Joseph Besson

Biography
1610 - 1691

About the artist

Joseph Besson (1610, Carpentras – 1691, Aleppo) entered the Society of Jesus in 1626 and was a rector of the Collège de Nîmes, where he taught rhetoric and philosophy. He arrived as a Jesuit missionary in Sidon on April 1659. Besson started immediately writing about his fellow missionaries and the inhabitants of Syria. This resulted in 1660 in his book La Syrie Sainte; ou la mission de Jésus et des pères de la Compagnie de Jésus en Syrie (The Holy Syria; or the mission of Jesus and the Fathers of the Society of Jesus in Syria), two parts in one volume. Besson covers in his descriptions much more territory than modern Syria: the whole Lebanon and much of Palestine. The first part recounts the preparations and progress of the Jesuit mission in Syria. The second part describes the holy places. It gives a very vivid and detailed description of Syria and the customs of the Druse, Maronite, Armenian, Turkish, Jewish and other people there.

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