François Lamathe Bédos de Celles de Salelles, known as Dom Bédos de Celles, (24 January 1709 – 25 November 1779) was a Benedictine

Benedictine

Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...

 monk

Monk

A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...

 best known for being a master pipe organ

Pipe organ

The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...

 builder.

He was born in Caux, Hérault

Caux, Hérault

Caux is a commune in the Hérault department in southern France.-See also:*Communes of the Hérault department...

, near Béziers

Béziers

Béziers is a town in Languedoc in southern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the Hérault department. Béziers hosts the famous Feria de Béziers, centred around bullfighting, every August. A million visitors are attracted to the five-day event...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. He was elected to the French Academy of Sciences

French Academy of Sciences

The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...

 at Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

 and correspondent of the Academy at Paris in 1758.

As a recognized organ-builder, he was called upon to carry out repairs and appraise and advise other organ-builders in many locations across France.

In 1760 he published "La Gnomonique pratique ou l’Art de tracer les cadrans solaires" under the patronage of the Jean-Paul Grandjean de Fouchy, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences and an authority in gnomon

Gnomon

The gnomon is the part of a sundial that casts the shadow. Gnomon is an ancient Greek word meaning "indicator", "one who discerns," or "that which reveals."It has come to be used for a variety of purposes in mathematics and other fields....

ics and sundials.

In 1766-78 he published his treatise L'art du facteur d'orgues (The Art of the Organ-Builder). This monumental opus contains great historical detail about eighteenth-century organ building, and is still referred to by modern organ-builders.

He is buried in the former Abbey (now Basilica) of Saint-Denis.

External links

• Extraits de L'art du facteur d'orgues (in French)
• Dom Bedos (in French)