BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

Consult in image mode

Transcribed version of the text

French

     The Essay des merveilles de nature, et et des plus nobles artifices is the major work by Father Étienne Binet, who signed as “René François” to signify his rebirth; born as a Frenchman and then “born again” as a Jesuit. It is presented as “a treatise on rhetoric whose bouquet of ‘paintings’ is offered up for re-use, providing along the way the lazy orator with an ample host of rare and technical terms” (Fumaroli 1994, p. 265). A guide with a practical aim, the heavy volume, successor of the libri locorum of the classical pedagogical tradition, offers in fact several chapters devoted to the most incongruous subjects, from fox hunting (the first one) to the rainbow (the last one). A chapter on architecture (ch. 17) and one on perspective (ch. 18) appear in this curious compendium. The admitted intention of the undertaking is to put together a minimum amount of knowledge which would prevent orators from being embarassed during controversies. It was not about using this knowledge to shine and show off, but to avoid that “for lack of knowing the right word for something, [the orators would] beat around the bush and through a weak periphrase or a great flood of words, be pitied by the listener who recognizes that they are out of their element and at the end of their French”.
The chapter on architecture, made up of enumerations and definitions, is presented as a series of reading notes enhanced with illustrations whose origin was probably the most recent edition of Vitruvius available, the one published in Geneva by Jean III de Tournes in 1618. The chapter is a combination of Jean Martin’s translation and the French version of the Digression on the orders by Guillaume Philandrier which appeared for the first time in Latin within the Annotationes in 1544, reissued by Jean I de Tournes in Lyon in 1552, then in Geneva in 1586. Several illustrations were completely or partially taken from it; the lower part of the framing of the title in the 1586 edition, re-used in 1618, constitutes the plinth of the strange “pièce d’architecture” on page 405, the molding bearing the arch on page 397 is a copy of page 190 of the Vitruve, and the “ouvrage” on page 398 come directly from page 203. The diagram of the volute that Binet sets forth on page 377 comes from page 81 of the Digression. The idea of making the list of all the parts of the Tuscan order by enumerating them from top to bottom (page 381) was also inspired by Philandrier’s Digression (pp. 75-76).
But if Binet was inspired by good authors – although he was unaware of Vignola, whose first translations came out during the 1620s – his illustrator seems to have been entirely ignorant of architecture. The crude engravings are surprisingly naïve and smack of an archaism evoking old editions of Sagredo. Some repeat structures from 1618, but with interpretations proving a certain lack of culture. The “pièce d’architecture” on page 405 superposes two Doric friezes without the least coherence, supported by columns of an indefinable order and with monstrously stocky proportions. The Doric frieze and the dentil molding on page 380 are completely unconvincing; the span on page 401 has the arch supported by completely unrealistic suspended moldings. All the forms taken together have no connection to real contemporary architectural practice.
Architecture must not have been the touchstone of Jesuit culture in France, for the very dubious quality of knowledge relative to the art of building that Binet put forward did not prevent his books from being re-issued many times.

Yves Pauwels (Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) – 2012

Critical bibliography

R. Crescenzo, Peintures d'instruction: la postérité littéraire des Images de Philostrate en France, de Blaise de Vigenère à l'époque classique, Geneva, Droz, 1993, pp. 202-210.

M. Fumaroli, L’âge de l’éloquence. Rhétorique et res litteraria de la Renaissance au seuil de l’époque classique, Paris, Albin Michel, 1994 [1^st ed.: Droz, 1980], pp. 265-271.

M. Fumaroli, “Éloquence sacrée et littérature. L’Essay des merveilles d’Étienne Binet”, Exercices de lecture, de Rabelais à Paul Valéry, Paris, Gallimard, 2006, pp. 62-110.

G. Genette, “Mots et merveilles”, Figures I, Paris, Seuil, 1966, pp. 171-183.

P. Laurens, “Au tournant du siècle, une synthèse fragile: L’essay des merveilles du P. Binet”, J. Lafond/A. Stegmann, L’automne de la Renaissance: 1580-1630, Paris, Vrin, 1981, pp. 65-80.