Antoine Desgodetz' elevation of the Pantheon in Les edifices antiques de Rome: engravings served designers who never travelled to Rome.

Antoine Babuty Desgodetz's publication Les edifices antiques de Rome dessinés et mesurés très exactement (Paris 1682) provided detailed engravings of the monuments and antiquities of Rome to serve French artists and architects. Desgodetz had been sent to Rome in an official capacity, part of French architectural and artistic policy,^[1] and the engravings for his publication were supervised by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, according to Desgodetz' introduction (Haskell and Penny 1981: 37) The young architect with a copy of Les edifices antiques de Rome could determine the precise proportions of many Roman structures, such as the portico of the Pantheon, or the Temple of Vesta, Tivoli, that were considered the best models, a practice that had the effect of standardizing the details of academic architecture in France. His Edifices antiques was reissued in Paris, 1729^[2] and again in 1779, when it proved as helpful to Neoclassical architects as it had been to classicizing Late Baroque ones. The young Robert Adam toyed with the idea of producing a revised version of Desgodetz before he hit on the idea of striking into fresh territory with measured engravings of the ruins of Diocletian's palace at Spalatro (Split, Croatia). Download high resolution version (800x713, 71 KB)Antoine Desgodetz, Elevation de la face du Pantheon, a Rome, in Les edifices antiques de Rome. ... Download high resolution version (800x713, 71 KB)Antoine Desgodetz, Elevation de la face du Pantheon, a Rome, in Les edifices antiques de Rome. ... Jean-Baptiste Colbert Jean-Baptiste Colbert (August 29, 1619 – September 6, 1683) served as the French minister of finance from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing and bringing the economy back from... Facade of the Pantheon The Pantheon (Latin Pantheon[1], from Greek Πάνθεον Pantheon, meaning Temple of all the Gods) is a building in Rome which was originally built as a temple to the seven deities of the seven planets in the state religion of Ancient Rome, but which has been a... The neoclassical movement that produced Neoclassical architecture began in the mid-18th century, both as a reaction against the Rococo style of anti-tectonic naturalistic ornament, and an outgrowth of some classicizing features of Late Baroque. ... For the Baroque style in a more general sense, see Baroque. ... Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 1728 - 3 March 1792) was a Scottish architect, interior designer and furniture designer, born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. ... Split Harbour Split (Italian: Spalato) is the largest and most important city in Dalmatia, the administrative center of Croatias Split-Dalmatia county. ...

Claude Perrault's view that the architectural norms that had formerly been presented as divinely inspired, authoritative and derived from nature, were in fact arbitrary, with a social origin under constraints of individual situations, "employed empirical observation instead of the opinion of authorities. Essential to his proof were the measurements taken by Desgodetz in Rome, clearly indicating the disparity in the proportions of the great monuments themselves."^[3] Though Claude Perrault (Paris, 1613 - Paris, 1688) is best known as the architect of the eastern range of the Louvre in Paris, he also achieved success as physician and anatomist, and as an author, who wrote treatises on physics and natural history. ...

Les edifices antiques... was reproduced in 1972 (Portland, Oregon : Collegium Graphicum).

Notes

Charles Perrault, 1665 Charles Perrault (January 12, 1628 – May 16, 1703) was a French author who laid foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, and whose best known tales include Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), La Belle au bois dormant (Sleeping Beauty), Le Chat bott... Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (born ca. ... A self portrait: Bernini is said to have used his own features in the David (below, left) Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini) (December 7, 1598 - November 28, 1680), who worked chiefly in Rome, was the pre-eminent baroque artist. ...

References

• Haskell, Francis, and Nicholas Penny, 1981. Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (Yale University Press).
• Herrmann, Wolfgang, 1958. "Antoine Desgodetz and the Academie Royale d'Architecture," The Art Bulletin 40 pp 23-53.