Siamese Embassy to France
in 1686, but the manufacturing secret had remained elusive. The English porcelain-manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood
may also have been influenced by the letter of Father d'Entrecolles and his description of Chinese mass-production methods. After this initial period, until the end of the 18th century, French porcelain manufactories would progressively abandon their Chinese designs, to become more French in character.
in 1686 had brought to the Court samples of multicolor Thai Ikat
textiles. These were enthusiastically adopted by the French nobility to become Toiles flammées or Siamoises de Rouen, often with checkered blue-and-white designs. After the French Revolution
and its dislike for foreign luxury, the textiles were named "Toiles des Charentes" or cottons of Provence
.
Textiles imported from India
, types of colored calicoes which were called Indiennes, were also widely adopted and manufactured, especially in Marseille
, although there were difficulties in obtaining comparable dyes, especially the red dye madder
.
used the Oriental appeal to write Zaïre
(1732) and Candide
(1759). French travelers of the 17th century, such as Jean de Thévenot
or Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
routinely visited the Ottoman Empire.
The works of Confucius
were translated into European languages through the agency of Jesuit scholars stationed in China. Matteo Ricci
started to report on the thoughts of Confucius, and father Prospero Intorcetta
published the life and works of Confucius into Latin
in 1687. It is thought that such works had considerable importance on European thinkers of the period, particularly among the Deists and other philosophical groups of the Enlightenment
who were interested by the integration of the system of morality of Confucius into Western civilization
.
In particular, cultural diversity with respect to religious beliefs could no longer be ignored. As Herbert wrote in De Religione Laici (1645):
, just as there was a fashion for Chinese things with Chinoiserie
, both of which became constitutive components of the Rococo
style. Orientalism
started to become hugely popular, first with the works of Jean-Baptiste van Mour
, who had accompanied the embassy of Charles de Ferriol
to Istanbul 1699 and stayed there until the end of his life in 1737, and later with the works of Boucher
and Fragonard
.
Orient
The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...
, and especially the cultural, scientific, artistic and intellectual impact of these interactions, ranging from the academic field of Oriental studies
Oriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
to Orientalism
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
in fashions in the decorative arts.
Early study of Oriental languages
The first attempts to study oriental languagesOriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
were made by the Church in Rome, with the establishment of the Studia Linguarum
Studia Linguarum
The Studia Linguarum were the first attempt to study oriental languages by the Roman Catholic Church.The need to study oriental languages was affirmed by the General Chapter of the Dominican Order in Paris in 1236...
in order to help the Dominicans liberate Christian captives in Islamic lands. The first school was established in Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
by Raymond Penaforte in the 12th and early 13th century. In 1311, the Council of Vienne
Council of Vienne
The Council of Vienne was the fifteenth Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church that met between 1311 and 1312 in Vienne. Its principal act was to withdraw papal support for the Knights Templar on the instigation of Philip IV of France.-Background:...
decided to create schools for the study of oriental languages in the universities of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, Salamanca
Salamanca
Salamanca is a city in western Spain, in the community of Castile and León. Because it is known for its beautiful buildings and urban environment, the Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988. It is the most important university city in Spain and is known for its contributions to...
and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
The first Orientalist, Guillaume Postel (1536)
From the 16th century, the study of oriental languages and cultures was progressively transferred from religious to royal patronage, as Francis IFrancis I of France
Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
sought an alliance
Franco-Ottoman alliance
The Franco-Ottoman alliance, also Franco-Turkish alliance, was an alliance established in 1536 between the king of France Francis I and the Turkish ruler of the Ottoman Empire Suleiman the Magnificent. The alliance has been called "the first non-ideological diplomatic alliance of its kind between a...
with the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. Ottoman embassies soon visited France, one in 1533
Ottoman embassy to France (1533)
An Ottoman embassy to France was sent in 1533 by Hayreddin Barbarossa, the Ottoman Governor of Algiers, vassal of the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent....
