BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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French

     Mathurin Jousse is essentially known through his three treatises on construction written between 1627 and 1642 on locksmithing, carpentry and stereotomy: La fidelle ouverture de l’art de serrurier, Le theatre de l’art de charpentier and Le secret d’architecture. Although these works appear among the first of their kind in France, their author’s life and real activities were almost completely unknown for a long time. For quite a while he was confused with his son (1607-1671), also named Mathurin and a master silversmith at La Flèche like him, all of which made of him a particularly precocious author. In truth, Jousse was born towards 1575 and seems to have spent the major part of his life – at least the part during the 1600s – in La Flèche, a small town at the confines of Maine and Anjou, where he died and was buried in 1645 at the age of "soixante et dix ans".
His treatises and the many abilities they imply contributed a great deal to create his reputation as an experienced architect, who was given credit for the most remarkable constructions of the area. Reality is less glorious: Mathurin Jousse was simply a master locksmith by profession, who nonetheless wrote a treatise based on it. The inventory written after his death confirmed this professional skill ; the many scientific instruments that Jousse manufactured for the use of the celebrated Collège royal des Jésuites, established at La Flèche in 1604 are mentioned there. Jousse was also an engraver; not only was he the draftsman of the plates he published, but he also manufactured the material necessary for producing prints. The inventory also proved this.
In 1621 his professional activities had led Jousse to undertake some work as locksmith at the Jesuit college. Its construction had dragged on during the whole first half of the 17^th century. These particular circumstances probably allowed him to enter into contact with some of the foremen who were running this uncommon building site. His connections to Father Etienne Martellange, the main architect of the college – it is known that he was in La Flèche in 1612 and 1614, (which does not exclude other sojourns there) – were positively proven. In fact Jousse had been responsible for engraving the illustrations of a translation of the Perspective positive de Viator published in 1626 by the Jesuit architect. In 1635 he undertook, alone, a new edition of that work.
Jousse very probably maintained contact with another Jesuit architect, Father François Derand, even though it was not absolutely confirmed. In fact Father Derand was a pupil at the collège of La Flèche from 1613-1615 and then a mathematics teacher there from 1618-1621. It is very tempting to imagine him using Jousse’s scientific instruments, indeed, giving him instructions for making some of them. But Derand’s links to the collège of La Flèche were probably not limited to those two stays. Recently discovered archives reveal that he was the main architect of the reredos of the high altar in the college’s chapel constructed by the architect Pierre Corbineau from Laval between 1633 and 1636. The organ loft of the same chapel was built a bit later, from 1637-1640, and its implementation seems to have been closely linked to the personality of that architect.
Mathurin Jousse also seems to have been a favored witness to the construction of the college which in many respects was generally looked on as an avant-garde site. In 1626, Le théâtre de l’art de charpentier proves it, whereas plate CVIII represents a church frame similar in almost every detail to that of the Jesuit chapel which was completed in 1621. And, just like Derand, Jousse was probably very much involved in building the organ loft, although he was not its architect. In fact several historians have attributed its design to him, relying on his writings. Today we know that a contract to construct it was signed by the Jesuits and an architect from La Flèche, Jacques Nadreau.
This work is a true masterpiece of stereotomy. On the west wall of the chapel, the loft is supported by three arches which are themselves supported by two pillars decorated with atlantes, a central barrel vault squinch and two lateral conical squinches, all three "en tour ronde". Building it implied a consommate mastery of stonecutting, which in the absence of any documentation, could only be acquired by transmitting craftsmen’s "recettes". The Jesuits were well aware of the audacious nature of this vaulting because they had required Nadreau to provide a ten-year guarantee, a clause found nowhere else in the very numerous contracts underwritten for the construction of their college. Quite obviously, this construction required thorough knowledge of stereotomy, still considered experimental at the time.
The completion of the organ loft was closely followed by two treatises devoted to the art of stonecutting, Le Secret d’architecture by Jousse in 1642, and L’architecture des voûtes by Derand a few months later in 1643. It was certainly not coincidental that these two editions came out simultaneously, all the more so in that Derand did not fail to express caustic remarks regarding his precursor in his preface. The very tone of these reproaches allows us to perceive a certain closeness between the two, perhaps competitiveness stemming from the construction site at the college.
The exceptional conditions of the organ loft contract show that noone was attempting to evade risky experiments: it is easy to imagine the discussions that such a situation could generate. Martellange’s celebrated reproaches regarding the project of his predecessor Louis Métezeau, the very first architect of the college project, had given a sort of foretaste of it. In the chapel, Martellange’s work is itself marred by Derand’s reredos. Derand was conspicuously unaware of the original scheme, as if La Flèche had constituted the enlarged theater of the conflict opposing the two architects having to do with the construction of the mother church in Paris, presently church Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis.
There is hardly any doubt that Mathurin Jousse, a veritable "honnête homme" before the term had been coined (his library revealed in the inventory drawn up after his death that he had many and varied centers of interest), was abundantly nourished in the atmosphere of La Flèche which he rarely left during the 1600s.

