François Blondel
Encyclopedia
Nicolas-François Blondel (possibly Ribemont
, 15 June 1618 - Paris, 21 January 1686) was a soldier, engineer of fortifications, diplomat, civil engineer and military architect, called "the Great Blondel", to distinguish him in a dynasty of French architects. He is remembered for his Cours d'architecture which remained a central text for over a century. His precepts placed him in opposition with Claude Perrault
in the larger culture war
known under the heading Querelle des anciens et des modernes
. If François Blondel was not the most highly reputed among the académiciens of his day, his were the writings that most generally circulated among the general public, the Cours de Mathématiques, the Art de jetter les Bombes, the Nouvelle manière de fortifier les places and, above all his Cours d'Architecture.
He was well educated in languages as a youth, and participated for a time in the Thirty Years' War
In 1640 the Cardinal de Richelieu entrusted him with diplomatic missions in Portugal, Spain and Italy, which gave him an opportunity to study at first hand the fortification systems of those nations.
Richelieu named him sub-lieutenant of one of his galleys, La Cardinale, aboard which he participated in the attack on the port of Tarragona
and served for a time as governor at Palamos
. In 1647 Blondel commanded the artillery of the naval expedition against the Spanish at Naples. With the peace he finished his military career with the brevet of maréchal des camps (26 November 1652).
He tutored the son of the Secretary of State for foreign affairs
, Loménie de Brienne
, with whom he made the Grand Tour
: Langres — Besançon — Basel — Alsace (Brisach) — Strasbourg (where he inspected the mechanism of the famous clock) — Philippsburg — Mannheim — Mayence — The Hague — Hamburg — Lübeck — Kiel — Denmark — Sweden (Stockholm, Uppsala) — Finland — Estonia (Riga) — Königsberg — Dantzig — Cracow — Pressburg — Vienna — Prague — Vence — Rome — Florence — Toulon. His travels would stand him in good stead when he came to compile his Cours d'Architecture. During the 1660s Blondel made a second tour with a son of Jean Baptiste Colbert, of which the itinerary is less known.
In 1656, Blondel was named reader in Mathematics and Fortification at the Collège de France
, where his place was filled during his numerous absences by the atronomer Picard
. From 1662 to 1668, Blondel exercised the functions of Syndic
of the College.
In the years 1657 to 1663 Mazarin sent him on diplomatic missions in Italy, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Moscow (where he regretted not having seen the fortifications at Kazan
against the Tatars
, and found that the maritime defenses were in the Dutch manner), Prussia, Livonia (with the Swedish fortifications of Riga
), and Lithuania. In the course of his travels he encountered Paul Wurz, occasioning the correspondence that resulted in Blondel'
s first publication. a discussion of trajectories
in which he (incorrectly) set himself against writings of Galileo. Some of these questions were taken up again in 1673, when he published his Résolution des quatre principaux problèmes d'Architecture
In 1659, on a voyage to Constantinople
he designed one of the aqueducts of Sinan with three superposed orders of architecture, "qui, par sa grandeur, sa hauteur & la magnificence de sa structure, ne cede en rien à celuy du Pont du Gard
." That same year he was posted as diplomatic resident to Copenhagen
, and post he filled until 1663, when he was recalled to France to become a conseiller d'État.
The following year, 1664, Colbert lnamed him Ingénieur du Roy pour la Marine, which occasioned his supervision of harbour fortifications in Normandy (Cherbourg, Le Havre), in Brittany and in the Antillies (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Domingue), where he witnessed at first hand the prodigious effects of a hurricane at the island of Saint-Christophe, and where he found the materials for numerous memoires presented to the Académie des Sciences.
Quatremère de Quincy
reported that Blondel's talents for architecture were first tested in 1665, in building the royal ropewalk
at Rochefort, Blondel was put in charge of constructing the Roman bridge
at Saintes.
In 1669, Blondel was admitted to the Académie des Sciences, as an associate geomete. That year, in the course of a trip to London in the company of Jean-Baptiste du Hamel
, secretary of the Académie, he witnessed an unsuccessful blood transfusion effected by the Royal Society
in hopes of curing a madman, with the thought that the human passions were transmitted in the blood.
That same year he was commissioned with urbanization
projects for the embellishment of Paris, notably the reconstruction of the Porte Saint-Denis
and the Porte Saint-Bernard, and the plan for the city's expansion, which he accomplished with the collaboration of the architect Pierre Bullet.
On 31 December 1671, the King named Blondel Director and Professor of the Académie d'architecture
In 1673, Blondel was appointed professor of mathematics to the Grand Dauphin; if the royal pupil was of mediocre talent, the project resulted in Blondel's Cours de Mathématiques (1683)
From 1670 until his death in 1686, Blondel was wholly occupied in professional matters and teaching. He collaborated on the dictionaries of Antoine Furetière
, of Adrien Auzout
for mathematics and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli
for astronomy.
Ribemont
Ribemont is a commune in the Aisne department in Picardy in northern France.-Population:...
, 15 June 1618 - Paris, 21 January 1686) was a soldier, engineer of fortifications, diplomat, civil engineer and military architect, called "the Great Blondel", to distinguish him in a dynasty of French architects. He is remembered for his Cours d'architecture which remained a central text for over a century. His precepts placed him in opposition with Claude Perrault
Claude Perrault
Claude Perrault is best known as the architect of the eastern range of the Louvre Palace in Paris , but he also achieved success as a physician and anatomist, and as an author, who wrote treatises on physics and natural history.Perrault was born and died in Paris...
in the larger culture war
Culture war
The culture war in American usage is a metaphor used to claim that political conflict is based on sets of conflicting cultural values. The term frequently implies a conflict between those values considered traditionalist or conservative and those considered progressive or liberal...
known under the heading Querelle des anciens et des modernes
Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns
The quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns was a literary and artistic debate that heated up in the early 1690s and shook the Académie française.-Description:...