, and another the following year
Ottoman embassy to France (1534)
An Ottoman embassy to France occurred in 1534, with the objective to prepare and coordinate Franco-Ottoman offensives for the next year, 1535. The embassy closely followed a first Ottoman embassy to France in 1533, as well as the Conquest of Tunis by Hayreddin Barbarossa on 16 August 1534, which...
.
Guillaume Postel
Guillaume Postel
Guillaume Postel was a French linguist, astronomer, Cabbalist, diplomat, professor, and religious universalist.Born in the village of Barenton in Basse-Normandie, Postel made his way to Paris to further his education...
became the first French Orientalist after 1536, when he went to Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
as a member of the 12-strong French embassy of Jean de La Forêt
Jean de La Forêt
Jean de La Forêt, also Jean de La Forest or Jehan de la Forest was the first official French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, serving from 1534 to 1537. Antonio Rincon had preceded him as an envoy to the Ottoman Empire from 1530 to 1533...
to the Turkish sultan
Sultan
Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman the Magnificent
Suleiman I was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1520 to his death in 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the East, as "The Lawgiver" , for his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system...
. Postel brought back numerous books in Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, either religious or scientific in content (mainly mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
), to France.
Scientific exchange is thought to have occurred, as numerous works in Arabic, especially pertaining to astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
were brought back, annotated and studied by Postel. Transmission of scientific knowledge, such as the Tusi-couple
Tusi-couple
The Tusi-couple is a mathematical device in which a small circle rotates inside a larger circle twice the diameter of the smaller circle. Rotations of the circles cause a point on the circumference of the smaller circle to oscillate back and forth in linear motion along a diameter of the larger...
, may have occurred on such occasions, at the time when Copernicus was establishing his own astronomical theories.
Guillaume Postel envisioned a world where Muslims, Christians and Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
would be united in harmony under one rule, a message he developed two decades before the Universalist Jean Bodin
Jean Bodin
Jean Bodin was a French jurist and political philosopher, member of the Parlement of Paris and professor of law in Toulouse. He is best known for his theory of sovereignty; he was also an influential writer on demonology....
. He claimed that Islam was only a branch of Christianity, a simple heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
that could be reintegrated into Christianity, in his book Alcorani seu legis Mahometi et evangelistarum concordiae liber (1543).
Postel also studied languages and sought to identify the common origin of all languages, before Babel
Tower of Babel
The Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar .According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where...
. He became Professor of Mathematics and Oriental Languages, as well as the first professor of Arabic, at the Collège royal
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
.
Second embassy to the Ottoman Empire (1547)
Scientific research
In 1547, a second embassy was sent by the French king to the Ottoman Empire, led by Gabriel de LuetzGabriel de Luetz
Gabriel de Luetz, Baron et Seigneur d'Aramon et de Vallabregues , often also abbreviated to Gabriel d'Aramon, was the French Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1546 to 1553, in the service first of Francis I, who dispatched him to the Ottoman Empire, and then of the French king Henry II...
. The embassy included numerous scientists, such as the botanist Pierre Belon
Pierre Belon
Pierre Belon was a French naturalist. He is sometimes known as Pierre Belon du Mans, or, in Latin translations of his works, as Petrus Bellonius Cenomanus.Belon was born in 1517 at Soulletiere near Cérans-Foulletourte...
, naturalist Pierre Gilles d'Albi, the future cosmographer André Thévet
André Thévet
André de Thevet was a French Franciscan priest, explorer, cosmographer and writer who travelled to Brazil in the 16th century...
, philosopher Guillaume Postel
Guillaume Postel
Guillaume Postel was a French linguist, astronomer, Cabbalist, diplomat, professor, and religious universalist.Born in the village of Barenton in Basse-Normandie, Postel made his way to Paris to further his education...
, traveler Nicolas de Nicolay
Nicolas de Nicolay
-Biography:Born at la Grave in Oisans, in the Dauphiné, he left France in 1542 to participate in the siege of Perpignan which was then held by Emperor Charles V of Austria....