François Le Boeuf (Service régional de l’Inventaire, DRAC Pays de Loire) – 2006

     As an annex to his Théatre, Mathurin Jousse added a "Brief traicté des cinq ordres des colomnes", particularly interesting in the originality of the culture it demonstrates. We know that Jousse had many works on architecture in his library. Here he mentions the great names of the theory of the orders : Vitruvius, Sagredo, Philibert de l’Orme and Vignola, but also " des cinq ordres des Colomnes qui se vendent en feuilles, imprimées à Lyon". In that, Jousse was probably indicating the first French translation of Hans Blum’s treatise Quinque columnarum exacta descripti published in Zurich in 1550. In fact the Bibliographie Lyonnaise by Baudrier points out the 1562 publication of a large folio of five leaves by Jean Lemaistre entitled Les cinq ordres des colomnes de l’architecture, c’est à savoir la Tuscane, Dorique, Yonique, Corinthie et composite... nouvellement pourtraites et mises en lumière, au service et proufit des paintres, massons, tailleurs de pierres, orfevres. A close look at Jousse’s plates confirms this source: the representations of the orders are faithful copies of Blum’s models. Only the next-to-last plate with the twisted column comes from Vignola (p. 13). As for the last page (p. 14), with the details of the Doric and Corinthian orders, its forms are more original, with no obvious precedent.
It is very interesting to take note of Hans Blum’s continuing success in France in the 17^th century. After Jean Bullant in 1564 and Julien Mauclerc in 1600, it seems that Jousse truly appreciated the German’s effective method of representation, essentially graphic and in its geometric simplicity, perfectly adapted to a clientele of craftsmen.

Yves Pauwels (Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) – 2006

Critical bibliography

F. Le Bœuf, "Mathurin Jousse, maître serrurier à La Flèche et théoricien d'architecture (vers 1575-1645)", In situ, 1, 2001.

P. Le Bœuf, "La Bibliothèque de Mathurin Jousse : une tentative de reconstitution", In situ, 1, 2001.

E. Pasquier & V. Dauphin, Imprimeurs et libraires de l’Anjou, Angers, Société anonyme des éditions de l’Ouest, 1932, pp. 311-326.

Y. Pauwels, "Hans Blum et les Français, 1550-1650", Scholion. Mitteilungsblatt der Stiftung Bibliothek Werner Oechslin, 6, 2010, pp. 77-88.

É.-C. Pecquet, "Mathurin Jousse, architecte et ingénieur de la ville de La Flèche au XVII^e siècle", Cahiers Fléchois, 6, 1984, pp. 28-41.

J.-M. Pérouse de Montclos, L’architecture à la française, XVI^e, XVII^e, XVIII^e siècles, Paris, Picard, 1982, pp. 96-99.

R.-A. Weigert, Inventaire du Fonds Français. Graveurs du XVII^e siècle..., Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, 5, 1968, "Jousse (Mathurin)", pp. 615-617.