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Grand Siècle
Grand Siècle or Great Century refers to the period of French history during the 17th century, under the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. The period was notable for its development of art and literature, along with the construction of the Palace of Versailles, the effects of the French Wars of Religion, and the impacts of the Thirty Years' War. Significant figures during this period include gardener André Le Nôtre, architect François Mansart, painter Nicolas Poussin, painter Philippe de Champaigne, painter Charles Le Brun, playwright Molière, poet Jean de La Fontaine, playwright Jean Racine, playwright Pierre Corneille, writer Charles Perrault, composers Henri Dumont, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Michel Richard Delalande, André Campra, Henri Desmarest, Marin Marais and François Couperin, philosophers Rene Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Antoine Arnaud and the Port-Royal, Nicolas Malebranche, Pierre Gassendi, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, and Pierre Bayle. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Versailles Chateau
The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, under the direction of the Ministry of Culture (France), French Ministry of Culture, by the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. Some 15,000,000 people visit the palace, park, or gardens of Versailles every year, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. Louis XIII built a simple hunting lodge on the site of the Palace of Versailles in 1623 and replaced it with a small château in 1631–34. Louis XIV expanded the château into a palace in several phases from 1661 to 1715. It was a favorite residence for both kings, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved the seat of his court and government to Versailles, making the palace the ''de facto'' capital of France. This ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henri Dumont
Henri Dumont (also Henry Du Mont, originally Henry de Thier) (1610 – 8 May 1684) was a baroque composer of the French school, born in the Southern Netherlands. Life Dumont was born to Henry de Thier and Elisabeth Orban in Looz (Borgloon). The family moved to Maastricht in 1613, where Henri and his brother Lambert were choirboys at the church of Notre-Dame (i.e., the Basilica of Our Lady). In 1630 he was named organist and given a leave of two months to complete his education. In the principality of Liège (where he spent much of his time) he studied with Léonard de Hodémont (1575–1639), absorbing trends from Italy. On 1 December 1632, he resigned in favor of his brother. In 1639 he went to Paris to become organist at the important parish church of Saint-Paul. From this time he used the name Dumont or Du Mont in place of De Thier. From 1652 he was harpsichordist at the court of the Duke of Anjou (Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, a brother of Louis XIV), and in 1660 he obtained ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the first data on the transit of Mercury in 1631. The lunar crater Gassendi is named after him. He wrote numerous philosophical works, and some of the positions he worked out are considered significant, finding a way between skepticism and dogmatism. Richard Popkin indicates that Gassendi was one of the first thinkers to formulate the modern "scientific outlook", of moderated skepticism and empiricism. He clashed with his contemporary Descartes on the possibility of certain knowledge. His best known intellectual project attempted to reconcile Epicurean atomism with Christianity. Biography Early life ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicolas Malebranche
Nicolas Malebranche ( , ; 6 August 1638 – 13 October 1715) was a French Oratorian Catholic priest and rationalist philosopher. In his works, he sought to synthesize the thought of St. Augustine and Descartes, in order to demonstrate the active role of God in every aspect of the world. Malebranche is best known for his doctrines of vision in God, occasionalism and ontologism. Biography Early years Malebranche was born in Paris in 1638, the youngest child of Nicolas Malebranche, secretary to King Louis XIII of France, and Catherine de Lauzon, sister of Jean de Lauson, a Governor of New France. Because of a malformed spine, Malebranche received his elementary education from a private tutor. He left home at the age of sixteen to pursue a course of philosophy at the Collège de la Marche, and subsequently to study theology at the Collège de Sorbonne, both colleges from the University of Paris. He eventually left the Sorbonne, having rejected scholasticism, and entered th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Port-Royal
Port Royal is the former capital city of Jamaica. Port Royal or Port Royale may also refer to: Institutions * Port-Royal-des-Champs, an abbey near Paris, France, which spawned influential schools and writers of the 17th century ** Port-Royal Abbey, Paris, an inner-city abbey founded by Port-Royal-des-Champs Geography Canada * Habitation at Port-Royal (1605-1613), the location of France's first successful settlement in what is now Western Nova Scotia, now a National Historic Site of Canada. ** Port Royal, Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, a rural community in Nova Scotia near the site of the Habitation at Port-Royal. * Port-Royal (Acadia) (1632-1710): a nearby fortification where the French built an unnamed Vauban earthwork which became Fort Anne. It was eventually captured by the Anglo-Americans and renamed: ** Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, a town which exists today. * Port Royal, Richmond County, Nova Scotia, a rural community in eastern Nova Scotia, unrelated to the above. * P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antoine Arnaud
