Antoine Desgodetz

Antoine Babuty Desgodetz , often also Antoine Desgodets , (* 1653 in Paris ; † May 20, 1728 ) was a French architect .

Life

Antoine Desgodetz started working for the Département des Bâtiments du Roi at the age of 16 . From 1672 he was trained at the Conférence des Architectes du Roy and was one of the first students of the Académie royale d'architecture founded in 1671 by Jean-Baptiste Colbert . At the end of 1674 he was sent to Rome with scholarship holders from the Académie Royale to measure ancient buildings, but on the journey he was kidnapped by pirates to Algiers and after some time released by King Louis XIV . From the beginning of 1676 to the summer of 1677 he stayed in Rome and made his building recordings. It was published in 1682 under the title Les Edifices antiques de Rome, dessinés et mesurés tres exactement par Antoine Desgodetz .

Desgodetz remained in the building management and in 1680 became Contrôleur des monuments de Chambord , 1694 de Paris . At times he also held the title of Architecte du Roi . He lost the position of contrôleur in Paris and the title in 1699 for unknown reasons, as it was passed over several times during the promotions in the academy. Not until 1719 did he become a professor of architecture at the academy. Two further tracts remained unpublished: A doctrine of the pillars largely reflects the results of the discussions in the academy. The compilation of his lectures at the academy also deals in detail with the various types of buildings as a first treatise. The latter manuscript was partially adopted by Jacques-François Blondel in his Architecture française . No structures built by Desgodetz have survived.

Les Edifices antiques de Rome

View of the Pantheon

During his stay in Rome, Desgodetz made photographs of 48 buildings himself. According to his own statements, he had buried components excavated and scaffolding and other machines built in order to be able to measure and draw high-altitude components up close. He checked the dimensions several times.

He included 25 buildings in the publication, all of which are in Rome with the exception of the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli (V) and the amphitheater in Verona (XXII). There are several triumphal arches, theaters and baths at numerous temples:

• I the pantheon ,
• II the so-called Bacchustepel ( Santa Costanza ),
• III the so-called Faun Temple ( Santo Stefano Rotondo ),
• IV the so-called Vesta Temple on the Forum Boarium ( Temple of Hercules Victor ),
• VI the so-called Temple of Fortuna Virilis ( Temple of Portunus ),
• VII the Maxentius Basilica (referred to as Templum Pacis ),
• VIII the Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina in the Roman Forum ,
• IX the Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum (referred to as the Temple of Concordia),
• X the so-called Temple of Jupiter Stator ( Aedes Castoris )
• XI the so-called Temple of Jupiter Tonans ( Temple of Vespasian and Titus ),
• XII the remains of the portico of the Augustus Forum (called Mars-Ultor-Tempel ),
• XIII the so-called Frontispiece of Nero (Sun Temple of Aurelian),
• XIV the so-called basilica of Antoninus Pius ( Hadrian's temple ),
• XV the remains of the Nerva forum ,
• XVI the so-called Portico of Septimius Severus ( Porticus Octaviae ),
• XVII the Arch of Titus ,
• XVIII the Arch of Septimius Severus ,
• XIX the Argentarian Arch ,
• XX the Arch of Constantine ,
• XXI the Colosseum ,
• XXIII the Marcellus Theater ,
• XXIV the Baths of Diocletian ,
• XXV the so-called baths of Aemilius Paulus near Santa Maria in Campo Carleo .

The core of the book is formed by the numerous tables, each of which is preceded by one or two pages of text that explain what is depicted and add to the details that cannot be represented in the engraving, such as colors and materials. Finally, the errors in the illustrations and measurements by older authors, especially Palladio and Serlio, are listed in detail .

In addition to floor plans and views, the order of the columns is dealt with in detail. Many capitals are shown in the frontal view, the diagonal view, the soffit and a section. All plans are dimensioned in detail, the plans in Paris feet , the column orders in a module derived from the lower column diameter. The module is shown in the same size in all relevant tables, so that the proportions of the components of different orders can be compared directly. According to the preface, the aim of the work was to penetrate the "mystery of proportions".

