Antoine Babuty Desgodetz's (1653–1728) 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, and the engravings for his publication were supervised by
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, according to Desgodetz' introduction. 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
The Temple of Vesta is a Roman temple in Tivoli, Italy, dating to the early 1st century BC. Its ruins sit on the acropolis of the city, overlooking the falls of the Aniene that are now included in the Villa Gregoriana.
History
It is not known ...
, 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 and again in 1779, when it proved as helpful to
Neoclassical architects
Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...
as it had been to classicizing
Late Baroque ones. The young
Robert Adam
Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his ...
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
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).
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."
[Tzonis & Lefaivre 1976.]
''Les edifices antiques...'' was reproduced in 1972 (Portland, Oregon : Collegium Graphicum).
Notes
Bibliography
* 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.
* Tzonis; Alexander; Lefaivre, Liane (1976). Review of Wolfgang Herrmann, ''The Theory of Claude Perrault'' (Studies in Architecture, Vol. XII), London: A. Zwemmer Ltd, 1973, in ''Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians'' 3 October 1976. .
External links
Les edifices antiques de Rome : dessinés et mesurés très exactement (1682)Les edifices antiques de Rome (1771)Desgodets' works on line
{{DEFAULTSORT:Desgodetz, Antoine
1653 births
1728 deaths
Architects from Paris
17th-century French architects
18th-century French architects
Members of the Académie royale d'architecture