Michał Boym

Michał Boym (c. 1612–1659) was a Polish Jesuit born in Lwów. He reached Macau about 1645 and opened a mission on Hainan, until the Manchu conquest drove him to Tonkin in 1647.

In 1650 the Southern Ming Yongli court sent him to seek papal aid. Under arrest in Goa, he escaped and reached Venice in 1652; Pope Alexander VII received him in 1655 but gave no aid.

His Flora Sinensis (1656), the first European survey of Chinese flora and fauna, brought Chinese natural history to Europe. He died on the Tonkin-Guangxi border in 1659.