Family Name: Pinault
First Name: Pierre-Olivier
Death Date: 1789
Main places of activity:
Place
Paris
Personal info:
Career

Pinault was a barrister at the parliament in Paris and a propagandist.

He was part of an extended European Jansenist network, which in France included his colleagues Louis Adrien Le Paige and Jean-Charlemagne Lalourcé. From the 1750s until the 1780s, they issued different works, both against the philosophes they accused of spreading atheism under the guise of deism and against the negligent theology of the Jesuits.

In 1758-60, Pinault had numerous contacts with Italian prelates and Portuguese politicians (such as the chief Minister Marquês de Pombal), in their common effort to dissolve the Society of Jesus (1773).

In 1770 Pinault published La Nouvelle philosophie dévoilée, where he accused D'Holbach's Système de la Nature of promoting incredulity through the replacement of religious law with natural law, also attaching different quotations from Montesqueu, Rousseau and Diderot to make his point about the dangers of modern philosophy.
Translations Other Works

translations activities

Pinault translated from Portuguese, Latin and Italian, for anti-Jesuit propaganda purposes.

The translation of Carvalho's Relação abbreviada, for instance, was prompted at the request of the author to increase the circulation of the original work across Europe. On his end, Pinault's version sought to incite French public opinion to press for the suppression of the Society of Jesus, following the Portuguese example (1758). He also translated decrees, edicts and official communications issued by the Portuguese government on the matter, in several scattered pieces he eventually collected in a single Recueil (1760).

Pinault also collaborated with the theologian Urbano Tosetti, to include his parallel French translation in the latter's Riflessioni.


secondary bibliography references

Catherine Maire, 'Le complot des philosophes selon les jansénistes' in Censure et critique, edited by Laurence Macé, Claudine Poulouin and Yvan Leclerc, Classiques Garnier, 2016, 353-70.

Dale K. van Kley, Reform Catholicism and the International Suppression of the Jesuits in the Enlightenment Europe, Yale University Press, 2018, esp. 348-69.

Anne C. Vila, 'Shaking Up the Enlightenment: Jansenist Convulsionnaires and Their Witnesses in Mid-Eighteenth Century Paris', Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, n°41 (2021), 9-37.

Translations

  • Nós Don Francisco Cardenal Saldanha, visitador e Reformador Geral Appostolico da Religiaō da Companhia de Jesu nestes Reynos de Portugal

  • Translation Title: Decret du card. Saldanha, pour la réforme des jésuites de Portugal & des domaines qui en dépendent. Du 15 mai 1758
  • Original Author: Francisco de Saldanha da Gama
  • Original title: Nós Don Francisco Cardenal Saldanha, visitador e Reformador Geral Appostolico da Religiaō da Companhia de Jesu nestes Reynos de Portugal
  • lang: Portuguese
  • Translation: Decret du card. Saldanha, pour la réforme des jésuites de Portugal & des domaines qui en dépendent. Du 15 mai 1758
  • Publisher: Marc Michel Rey
  • Pub. Place: Amsterdam
  • Pub. Date: 1759
  • Lang: French

  • Relaçaõ abbreviada da republica, que os religiosos jesuitas das provincias de Portugal e Hespanha estabeleceraõ nos dominios ultramarinos das duos monarchias

  • Translation Title: Relation abregée, concernant la république que les réligieux, nommez jésuites, des provinces de Portugal & d'Espagne, ont établie dans les pays & domaines d'outre-mer de ces deux monarchies
  • Original Author: Sebastião José de Carvalho, marquis de Pombal
  • Original title: Relaçaõ abbreviada da republica, que os religiosos jesuitas das provincias de Portugal e Hespanha estabeleceraõ nos dominios ultramarinos das duos monarchias
  • Publ. Year From: 1757 to:
  • lang: Portuguese
  • Translation: Relation abregée, concernant la république que les réligieux, nommez jésuites, des provinces de Portugal & d'Espagne, ont établie dans les pays & domaines d'outre-mer de ces deux monarchies
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Date: 1758
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    The same translation was also issued in Amsterdam in the same year, under the title La république des Jesuits, ou paraquay renversee contenant une, relation authentique de la guerre que ces religieux ont osé sontenir contre les monarques d'Espagne & de Portugal en Amerique.

  • Reflessioni di un Portoghese sopra il Memoriale présentato da' PP. Gesuiti alla Santità di PP. Clement XIII, felicemente regnante, esposte in una lettera scritta ad'un amico di Roma

  • Translation Title: Réflexions d'un Portugais, sur le mémorial présenté par les PP. jésuites à N.S.P. le pape Clement xiii. heureusement regnant, exposées dans une lettre écrite à un ami demeurant à Rome
  • Original Author: Urbano Tosetti
  • Original title: Reflessioni di un Portoghese sopra il Memoriale présentato da' PP. Gesuiti alla Santità di PP. Clement XIII, felicemente regnante, esposte in una lettera scritta ad'un amico di Roma
  • Publ. Year From: 1758 to:
  • lang: Italian
  • Translation: Réflexions d'un Portugais, sur le mémorial présenté par les PP. jésuites à N.S.P. le pape Clement xiii. heureusement regnant, exposées dans une lettre écrite à un ami demeurant à Rome
  • Pub. Place: Paris
  • Pub. Date: 1758
  • Lang: French
  • Note:

    Pinault's translation figures in parallel to Tosetti's original Italian text, in the same volume.

  • Erros impios, e sediciosos, que os religiosos da Companhia de Jesu ensinaraõ espalhar nos povos destes reynos

  • Translation Title: Manifeste du roi de Portugal, contenant les erreurs impies & séditieuses que les religieux de la Compagnie de Jesus ont enseignées aux criminels, qui ont été punis, & qu'ils se sont efforcés de répandre parmi les peuples de ce royaume
  • Original Author: Joseph I of Portugal
  • Original title: Erros impios, e sediciosos, que os religiosos da Companhia de Jesu ensinaraõ espalhar nos povos destes reynos
  • Publ. Year From: 1759 to:
  • lang: Portuguese
  • Translation: Manifeste du roi de Portugal, contenant les erreurs impies & séditieuses que les religieux de la Compagnie de Jesus ont enseignées aux criminels, qui ont été punis, & qu'ils se sont efforcés de répandre parmi les peuples de ce royaume
  • Pub. Place: Amsterdam
  • Pub. Date: 1759
  • Lang: French
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By:

  • Giovanni Lista