BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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Transcribed version of the text

French

     This collection of engravings is considered among Jacques Androuet du Cerceau's earliest publications. It was composed in the context of the succession of Henri II and of the numerous solemn entries that the new king was going to make into his cities. Lyon had set the example in 1548, and, in 1549, the very year of the book's publication, it was Paris which would offer a memorable ceremony to the young monarch. Because the triumphal arches had become indispensable to the protocol of these celebrations, it was more than proper to propose models for them. Thus this work is presented as an anthology of exempla, variations on the theme of the triumphal arch. From this point of view, it takes on a considerable importance, that few historians have noticed. In fact, in 1549, the triumphal arch had barely made its appearance in French architecture. The frontispiece of the main wing at Anet was still under construction, as were the fore-parts of the courtyard of the Louvre; those of Écouen were, at best, still in the planning stage. But superb examples, no doubt drawn by Serlio, had beautified the streets of Lyon in 1548, during the entry of Henri II. And the very year of the publication of Androuet du Cerceau's collection, Jean Martin and Jean Goujon were preparing several arches inspired by Serlian models for the Parisian celebrations. The arch in the antique style, through its symbolic, historical and cultural references, was thus consecrated as the commonplace par excellence of a new architecture aspiring to the highest level of expression, that of the sublime. Now, 1549 was also the year of the publication of Joachim du Bellay's Défense et Illustration de la langue française; Ronsard's first book of the Odes would be published imminently. The consecration of the architectural theme went hand in hand with that of a new poetry, that of the Pléiade, whose ambition was the same: to raise French literature to the level of a high style, that of odes or the epic. With great insight, du Cerceau sensed the evolution in the art of building, and his small collection falls perfectly within the large renewing movement upsetting French architecture in the crucial years of Henri II's succession.
The order in which the monuments appear varies greatly according to the copies. The Binha copy here mentioned was put together in a particularly random way, but none of those consulted (BnF, Ensba) presents a really satisfactory structure. Nevertheless, the inaugural text clearly distinguishes the arches "invented" by du Cerceau from the antique ones, themselves separated in two groups, those of Rome and other cities ("tum Romae, tum alibi"). Thus it would be easy to reproduce a logical sequence, by first presenting the Roman arches (the arches of Titus, of Septimius Severus, of Constantine), then the Italian arches (the arches of Ancona, Verona, Benevento, Pola, Susa, Ravenna), followed by a series of models classified according to the sequence of the orders, three Doric, two Ionic, eight Corinthian, one "sus l'ordre corinthe" and two in the salomonic order. One will observe that du Cerceau forsook the Tuscan and the Composite orders; on the other hand he created a category "in addition to" the Corinthian, with anthropomorphic supports, and he was among the very first in France to identify the order with S-curved shafts as columns as the "salomonics" order.
The antique arches "ex veterum sumpta monumentis" come very probably from Serlio's Terzo libro, even if two of them (the arches of Ravenna and of Susa) do not appear in Serlio's book. All the others seem to be obvious copies: du Cerceau took up his method of representation in perspective and was satisfied to cover the structures left empty by Serlio by integrating into them the elements of detail and the inscriptions that Serlio gave separately. As far as the arches created by the author are concerned ("a me inventa"), the sources are less clear. Most of the monuments represented are abundantly decorated, and in a way that reminds one of nothing in Italy. Du Cerceau differentiated himself very clearly from Serlio in that he never used rusticated stonework, which was to play a considerable role in the ornamentation in the Extraordinario libro published in 1551. The abundance of sculptured decoration combined with a certain number of architectural details (small edifices one on top of the other above the entablatures, the decoration of the column shafts, the treatment of the pedestal cornices, and consoles between the capitals and the entablatures) come neither from antique esthetics nor from Italian practice, but rather from Spanish models: Spain was much earlier than France to have recourse to the new language of the orders, which she treated in a specific way. More precisely, a structure like that of the third Doric arch (in the present copy), with its semi-circular tympan placed on the entablature, greatly resembles the one used by Andrés de Vandelvira in the north door of El Salvador in Úbeda. The consoles in the shape of volutes in the first Ionic arch are very close to those bearing the entablature of the south door of this church. And the particular placing of the pedestals and the bases of the first Corinthian arch, with the dental molding of the pedestal cornice and the recess caused by the fact that the pilaster placed behind the column is slightly wider than the column, is found just as is in the Salvador, at the first level of the main entrance. There were obviously links between young du Cerceau and Spain. Was he one of those workers, often Lutherans, who stayed upon occasion with Étienne Jamet, alias Estaban Jamete, whose role at Úbeda is known? Or did Jamet's origins in Orléans permit du Cerceau, himself from Orléans, to gather information on the Andalusian construction site?

Yves Pauwels (Centre d'études supérieures de la Renaissance, Tours) – 2007

Critical bibliography

J. Androuet du Cerceau, Les plus excellents bastiments de France..., D. Thomson (ed.), Paris, Sand & Conti, 1988 (documentary chronology and general bibliography, pp. 310-316).

H. von Geymüller, Les Du Cerceau. Leur vie et leur œuvre d’après les nouvelles recherches, Paris/Londres, Rouam/Wood & C., 1887.

F. Lemerle, "Jacques Androuet du Cerceau et les antiquités", Journal de la Renaissance, 2, 2004, pp. 135-144.

Y. Pauwels, L’architecture au temps de la Pléiade, Paris, Monfort, 2002.

Y. Pauwels, L’architecture et le livre en France à la Renaissance : « une magnifique décadence » ?, Paris, Garnier, 2013, pp. 54-60.

D. Thomson, Renaissance Architecture. Critics Patrons Luxury, Manchester/New York, Manchester UP, 1993.

A. Turcat, Étienne Jamet alias Esteban Jamete, sculpteur français de la Renaissance en Espagne condamné par l’Inquisition, Paris, Picard, 1994.