Jacques Perret (architect)

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Jacques Perret (* between 1540 and 1545 in Chambéry (Savoy); † between 1610 and 1619) was a nobleman, Huguenot, mathematician, architect and became famous for his vision of ideal cities .

Life

Jacques Perret first appeared in the archives of Savoy in 1568 as Lecteur des Arts de l'Arithmétique et Géometrie at the Jesuit college in his native city. In 1573 the city of Chambéry gave him a chair in mathematics to teach the youth in their new high school.

Bibliographic documents also often refer to Perret as Ingénieur Militaire . He shared this title with other contemporary mathematicians such as Guillaume Flamant and Renaut Sedanois . His work shows that he was concerned with the modern military science of the time. Perret mastered their principles and knew the most important classical authors Végèce and Frontin .

Perret worked in Savoy until 1575. Towards the end of the 16th century he probably emigrated to Paris after converting to French Protestantism (Huguenots). There he enjoyed the support of Catherine de Parthenay, who was important for the Huguenot movement, and her son, the Duc de Rohan .

After the conquest of Savoy by Henri IV in 1600, he benefited from an encounter with the king in order to dedicate his visionary, not yet fully recognized work to architecture. From then on he worked in the service of the king.

There is no further information about his further life. From the fact that the last edition of his textbook was published in 1620 with many weaknesses and errors, one concludes that Perret was obviously no longer able to correct it and it is assumed that he died between 1610 and 1619.

plant

Almost two centuries before Claude-Nicolas Ledoux , Jacques Perret described and sketched so-called ideal cities and with great imagination already announced the renewals of the 18th century. He expanded the formalism typical of architecture and designed his futuristic city designs with it. He also designed a couple of worship buildings, ideal according to his standards, called not "église" but "temples" in the Reformed Huguenot concept, which apparently neither had models nor were they implemented. This was probably due to the assumed, but completely unrealistic dimensions, which for example envisaged an ideal church with 9600 seats on the ground floor without planning columns and a cantilevered roof structure over 40 meters. Perret's influence on further European church construction, especially the Protestant transverse church , can therefore be assessed as very small, even if Perret's work was to be found in the bookcase of the Württemberg church builder Heinrich Schickhardt shortly after its publication .

The fortification, city, palace and temple plans follow models of the Italian Renaissance with a tendency towards radial-symmetrical floor plans, e.g. B. Filaretes Sforzinda.

What makes his work remarkable is the decoration of the city walls with biblical quotations, preferably from the Psalms. A repeated phrase reads: "In God alone there is rest and true happiness" . He wanted to show that secular fortifications are useless, even against worldly threats. Some inscriptions show variants of the theme of the king as the God-appointed punisher of evil and protector of good, an idea with personal sympathy of the Calvinist (Huguenot) Perret in a Catholic and often hostile France.

Overall, several main editions of his work Des fortifications et artifices appeared. Architecture et perspective namely:

  • The first publication without the place and date only bears the dedication to the king (July 1, 1601)
  • Edition printed shortly afterwards in Paris with a royal privilege attached (July 4, 1601)

Both editions are identical. They consist of a title page and a dedication with 22 copper engravings by Thomas de Leu (creative period from 1576 to 1614) and 17 commentaries by Jacques Perret. The copper plates are framed with quotations from the Old Testament. They represent models of fortifications and special buildings in plan and perspective.

  • In 1602 the widow Theodor de Brys and her two sons Johann Theodor and Johann Israel published Perret's work simultaneously in German and French in their Frankfurt publishing house. Otherwise true to the text of the edition of 1601, the two editions contain a series of 28 additional copperplate engravings.
  • Finally, in 1620, the last French edition appeared, albeit in poor quality, which led experts to suspect that Perret was no longer alive at the time.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ see homepage of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts
  2. ↑ The coat of arms of Henri II. De Rohan appears on 15 copper engravings in Perret's textbook.
  3. ↑ Kathrin Ellwardt: Church building between evangelical ideals and absolutist rule. The cross churches in the Hessian area from the Reformation century to the Seven Years War . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2004, p. 22 - ISBN 3-937251-34-0
  4. ↑ Architectura Et Perspectiva Several fortresses / towns / churches / castles / un [d] houses / like the strongest / most graceful and comfortable can be bawed or erected / First made by a saphoic from the nobility Jacob Perret in French in Paris in truck. Now, however, Teutscher Nation too well Germanized / adorned with beautiful copper pieces / and [d] given on day / Wittibe left behind by Dietrichs de Bry S. / and two sons , Frankfurt 1602 - available as PDF in [1] , last accessed on 8. April 2019
personal data
SURNAME Perret, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French noble Huguenot, mathematician, architect
DATE OF BIRTH between 1540 and 1545
PLACE OF BIRTH Chambery
DATE OF DEATH between 1610 and 1619