Anne-Marie de Mailla
| Joseph-Anne-Marie de Moyriac de Mailla | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 16, 1669 Château Maillac on the Isère |
| Died | June 28, 1748 (aged 78) Beijing, China |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Jesuit missionary to China |
Joseph-Anne-Marie de Moyriac de Mailla (also Anna, and de Moyria) (Chinese: 馮秉正; pinyin: Feng Bingzheng) (16 December 1669 – 28 June 1748) was a French Jesuit missionary to China.
Mailla was born at Château Maillac on the Isère. After finishing his studies, he joined the Society of Jesus in 1686, and, in 1701, was sent on a mission to China as a member of the Jesuits. In June, 1703, Father Mailla arrived in Morocco and thence set out for Canton where he acquired a thorough knowledge of Chinese language and writing.
He devoted himself particularly to the study of Chinese historical works. When the Kangxi Emperor entrusted the Jesuit missionaries with the cartographical survey of his empire, the provinces of Henan, Zhejiang, and Fujian, and the Island of Formosa, fell to the lot of Mailla along with Jean-Baptiste Régis and Roman Hinderer. When the work had been completed, the emperor conferred on Father Mailla the rank of mandarin as a mark of his satisfaction.
When Father Mailla died, in his seventy-ninth year, in Beijing, China, he was buried at the expense of the Qianlong Emperor, many people being present at the obsequies.
When he was fifty years old he began the study of the Manchu language, and made such progress that he was able to translate into French the "Thoung-kian-kang-mou" (simplified Chinese: ; traditional Chinese: 通鑒綱目; pinyin: Tongjian Gangmu),Zhu Xi's extract from the great Chinese annals, which on the orders of the Kangxi Emperor had been translated into the Manchu language. He finished the translation in several volumes in the year 1730, and in 1737 sent it to France, where it lay for thirty years in the library of the college at Lyon, Fréret, who purposed publishing it, having died.
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