BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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Transcribed version of the text

French

     For the second enlarged edition of the L’architecture françoise by Louis Savot the booksellers Jacques Villery and Pierre Emery joined forces with Pierre Aubouyn and the heirs of François Clousier, who had published the book enlarged by François Blondel's notes in 1673.  In an identical format and with almost the same number of pages (436 in 1685, 432 in 1673) a fair amount of the book was revised.  The dedication to Colbert, who had died in 1683, disappeared.  The new privilege was placed at the end of the volume.  Blondel especially went over his entire work again: he enriched some notes (ch. 22, p. 137; ch. 28, p. 17; ch. 30, pp. 186 and 193; ch. 37, p. 268; ch. 40, note a; ch. 41, p. 295) and brought up to date the data he had added to the end of Savot's book.  The most important additions concern chapter 47 with the updated "bibliographie" of architecture by Savot that he had enlarged relatively little in 1673.  Thus he referred to Charles Perrault's most recent books, the Abrégé of Vitruvius (1674), to the Ordonnance des cinq espèces de colonnes (1683) and the enlarged edition of Vitruve (1684) which had all appeared in the interval (p. 340), as well as to several texts which were not necessarily very recent: the Poliphile by Jean Martin of 1546 and the Amour parfait by Athenagoras "translated by Maître Fumée" (p. 351; it pertains to Du vray et parfait amour, escrit en grec par Athénagoras, philosophe athénien, contenant les amours honestes de Théogènes et de Charide, de Phérécides et de Mélangénie, by Martin Fumée, sire of Genillé, published for the first time without place or name in 1599, re-edited in Paris in 1612).  In the same annotation he develops his allusions to Fréart de Chambray's Parallèle and to the treatise on gnomonics by Girard Desargues and Abraham Bosse and added the Secret d’architecture by Jousse (1642), L’architecture des voûtes by Derand (1643).  He mentions various books by Le Pautre, the Deux exemples des cinq ordres de l’architecture by Le Blond (1683), the three books on architecture by Bosse, "excellens pour la doctrine qu’ils contiennent qui a été dictée par Monsieur Dezargues au Sieur Bosse" and the Architecture harmonique by Ouvrard (1679). He expresses his wish that the book will be published, the book by "Monsieur de Saint Hilarion, qui réduit toutes les mesures générales & particulières des bâtiments selon les cinq ordres d’architecture, à la proportion géométrique", and the "extrait des Registres de l’Académie Royale d’Architecture".  He concludes by mentioning his own writings: the Quatre problèmes de l’architecture of 1673 which he had indicated in an annotation in the preceding edition, the Cours d’architecture (1675-1683), the plan of Paris with the gates "construites sur ses dessins", and finally (p. 348) a translation of Scamozzi ("J’ay traduit en notre langue de troisième & le sixième Livre de Scamozzi qui sont prêts à être donnés au public", p. 351).
A large number of footnotes were added to these enlarged annotations: a reference to Nouvelles inventions by Philibert de l’Orme (ch. 14, p. 83), to the "Dictionnaire" (Des principes de l'architecture) by Félibien (ch. 1, p. 6), to his own Cours d’architecture (ch. 12, p. 81), to the stables at Maisons, at Chaumont en Charolais – by Blondel –, at the Walstein palace in Prague (ch. 19, p. 109), to the arch of triumph of the faubourg Saint Antoine (pp. 122, 124), various diagrams.  These additions concern either details that Blondel considered important to add, to which he gave concrete expression by the addition of several engravings, or by revisions referring to recent buildings or ones he had recently heard about.
Taking in a crucial period, from 1623, whereas the art of building, according to Blondel, "n’avoit pas encore les yeux accoutumez à cette beauté naturelle & simple de la belle architecture", to the apogee of Louis XIV's century, the collaborative work of Savot and his commentator reveals a great deal, concerning permanent features as well as transformations in French architecture during a critical period of its history.

Yves Pauwels (Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) – 2011

Critical bibliography

J. Ache, "Techniques de construction et formes architecturales au XVII^e siècle", Revue de la Société d'études du XVII^e siècle, 36-37, 1957, pp. 273-286.

J.-P. Babelon, Demeures parisiennes sous Henri IV et Louis XIII, Paris, Hazan, 1991.

M.-A. Fleury, Documents du minutier central concernant les peintres, les sculpteurs et les graveurs au XVII^e siècle (1600-1650), Paris, SEVPEN, 1969, 1, p. 512.

A. Gerbino, François Blondel: Architecture, Erudition, and the Scientific Revolution, London/New York, Routledge, 2010.

C. Parkhurst, "Louis Savot's Nova Antiqua Color Theory, 1609", J. Bruyn, J. A. Emmons, E. de Jongh & D. P. Snoep (ed.), Album amicorum J.-G. Van Gelder, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1973, pp. 242-247.

Y. Pauwels, "La bibliographie d’architecture de Louis Savot (1624)", Journal de la Renaissance, 5, 2007, pp. 371-382.