BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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Transcribed version of the text

French

      Born in Antwerp in 1601, Michel van Lochom settled in Paris where he died in 1647, keeping shop like many of his colleagues in the rue Saint Jacques, at the sign of the Rose blanche couronnée. A cartographer, engraver and printer, he published numerous collections of engravings in many domains, including architecture (the Pieces d’architecture by Pierre Collot in 1633) and garden design (the Traité du jardinage by Jacques Boyceau de la Barauderie in 1638). The present collection, for which he took responsibility, is a treatise on the five orders inspired by the plates by Jan et Paul Vredeman de Vries in La haulte & fameuse science, consistante en cincq manieres d’edifices ou fabriques published in The Hague in 1606 and reissued many times. The Vredeman de Vrieses, father and son, drew on models by Serlio, with a few details originating from Cesare Cesariano, perhaps through consulting the Inventie der colommen by Pieter Coecke (Antwerp, 1539). An example : the Doric pedestal embellished with triglyphs in plate F.
Van Lochom added a few introductory notes, which do not attest to perfect erudition : he mentions Dorus as an architect, which stretches Vitruvian tradition considerably. This edition attests to the success of Flemish taste during the first half of the 17^th century, also revealed by the translation in 1621 of the Livre d’architecture by Rutger Kasemann, and which is visible for example on the façade of the Jesuit church Saint Paul-Saint Louis, to the utter despair of Fréart de Chambray and the “Intelligents”.

Yves Pauwels (Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) – 2013

Critical bibliography

M. Grivel, Le commerce de l’estampe à Paris au XVII^e siècle, Geneva, Droz, 1986, pp. 382-383.

M. Préaud, P. Casselle, M. Grivel & C. Le Bitouzé, Dictionnaire des éditeurs d’estampes à Paris sous l’Ancien Régime, Paris, Promodis, 1987, pp. 298-299.