, or the cleric and diplomat Jean de Monluc
Jean de Monluc
See also Jean de Montluc d. 1579 etc.Jean de Monluc was a French nobleman, the brother of Blaise de Lasseran-Massencôme, seigneur de Montluc and a member of the Monluc family....
, who would publish their findings upon their return to France and contribute greatly to the early development of science in France.
Political studies
Knowledge of the Ottoman Empire allowed French philosophers to make comparative studies between the political systems of different nations. Jean BodinJean Bodin
Jean Bodin was a French jurist and political philosopher, member of the Parlement of Paris and professor of law in Toulouse. He is best known for his theory of sovereignty; he was also an influential writer on demonology....
, one of the first such theorists, declared his admiration for the power and administrative system of the Ottoman Empire. He presented as a model Turkish frugality, the Ottoman system of punishments for looting, and promotion on merit in the Janissaries. Such views would be echoed by 18th century comparative works such as L'Espion Turc or the Lettres persanes.
The arts
French novels and tragedies were written with the Ottoman Empire as a theme or background. In 1561, Gabriel BouninGabriel Bounin
Gabriel Bounin was a French author and dramaturgist of the 16th century. He was a lawyer of Châteauroux in Berry. In 1561, Gabriel Bounin published La Soltane, a tragedy highlighting the role of Roxelane in the execution of the elder son of Suleiman. In defiance of the rules of the Pleiad, La...
published La Soltane, a tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
highlighting the role of Roxelane in the 1553 execution of Mustapha
Sehzade Mustafa
Şehzade Mustafa Muhlisi , the prince of Manisa from 1533 to 1541 and the prince of Amasya from 1541 to 1553, was Suleiman the Magnificent's first born son by Mahidevran . He was the apparent heir to the Turkish throne.- Life :Mustafa experienced problems in his relations with his father...
, the elder son of Suleiman
Suleiman
Suleiman is the main transliteration of the Arabic name, , the name means "man of peace" and corresponds to the English name Solomon.The word may also be transliterated as Sulaiman, Suleman, Soliman, Sulayman, Süleyman, Sulejman, Sleiman, Sleman, Solyman or Seleman...
. This tragedy marks the first time the Ottomans were introduced on stage in France. Turquerie
Turquerie
Turquerie was the Orientalist fashion in Western Europe from the 16th to 18th centuries for imitating aspects of Turkish art and culture. Many different Western European countries were fascinated by the exotic and relatively unknown culture of Turkey, which was the center of the Ottoman Empire,...
and chinoiserie
Chinoiserie
Chinoiserie, a French term, signifying "Chinese-esque", and pronounced ) refers to a recurring theme in European artistic styles since the seventeenth century, which reflect Chinese artistic influences...
were notable fashions that affected a wide range of the decorative arts.
Oriental studies
Oriental studies continued to take place towards the end of the 16th century, especially with the work of Savary de Brèves, also former French ambassador in Constantinople. Brèves spoke Turkish and Arabic and was famed for his knowledge of Ottoman culture. Through his efforts, CapitulationsCapitulation (treaty)
A capitulation , or ahidnâme, is a treaty or unilateral contract by which a sovereign state relinquishes jurisdiction within its borders over the subjects of a foreign state...
were signed between Henry IV of France
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....
and Sultan Ahmed I on 20 May 1604, giving a marked advantage for French trade, against that of the English and the Venetians. In these capitulations, the protection of the French king over Jerusalem and the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
is also recognized. Brèves was interested in establishing an Arabic printing press under his own account in order to introduce Oriental studies in France. He had Arabic, Turk, Persian and Syriac types cast while in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
. He also brought to France a large collection of Oriental manuscripts. These excellent types, followed those of Guillaume Le Bé
Guillaume Le Bé
Guillaume Le Bé was a French punch cutter and engraver who specialised in Hebrew typefaces.He was born in Troyes to a notable family of paper merchants and apprenticed to Robert Estienne in Paris. After completing his apprenticeship, he was active in Venice from c...
at the end of the 16th century.
