200 - China - AMIOT (Jean-Joseph-Marie). Memoirs on the History, Sciences, Arts, Customs, Practices, &c., of the Chinese. Paris, Nyon, 1776–1789.

China - AMIOT (Jean-Joseph-Marie). Memoirs on the History, Sciences, Arts, Customs, Practices, &c., of the Chinese. Paris, Nyon, 1776–1789. 14 volumes in-4, marbled calfskin, ornate ribbed spine, double gilt line on the edges (contemporary binding). The illustrations include 195 engraved plates (4 of which are fold-outs), including 2 frontispieces, as well as portraits, genre scenes, objects, Chinese characters and hieroglyphs, boats, and paintings. The first volume of the collection opens with a portrait of the Emperor of China, drawn from life by the Jesuit Panzi and engraved by Martinet: the caption celebrates “a government that is admired” and “the greatest potentate in the universe, the most learned man in his empire.” First edition of this monumental history and description of China by the Jesuit missionaries Cibot, Ko, Poirot, and Amiot. “This collection should not be confused with most of the missionaries’ accounts concerning China; it contains valuable research and observations on subjects of the greatest interest: it is unquestionably the best work the Jesuits have published on China. (...) Such an interesting account was cut short by the upheavals of the Revolution.” (Boucher de La Richarderie V, 283; Chadenat, no. 375: “A very important work for the history of China.”) A veritable encyclopedia of China for Western readers, the *Mémoires* cover history, language, literature, military art, philosophy, the sciences, architecture, and natural history. Paradoxically, this Jesuit publication fueled the “Sinomania” of the Enlightenment philosophers, who saw in the Chinese imperial regime an illustration of the “enlightened despotism” they championed. Similarly, they were enthusiastic about Confucian ethics, which offered them “a model of rational morality without the support of religion, thus creating the myth—corroborated by the missionaries—that the Chinese lack a religious spirit, or indeed any religion at all .” A fine copy, with some minor wear.