Antoine is a French given name (from the Latin ''Antonius'' meaning 'highly praise-worthy') that is a variant of Danton, Titouan, D'Anton and Antonin. The name is used in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, West Greenland, Haiti, French Guiana, Madagascar, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Chad, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda. It is a cognate of the masculine given name Anthony. Similar names include Antaine, Anthoine, Antoan, Antoin, Antton, Antuan, Antwain, Antwan, Antwaun, Antwoine, Antwone, Antwon and Antwuan. Feminine forms include Antonia, Antoinette, and (more rarely) Antionette. As a first name *Antoine Alexandre Barbier (1765–1825), a French librarian and bibliographer *Antoine Arbogast (1759–1803), a French mathematician *Antoine Arnauld (1612–1694), a French theologian, philo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest mathematical work was on conic sections; he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of 16. He later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social sciences, social science. In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines (called Pascal's calculators and later Pascalines), establishing him as one of the first two inventors of the mechanical calculator. Like his contemporary René Descartes, Pascal was also a pioneer in the natural and applied sciences. Pascal wrote in defense of the scientific method and produced several controversial results. He made important contribu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
François Couperin
François Couperin (; 10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as ''Couperin le Grand'' ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family. Life Couperin was born in Paris, into a prominent musical family. His father Charles was organist at the Church of Saint-Gervais in the city, a position previously held by Charles's brother Louis Couperin, the esteemed keyboard virtuoso and composer whose career was cut short by an early death. As a boy François must have received his first music lessons from his father, but Charles died in 1679 leaving the position at Saint-Gervais to his son, a common practice known as ''survivance'' that few churches ignored. With their hands tied, the churchwardens at Saint-Gervais hired Michel Richard Delalande to serve as new organist on the understanding that François would replace him at age 18. However, it is likely Couperin b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marin Marais
Marin Marais (; 31 May 1656, in Paris – 15 August 1728, in Paris) was a French composer and viol player. He studied composition with Jean-Baptiste Lully, often conducting his operas, and with master of the bass viol Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe for six months. In 1676 he was hired as a musician to the royal court of Versailles and was moderately successful there, being appointed in 1679 as ''ordinaire de la chambre du roy pour la viole,'' a title he kept until 1725. He was the father of the composer Roland Marais (c. 1685 – c. 1750). Career Marin Marais was a master of the viol, and the leading French composer of music for the instrument. He wrote five books of '' Pièces de viole'' (1686–1725) for the instrument, generally suites with basso continuo. These were quite popular in the court, and for these he was remembered in later years as he who "founded and firmly established the empire of the viol" ( Hubert Le Blanc, 1740). His other works include a book of ''Pièces en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henri Desmarets
Henri Desmarets (February 1661 – 7 September 1741) was a French composer of the Baroque period primarily known for his stage works, although he also composed sacred music as well as secular cantatas, songs and instrumental works. Biography Early years and first successes Henri Desmarets was born into a modest Paris household in February 1661. His mother, Madeleine ''née'' Frottier, came from a bourgeois Parisian family. His father, Hugues Desmarets was a huissier in the cavalry at the Grand Châtelet. Desmarets' childhood was marked by his father's death when he was eight years old, his mother's subsequent remarriage in 1670, and the death of his two siblings. In 1674, he entered into the service of King Louis XIV as a page and choir singer in the Chapelle Royale (Chapel Royal). According to Duron and Ferraton, he may have also previously sung as a choir boy in Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois which was the parish church of the kings of France. While in the service of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
André Campra
André Campra (; baptized 4 December 1660 – 29 June 1744) was a French composer and conductor of the Baroque era. The leading French opera composer in the period between Jean-Baptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau, Campra wrote several '' tragédies en musique'' and ''opéra-ballets'' that were extremely well received. He also wrote three books of cantatas as well as religious music, including a requiem. Biography Campra was the son of Giovanni Francesco Campra, a surgeon and violinist from Graglia, Italy, and Louise Fabry, from Aix-en-Provence. His father was his first music teacher. He was baptised on 4 December 1660 in the Église de la Madeleine in Aix. He became a choirboy in the Cathédrale Saint-Sauveur there in 1674 and commenced ecclesiastical studies four years later. He was reprimanded by his superiors in 1681 for having taken part in theatrical performances without permission, but was nevertheless made a chaplain on 27 May of that year. He served as ''maître de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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