While in Rome he set up a publishing house, the Typographia Savariana, through which he printed a Latin-Arab bilingual edition of a catechism of Cardinal Bellarmino
Robert Bellarmine
Robert Bellarmine was an Italian Jesuit and a Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was one of the most important figures in the Counter-Reformation...
in 1613, as well as in 1614 an Arabic version of the Book of Psalms. For the editorial work and the translations, Brèves used the services of two Lebanese Maronite priests, former students of the Maronite College, Gabriel Sionita
Gabriel Sionita
Gabriel Sionita was a learned Maronite, famous for his role in the publication of the 1645 Parisian polyglot of the Bible.-Life:...
(Jibrā'īl aṣ-Ṣahyūnī) and Victor Scialac
Victor Scialac
Victor Scialac was a Maronite priest who collaborated with French Orientalist François Savary de Brèves in the 17th century....
(Naṣrallāh Shalaq al-'Āqūrī).
In 1610–11, Al-Hajari, a Moroccan envoy to France, met with the Orientalist Thomas Erpenius in September 1611 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and taught him some Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic , also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad and Abbasid times . It is based on the Medieval dialects of Arab tribes...
. Through the introduction of Erpenius, Al-Hajari also met with the French Arabist Etienne Hubert
Etienne Hubert
Etienne Hubert d'Orléans was a French physician, Orientalist and diplomat of the 17th century.Etienne Hubert was a court physician for Moroccan ruler Ahmad al-Mansur in Marrakech from 1598 to 1600. In his position he was able during a year to learn Arabic well.From 1600, Etienne Hubert became Royal...
, who had been a court physician for Moroccan ruler Ahmad al-Mansur in Marrakech
Marrakech
Marrakech or Marrakesh , known as the "Ochre city", is the most important former imperial city in Morocco's history...
from 1598 to 1601.
A protégé of Savary de Brèves, André du Ryer
Andre du Ryer
André Du Ryer was a French orientalist who wrote the third western translation of the Qur'an.-Works:* Grammaire turque * Gulistan, ou l'empire des roses * L'Alcoran de Mahomet -External links:...
published the first ever translation of the Qu'ran in a vernacular language, L'Alcoran de Mahomet
L'Alcoran de Mahomet
L'Alcoran de Mahomet was the third western translation of the Qur'an, preceded by Lex Mahumet pseudoprophete and the translation by Mark of Toledo...
(1647), and published in the West the first piece of Persian literature Gulistan
Gulistan of Sa'di
The Gulistan is a landmark literary work in Persian literature, perhaps its single most influential work of prose. Written in 1259 CE, it is one of two major works of the Persian poet Sa'di, considered one of the greatest medieval Persian poets. It is also one of his most popular books, and...
(1634).
According to McCabe, Orientalism played a key role "in the birth of science and in the creation of the French Academy of Sciences
French Academy of Sciences
The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...
".
Development of trade
Tripoli
Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...
, Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, and Chios
Chios
Chios is the fifth largest of the Greek islands, situated in the Aegean Sea, seven kilometres off the Asia Minor coast. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. The island is noted for its strong merchant shipping community, its unique mastic gum and its medieval villages...
. Intense trade also started to develop, centered on the city of Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, called "the door of the Orient". In Egypt, French trade was paramount, and Marseille was importing in large quantities linens, carpets, dyes, hides, leather, or waxes. In 1682, the Sultan of Morocco, Moulay Ismail, following the embassy of Mohammed Tenim, allowed consular and commercial establishments, and again in 1699 ambassador Abdallah bin Aisha
Abdallah bin Aisha
Abdallah bin Aisha, also Abdellah Ben Aicha, was a Moroccan Admiral and ambassador the France and England in the 17th century. Abdallah departed for France on 11 November 1698 in order to negotiate a treaty. He spoke Spanish and English fluently, but not French...
was sent to Louis XIV.
