Review: Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau: “Un des plus grands architectes qui se soient jamais trouvés en France”, by Jean Guillaume

Abstract

Jean Guillaume et al. Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau: “Un des plus grands architectes qui se soient jamais trouves en France” . Paris: Editions A. et J. Picard and Cite de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, 2010, 352 pp., 11 color and 416 b/w illus. €65, ISBN 9782708408692. Creator of a unique anthology of the greatest buildings in sixteenth-century France, Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau (ca. 1520–1586) was an engraver extraordinaire, draftsman, and inventor of architectural and ornamental designs. His legacy includes numerous collections, ranging from ancient triumphal arches and Roman monuments to works on optics, perspective, practical and imaginary buildings, grotesques, and, above all, two volumes of engravings, Les plus excellents bastiments de France (1576–79). Considering this wide-ranging output, a question permeates the historical discourse on Du Cerceau’s practice: “Was Du Cerceau an architect?” An exhibition at the Musee des Monuments Francais accompanied the publication of this deluxe volume, which is directed by Jean Guillaume in collaboration with Peter Fuhring and the assistance of experts in French architecture studies. It is dedicated to David Thomson, whose ideas and discovery of drawings in the Bibliotheque Municipal, Lyon (Ms. 6246), served as inspiration for the participants.1 The book is divided into three parts, under the headings “Life and Work,” “From Copy to Invention,” and “Du Cerceau Creator.” It is followed by an appendix, which includes texts, title pages, dedications (Latin texts are accompanied by French translations), and notices to reader, commenting on all of Du Cerceau’s works. The tome concludes with a catalog of prints and drawings accompanied by complete scholarly apparatus. As part of the appendix, a chronological list of seventeen works begins with triumphal Exempla arcuum (1549) and ends with Livre des edifices antiques romaines (1584). In part one, Jean Guillaume provides the opening essay to this first comprehensive study of Du Cerceau since the monograph by Heinrich von Geymuller in 1887.2 Considering the critical fortune of Du Cerceau, the time is ripe for this study. Twentieth-century scholars acknowledged Du Cerceau as a virtuoso draftsman and popularizer; some also viewed him as indicative of the decline …