Abstract
The article explores the botanical contributions of Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix's book Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France vis-à-vis the contributions of previous researchers, his use of iconographic and discursive representations and its relevance to the project of French colonization. It investigates why he refused Linnaeus' taxonomic model and what he intended with his catalogue of botanical curiosities. The unfolding of his philosophical and religious trajectory allows to understand his stance regarding the classification of nature, the meanings of ethnological information, his forms of intellectual appropriation, and his use of discourse and botanical iconography as political and emotional propaganda to encourage colonial settlement.
Highlights
The article explores the botanical contributions of Pierre-FrançoisXavier de Charlevoix’s book Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France vis-à-vis the contributions of previous researchers, his use of iconographic and discursive representations and its relevance to the project of French colonization
When William Allen (1832, p.45) was studying the major figures in North American history, he recognized the importance of the works of the Jesuit Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761): “His works were well received; but the history of New France, or Canada, is deemed peculiarly valuable, as he himself visited the country, which he described, and paid particular attention to the manners and customs of the Indians.”1 Allen offered overstated criticism of the cleric’s knowledge of botany, charging that his approach and style were flawed and imprecise
We find knowledge that was incorporated and expanded by a number of cultures, including the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine in all of the following: the empirical and philosophical studies of Theophrastus (Tirtamas – 372-287 B.C.), disciple of Aristotle and author of Historia plantarum and De causis plantaru; the writings of Pedanius Dioscorides (40-80 A.D.), the Greek physician and naturalist who founded pharmacology and who described over 600 plants and wrote about their therapeutic uses in his work De materia medica (Codex Vindobonensis); and the work of Pliny (Gaius Plinius Secundus, 23-79 A.D.), who studied botany, mineralogy, zoology, agriculture, and pharmacology and wrote Naturalis historia (77-79 A.D.)
Summary
Professor of the Department of History/ Universidade Estadual do Paraná. Praça Coronel Amazonas, s/n Received for publication in July 2011. Approved for publication in December 2011. Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty. KOBELINSKI, Michel. The inventory of botanical curiosities in Pierre-FrançoisXavier de Charlevoix’s Nouvelle France (1744). História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, Rio de Janeiro, v.20, n.1, jan.-mar. 2013. Disponível em http:// www.scielo.br/hcsm.
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