Coffee drinking
An Ottoman embassy was sent to Louis XIIILouis XIII of France
Louis XIII was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority...
in 1607, and from Mehmed IV
Mehmed IV
Mehmed IV Modern Turkish Mehmet was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1648 to 1687...
to Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...
in 1669 in the person of ambassador Müteferrika Süleyman Ağa, who created a sensation at the French court and triggered a fashion for things Turkish. The Orient came to have a strong influence in French literature, as about 50% of French travel guides in the 16th century were dedicated to the Ottoman Empire.
In Paris, Suleiman set up a beautiful house where he offered coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
to Parisian society, with waiters dressed in Ottoman style, triggering enthusiastic responses, and starting the fashion for coffee-drinking. Fashionable coffee-shops emerged such as the famous Café Procope
Café Procope
Café Procope, in rue de l'Ancienne Comédie, 6th arrondissement, is called the oldest restaurant of Paris in continuous operation. It was opened in 1694 by the Sicilian Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, with a slyly subversive name adopted from the historian Procopius, whose Secret History, the...
, the first coffee-shop of Paris, in 1689. In the French high society wearing turban
Turban
In English, Turban refers to several types of headwear popularly worn in the Middle East, North Africa, Punjab, Jamaica and Southwest Asia. A commonly used synonym is Pagri, the Indian word for turban.-Styles:...
s and caftans became fashionable, as well as lying on rugs and cushions.
Manufacture of "Oriental" luxury goods in France
The establishment of strong diplomatic and commercial relations with the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
through the Capitulations
Capitulation (surrender)
Capitulation , an agreement in time of war for the surrender to a hostile armed force of a particular body of troops, a town or a territory....
led to French money being drained to the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
and Persia for the purchase of luxury goods such as knotted-pile carpets. Due to these concerns, and also because French luxury arts had collapsed in the disorders of civil violence in the Wars of Religion
French Wars of Religion
The French Wars of Religion is the name given to a period of civil infighting and military operations, primarily fought between French Catholics and Protestants . The conflict involved the factional disputes between the aristocratic houses of France, such as the House of Bourbon and House of Guise...
, Henri IV
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....
attempted to develop French luxury industries that could replace imports. The king provided craftsmen with studios and workshops. These efforts to develop an industry for luxury goods was continued by Louis XIII and Louis XIV.
Silk manufacturing
Henry IV made the earliest attempt at producing substitutes for luxury goods from the Orient. He experimented with planting mulberry trees in the garden of the Palais des Tuileries. Ultimately, silk manufacturing would become one of the major industries of France into the 19th century, and one of the major reasons for the development of France-Japan relations in the 19th century.During the 17th century, from being an importer, France became a net exporter of silk, for example shipping 30,000 pounds sterling worth of silk to England in 1674 alone.
Turkish carpet-making
The Savonnerie manufactory was the most prestigious European manufactory of knotted-pile carpetCarpet
A carpet is a textile floor covering consisting of an upper layer of "pile" attached to a backing. The pile is generally either made from wool or a manmade fibre such as polypropylene,nylon or polyester and usually consists of twisted tufts which are often heat-treated to maintain their...
s, enjoying its greatest period circa 1650–1685. The manufactory had its immediate origins in a carpet manufactory established in a former soap factory (French savon) on the Quai de Chaillot downstream of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1615 by Pierre DuPont, who was returning from the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
and wrote La Stromatourgie, ou Traité de la Fabrication des tapis de Turquie ("Treaty on the manufacture of Turkish carpets", Paris 1632). Under a patent (privilège) of eighteen years, a monopoly was granted by Louis XIII
Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority...
in 1627 to Pierre Dupont and his former apprentice Simon Lourdet, makers of carpets façon de Turquie ("in the manner of Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
"). Until 1768, the products of the manufactory remained exclusively the property of the Crown, and "Savonnerie carpets" were among the grandest of French diplomatic gifts.
