BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE

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French

     The birthdate, family origin and education of Sébastien Chaitegnay (Chaistegnay or Chatinier) remain unknown. According to his own words, taken up by his historiographer Cosme de Villiers in the 18^th century, he was probably born in Amboise. His activity is first mentioned in connection with Maximilien de Béthune, as the building director of the château de Sully-sur-Loire during the end of the 1610-1620 decade. In 1620 he took vows and became a lay brother in the order of the Discalced Carmelites of Touraine, with the name Sébastien de Saint-Aignan. As an itinerant architect of the order, he worked in Paris (the convent of the Carmes Billettes), and in Île-de-France, in the Loire valley, but also in Flanders and in the Netherlands. He also worked for other orders (the Minimes, Carthusians and Benedectines). He was not really an architect who designed buildings, but rather a construction expert. His achievements, even if they were numerous, appear however relatively unassuming. They were most often limited to monitoring structured work, building the altar and altar pieces, without designing churches or complete monasteries.
In 1644, he settled down in Orléans and participated in the construction of the church Notre-Dame des Carmes. Starting in the 1650s he began to write two treatises, one on painting called La seconde nature and the other on architecture, working on both until his death in 1669.
The Maximes et exemples d’architecture, begun in 1654, shows that he had gained knowledge during his travels, but also had a solid classical background. In fact the author was inspired by Vitruvius’ De architectura and placed himself in the tradition of the authors of the great treatises on Renaissance architecture, namely Serlio, De l’Orme and Palladio, whom he often mentions. He proceeds by compiling texts of the preceding century, which he expands with his evidence and his experience. According to Christian Guémy, the work was not written in one go and is made up of five parts : architectural generalizations, private architecture, public buildings sacred and profane, specific features of architecture and finally applied sciences and techniques peripheral to architecture. The five parts are not of the same length or quality, and the balance between theory and practice often seems fragile. It appears that Saint-Aignan tried to omit no part of architecture, in an encyclopedic attention to detail ahead of time, where next to architecture itself, he is interested in the most diverse sciences (hydraulic engineering, optics, gnomonics, history, geography, municipal legislation...).
But Brother Sébastien’s book can also be considered from another angle, more historical and biographical. In fact the book reflects the period during which the architect was writing. During the second half of the 16^th century the wars of religion had left a considerable mark on the city of Orléans. When the kingdom became pacified starting in the 1600s, a brilliant religious life developed in Orléans under the protection of the king and the great families. Thus the pages attributed to religious architecture are extremely important. On the one hand they correspond to the fervor of the Catholic reform during the first half of the 17^th century, giving an important example of an architecture filled with theology, and on the other hand it gives information on monastic growth and on the frenzy of construction in Orléans at that period. Thus the Maximes et exemples d’architecture emerge as a source of first importance for the study of the history of the city during the first half of the 17^th century, especially for constructions no longer in existence (Jesuit collège, Charterhouse, collège of the Recollects, convent of the Visitation and of the Minime Brothers). The book also gives important information on contemporaries of Sébastien de Saint-Aignan. He spent time with some of them : Jacques Lemercier, Étienne Martellange, François Derand, Paul de Brosse and Jean Barbet. Finally it illuminates the intellectual milieu he leaned towards, the scholars at the Jesuit collège at La Flèche, and especially Gérard Desargues’ circle, or that of Milime Father Marin Mersenne, a friend of Descartes’ in his Maximes.
Sébastien de Saint-Aignan’s work remained in manuscript form. Certain indications seem to suggest that the author did not intend to publish his treatise immediately.

Michaël Decrossas (EPHE, Histara, Paris) – 2012

Critical bibliography

C. Guémy, “1646, Les Carmes déchaussés ou les Petits Carmes”, À l’ombre des Rois. Le Grand Siècle d’Orléans, exhibition catalog, Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans, June 29-December 31, 1999, Orléans, 1999, pp. 134-135.

C. Guémy, Frère Sébastien de Saint-Aignan, architecte du Carmel de Touraine, M. Phil., under the direction of Claude Mignot, Université François Rabelais, Tours, 1999.