Desgodetz claims to reproduce the buildings in their former state and not to reconstruct them, or even, as he assumes older authors, to redesign them. At best, however, this applies to the buildings that were already in ruins at the time. In the buildings that have been converted into churches, the apparently later additions, conversions and installations, such as altars, sacristies or the bell towers by Gian Lorenzo Bernini on the Pantheon, are tacitly omitted.

The work of Desgodetz was one of the first monumental architectural engravings and after the Quattro Libri of Andrea Palladio certainly the most influential. It was reprinted several times (1695, 1729, 1779). The thoroughness and precision of his recordings remained exemplary well into the 19th century.

The book received little attention among contemporaries, especially in the academy, at first, probably because it showed that not only the proportions of ancient buildings, on which the theses of other authors were based, were based on false assumptions, but also, that most ancient buildings did not follow the rules given by Vitruvius .

The work only developed its greatest impact after the end of the Rococo, with the establishment of classicist architecture in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when several translations were published in addition to the reprint, e. B. an English by George Marshall ( The Ancient Buildings of Rome , 2 volumes. London 1771 and 1785) and an Italian by Carlo Fea ( Gli Edifikj antichi di Roma , Rome 1822). In addition, two supplementary volumes were published, the Fragmens et ornemens d'architecture by Charles Moreau (possibly identical to Charles de Moreau ) (Paris 1800) and the Aggiunte e correzioni all'opere sugli edifici antichi di Roma by Giuseppe Valadier and Luigi Canina (Rome 1843) .

For some buildings, Desgodetz's measurements are still among the best published plans today. The work also provides important information for today's archaeological research, as it reproduces parts of buildings that are lost today, such as B. the design of the upper part of the walls of the pantheon , which was replaced in 1747 in baroque forms .

Fonts

• Les Edifices antiques de Rome, dessinés et mesurés tres exactement par Antoine Desgodetz, Architecte. Coignard, Paris 1682 ( digitized version from the University of Wisconsin ; digitized version from Heidelberg University Library ; digitized version from the Institut national d'histoire de l'art ).
  • Edition 1771 ( digitized from the University of Wisconsin ).
• Cours . Lectures at the Académie royale d'architecture 1721–1728, received in several manuscripts.
  • Traité des Ordres d'Architecture
  • Traité de la commodité de l'architecture concernant la distribution et la proportion des édiffices
  • Traité du toisé des batimens aux us et coutumes de Paris
  • Traité du servitudes
• Les loix des batimens suivant la coustume de Paris , published posthumously by M. Goupy, 1st edition 1748, 2nd edition Geneva 1752.

literature

• Henry Lemonnier: Les dessins originaux de Desgodetz pour 'Les Èdifices antiques de Rome' . In: Revue archéologique , 5th series, vol. 6, 1917, pp. 216–230.
• Wolfgang Herrmann: Antoine Desgodetz and the Académie Royale d'Architecture. In: The Art Bulletin 40, 1958, 23-53.
• Hanno-Walter Kruft: History of Architectural Theory. 3rd edition, CH Beck, Munich 1991, pp. 153-155.
• Louis Cellauro, Gilbert Richaud: Antoine Desgodets: Les Edifices Antiques de Rome, Édition fac-similé du Manuscrit 2718 de l'Institut de France , avec transcriptions, annotations, et reproduction des planches du volume publié en 1682 (= Studi sulla cultura dell ' antico vol. 7). De Luca, Rome 2008, ISBN 978-88-8016-865-2 .

Web links

• Biography (french)

Remarks

1. ↑ The drawings have been preserved in the library of the Institut de France (Ms. 2718), see digitized version ( Memento of the original dated December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and description of the manuscript . The handwritten manuscript of the work, formerly in Colbert's library, is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (ms. Fr. 381). 
2. ↑ See Louis Cellauro: Mesure et exactitude. The module d'Antoine Desgodets pour ses relevés de monuments antiques . In: Revue de l'art 170, 2010, No. 4, pp. 65–74.
3. ^ Project for the publication of the "Cours" online: www.desgodets.net .