Chinese porcelain
Chinese porcelainChinese porcelain
Chinese ceramic ware shows a continuous development since the pre-dynastic periods, and is one of the most significant forms of Chinese art. China is richly endowed with the raw materials needed for making ceramics. The first types of ceramics were made during the Palaeolithic era...
had long been imported from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, and was a very expensive and desired luxury. Huge amounts of gold
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
were sent from Europe to China to pay for the desired Chinese porcelain wares, and numerous attempts were made to duplicate the material. It is at the Nevers manufactory
Nevers manufactory
The Nevers manufactory was a French manufacturing center for faience in the city of Nevers. A porcelain manufactury in Nevers was also mentioned in 1844 by Alexandre Brongniart, but little is known about it....
that Chinese-style blue and white wares were produced for the first time in France, using the faience
Faience
Faience or faïence is the conventional name in English for fine tin-glazed pottery on a delicate pale buff earthenware body, originally associated with Faenza in northern Italy. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip...
technique, with production running between 1650 and 1680.
Chinese porcelain was collected at the French court from the time of Francis I. Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...
set up the Royal Factory of Saint-Cloud in 1664 in order to make copies (In the original "Contre-façons", i.e. "Fakes") of "Indian-style" porcelain.
France was one of the first European countries to produce soft-paste porcelain
Soft-paste porcelain
Soft-paste porcelain is a type of a ceramic material, sometimes referred to simply as "soft paste". The term is used to describe soft porcelains such as bone china, Seger porcelain, vitreous porcelain, new Sèvres porcelain, Parian porcelain and soft feldspathic porcelain, and is also used more...
, and specifically frit porcelain, at the Rouen manufactory
Rouen manufactory
The Rouen manufactory was an early French manufactory for faience and soft-paste porcelain, located in Rouen, Normandy.-Soft-paste porcelain :...
in 1673, which was known for this reason as "Porcelaine française". These were developed in an effort to imitate high-valued Chinese hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain is a ceramic material that was originally made from a compound of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at very high temperature. It was first made in China around the 9th century....
.
France however, only discovered the Chinese technique of hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain
Hard-paste porcelain is a ceramic material that was originally made from a compound of the feldspathic rock petuntse and kaolin fired at very high temperature. It was first made in China around the 9th century....
through the efforts of the Jesuit Father Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles
Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles
Francois Xavier d'Entrecolles was a French Jesuit priest, who discovered the Chinese technique of manufacturing "true" or hard-paste porcelain through his investigations in China at Jingdezhen with the help of Chinese Catholic converts between 1712 and 1722, during the rule of the Kangxi...
between 1712 and 1722. Louis XIV had received 1,500 pieces of porcelain from the Siamese Embassy to France
Siamese embassy to France (1686)
The Siamese embassy to France in 1686 was the second such mission from the Kingdom of Siam . The embassy was sent by King Narai and led by ambassador Kosa Pan...
in 1686, but the manufacturing secret had remained elusive. The English porcelain-manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family...
may also have been influenced by the letter of Father d'Entrecolles and his description of Chinese mass-production methods. After this initial period, until the end of the 18th century, French porcelain manufactories would progressively abandon their Chinese designs, to become more French in character.
Textiles: Siamoises and Indiennes
The Siamese Embassy to FranceSiamese embassy to France (1686)
The Siamese embassy to France in 1686 was the second such mission from the Kingdom of Siam . The embassy was sent by King Narai and led by ambassador Kosa Pan...
in 1686 had brought to the Court samples of multicolor Thai Ikat
Ikat
Ikat, or Ikkat, is a dyeing technique used to pattern textiles that employs a resist dyeing process similar to tie-dye on either the warp or weft fibres....
textiles. These were enthusiastically adopted by the French nobility to become Toiles flammées or Siamoises de Rouen, often with checkered blue-and-white designs. After the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and its dislike for foreign luxury, the textiles were named "Toiles des Charentes" or cottons of Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
.
Textiles imported from India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, types of colored calicoes which were called Indiennes, were also widely adopted and manufactured, especially in Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
, although there were difficulties in obtaining comparable dyes, especially the red dye madder
Madder
Rubia is a genus of the madder family Rubiaceae, which contains about 60 species of perennial scrambling or climbing herbs and sub-shrubs native to the Old World, Africa, temperate Asia and America...
