Louis Métezeau (1559 – 18 August 1615) was a French

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

.Babelon 1996, p. 345.

Life and career

Métezeau was born in

Dreux Dreux () is a Communes of France, commune in the Eure-et-Loir Departments of France, department in northern France. Geography Dreux lies on the small river Blaise (river), Blaise, a tributary of the Eure (river), Eure, about 35 km north of Cha ...

Eure-et-Loir Eure-et-Loir (, locally: ) is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers. It is located in the region of Centre-Val de Loire. In 2019, Eure-et-Loir had a population of 431,575.Thibault Métezeau, the brother of Clément II Métezeau and the nephew of Jean Métezeau. The register of the city of Dreux refers to him as ''architecte du roi et contrôleur des bâtiments royaux''.Sturgis 1901. Métezeau probably undertook the construction of the

Grande Galerie The (), in the past also known as the Galerie du Bord de l'Eau (Waterside Gallery), is a wing of the Louvre Palace, perhaps more properly referred to as the Aile de la Grande Galerie (Grand Gallery Wing), since it houses the longest and largest ...

of the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

(the eastern section is traditionally attributed to him) and may have designed the Petite Galerie. He may also have conceived the

Place des Vosges The Place des Vosges (), originally the Place Royale, is the oldest planned square in Paris, France. It is located in the Marais district, and it straddles the dividing-line between the 3rd and 4th arrondissements of Paris. It is the oldest ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. An archival discovery of 1984 led some historians to name Louis Métezeau as the architect of the Hôtel d'Angoulême. It is now suggested that Louis' father, Thibault Métezeau, more likely designed it.Gady 2008, p. 180. Métezeau was probably involved in the building of the

Palais du Luxembourg The Luxembourg Palace (, ) is at 15 Rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was originally built (1615–1645) to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the royal residence of the regent Marie de' Med ...

for Marie de Medicis: she is believed to have sent him to

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

in 1611 to make drawings of the

Palazzo Pitti The Palazzo Pitti (), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present ...

, which was to be used as a model by the regent's order. At his death, Métezeau was identified as Premier Architecte du Roi of

Henry IV of France Henry IV (; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry (''le Bon Roi Henri'') or Henry the Great (''Henri le Grand''), was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 16 ...

. File:L'Architecture française (Marot) BnF RES-V-371 173v-f378 Louvre, Face de la partie orientale de la Grande Galerie du côté de la rivière (porte déplacée).jpg, The eastern section of the Louvre's

, from an engraving by

Jean Marot Jean Marot (; Mathieu, near Caen, 1463 – c. 1526) was a French poet of the late 15th and early 16 century and the father of the French Renaissance poet Clément Marot. He is often grouped with the " Grands Rhétoriqueurs". Jean Marot seems ...

(c. 1670)

Notes

Bibliography

* Ayers, Andrew (2004). ''The Architecture of Paris''. Stuttgart; London: Edition Axel Menges. . * Babelon, Jean-Pierre (1996). "Métezeau: (1) Louis Métezeau", vol. 21, p.p 345–346, in ''The Dictionary of Art'', edited by Jane Turner, reprinted with minor corrections in 1998. . Also a
Oxford Art Online
* Ballon, Hilary (1991). ''The Paris of Henri IV: Architecture and Urbanism''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. . * Gady, Alexandre (2008). ''Les hôtels particuliers de Paris, du Moyen-Âge à la Belle époque'', Paris, Parigramme. 2012 edition: . * Sturgis, Russell (1901)
"Métezeau, Louis", vol. 2 (F–N), col. 868
in ''A Dictionary of Architecture and Building''. New York: Macmillan. * Thomson, David (1984). ''Renaissance Paris: Architecture and Growth, 1475-1600,'' Berkeley, University of California Press. .

External links

"Louis Métezeau"
at Structurae {{DEFAULTSORT:Metezeau, Louis Renaissance architects 16th-century French architects 17th-century French architects People from Dreux 1559 births 1615 deaths