.
Literature
French literature also was greatly influenced. The first French version of A Thousand and One Nights was published in 1704. French authors used the East as a way to enrich their philosophical work, and a pretext to write commentaries on the West: Montesquieu wrote the Lettres persanes, a satirical essay on the West, in 1721, and VoltaireVoltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
used the Oriental appeal to write Zaïre
Zaïre (play)
Zaïre is a five act tragedy in verse by Voltaire. Written in only three weeks, it was given its first public performance on 13 August 1732 by the Comédie française in Paris. It was a great success with the Paris audiences and marked a turning away from tragedies caused by a fatal flaw in the...
(1732) and Candide
Candide
Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a French satire first published in 1759 by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best ; Candide: or, The Optimist ; and Candide: or, Optimism...
(1759). French travelers of the 17th century, such as Jean de Thévenot
Jean de Thévenot
Jean de Thévenot was a French traveller in the East, who wrote extensively about his journeys. He was also a linguist, natural scientist and botanist....
or Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier
Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was a French traveller and pioneer of trade with India, and travels through Persia , most known for works in two quarto volumes, Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and diamond merchant for some important diamonds of the century...
routinely visited the Ottoman Empire.
The works of Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
were translated into European languages through the agency of Jesuit scholars stationed in China. Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci
Matteo Ricci, SJ was an Italian Jesuit priest, and one of the founding figures of the Jesuit China Mission, as it existed in the 17th-18th centuries. His current title is Servant of God....
started to report on the thoughts of Confucius, and father Prospero Intorcetta
Prospero Intorcetta
Prospero Intorcetta was a Jesuit who was active in China in the 17th century. He reached China in 1659, together with the French Jesuit Philippe Couplet, and worked in the Jiangnan region.-Works:...
published the life and works of Confucius into Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
in 1687. It is thought that such works had considerable importance on European thinkers of the period, particularly among the Deists and other philosophical groups of the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
who were interested by the integration of the system of morality of Confucius into Western civilization
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
.
In particular, cultural diversity with respect to religious beliefs could no longer be ignored. As Herbert wrote in De Religione Laici (1645):
Many faiths or religions, clearly, exist or once existed in various countries and ages, and certainly there is not one of them that the lawgivers have not pronounced to be as it were divinely ordained, so that the Wayfarer finds one in Europe, another in Africa, and in Asia, still another in the very Indies.
Visual arts
By the end of the 17th century, the first major defeats of the Ottoman Empire reduced the perceived threat in European minds, which led to an artistic craze for things Turkish, TurquerieTurquerie
Turquerie was the Orientalist fashion in Western Europe from the 16th to 18th centuries for imitating aspects of Turkish art and culture. Many different Western European countries were fascinated by the exotic and relatively unknown culture of Turkey, which was the center of the Ottoman Empire,...
, just as there was a fashion for Chinese things with Chinoiserie
Chinoiserie
Chinoiserie, a French term, signifying "Chinese-esque", and pronounced ) refers to a recurring theme in European artistic styles since the seventeenth century, which reflect Chinese artistic influences...
, both of which became constitutive components of the Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
style. Orientalism
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
started to become hugely popular, first with the works of Jean-Baptiste van Mour
Jean-Baptiste van Mour
Jean-Baptiste van Mour or Vanmour was a Flemish-French painter, remembered for his detailed portrayal of life in the Ottoman Empire during the Tulip Era and the rule of Sultan Ahmed III.-Biography:...
, who had accompanied the embassy of Charles de Ferriol
Charles de Ferriol
Charles de Ferriol was a French ambassador sent by Louis XIV to the Ottoman Empire from 1699 to 1711, during the rule of Sultan Ahmed III....
to Istanbul 1699 and stayed there until the end of his life in 1737, and later with the works of Boucher
François Boucher
François Boucher was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture...
and Fragonard
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Jean-Honoré Fragonard was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings , of which only five...
.