. If François Blondel was not the most highly reputed among the académiciens of his day, his were the writings that most generally circulated among the general public, the Cours de Mathématiques, the Art de jetter les Bombes, the Nouvelle manière de fortifier les places and, above all his Cours d'Architecture.
He was well educated in languages as a youth, and participated for a time in the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
In 1640 the Cardinal de Richelieu entrusted him with diplomatic missions in Portugal, Spain and Italy, which gave him an opportunity to study at first hand the fortification systems of those nations.
Richelieu named him sub-lieutenant of one of his galleys, La Cardinale, aboard which he participated in the attack on the port of Tarragona
Tarragona
Tarragona is a city located in the south of Catalonia on the north-east of Spain, by the Mediterranean. It is the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and the capital of the Catalan comarca Tarragonès. In the medieval and modern times it was the capital of the Vegueria of Tarragona...
and served for a time as governor at Palamos
Palamós
Palamós is a town and municipality in the Mediterranean Costa Brava, located in the comarca of Baix Empordà, in the province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain....
. In 1647 Blondel commanded the artillery of the naval expedition against the Spanish at Naples. With the peace he finished his military career with the brevet of maréchal des camps (26 November 1652).
He tutored the son of the Secretary of State for foreign affairs
Minister of Foreign Affairs (France)
Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs ), is France's foreign affairs ministry, with the headquarters located on the Quai d'Orsay in Paris close to the National Assembly of France. The Minister of Foreign and European Affairs in the government of France is the cabinet minister responsible for...
, Loménie de Brienne
Henri-Auguste de Loménie, comte de Brienne
Henri-Auguste de Loménie, , Count of Brienne, Seigneur de La Ville-aux-Clercs was a French politician. He was secretary of state for the navy from 1615 to February 1643, and then secretary of state for foreign affairs from 1643 to 1663 under Mazarin during the minority of Louis XIV...
, with whom he made the Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
: Langres — Besançon — Basel — Alsace (Brisach) — Strasbourg (where he inspected the mechanism of the famous clock) — Philippsburg — Mannheim — Mayence — The Hague — Hamburg — Lübeck — Kiel — Denmark — Sweden (Stockholm, Uppsala) — Finland — Estonia (Riga) — Königsberg — Dantzig — Cracow — Pressburg — Vienna — Prague — Vence — Rome — Florence — Toulon. His travels would stand him in good stead when he came to compile his Cours d'Architecture. During the 1660s Blondel made a second tour with a son of Jean Baptiste Colbert, of which the itinerary is less known.
In 1656, Blondel was named reader in Mathematics and Fortification at the Collège de France
Collège de France
The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...
, where his place was filled during his numerous absences by the atronomer Picard
Picard
Picard may refer to:* a native of, or anything originating in, Picardy* the Picard language, a Langue d'oïl and one of the languages of France* A member of the Picards, a religious sect in the fifteenth century...
. From 1662 to 1668, Blondel exercised the functions of Syndic
Syndic
Syndic , a term applied in certain countries to an officer of government with varying powers, and secondly to a representative or delegate of a university, institution or other corporation, entrusted with special functions or powers.The meaning which underlies both applications is that of...
of the College.
In the years 1657 to 1663 Mazarin sent him on diplomatic missions in Italy, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Moscow (where he regretted not having seen the fortifications at Kazan
Kazan
Kazan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. With a population of 1,143,546 , it is the eighth most populous city in Russia. Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the...
against the Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...
, and found that the maritime defenses were in the Dutch manner), Prussia, Livonia (with the Swedish fortifications of Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
), and Lithuania. In the course of his travels he encountered Paul Wurz, occasioning the correspondence that resulted in Blondel'
s first publication. a discussion of trajectories
Trajectory
A trajectory is the path that a moving object follows through space as a function of time. The object might be a projectile or a satellite, for example. It thus includes the meaning of orbit—the path of a planet, an asteroid or a comet as it travels around a central mass...
in which he (incorrectly) set himself against writings of Galileo. Some of these questions were taken up again in 1673, when he published his Résolution des quatre principaux problèmes d'Architecture
In 1659, on a voyage to Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
he designed one of the aqueducts of Sinan with three superposed orders of architecture, "qui, par sa grandeur, sa hauteur & la magnificence de sa structure, ne cede en rien à celuy du Pont du Gard
Pont du Gard
The Pont du Gard is a notable ancient Roman aqueduct bridge that crosses the Gard River in southern France. It is part of a long aqueduct that runs between Uzès and Nîmes in the South of France. It is located in Vers-Pont-du-Gard near Remoulins, in the Gard département...
." That same year he was posted as diplomatic resident to Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, and post he filled until 1663, when he was recalled to France to become a conseiller d'État.
The following year, 1664, Colbert lnamed him Ingénieur du Roy pour la Marine, which occasioned his supervision of harbour fortifications in Normandy (Cherbourg, Le Havre), in Brittany and in the Antillies (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Domingue), where he witnessed at first hand the prodigious effects of a hurricane at the island of Saint-Christophe, and where he found the materials for numerous memoires presented to the Académie des Sciences.
Quatremère de Quincy
Quatremère de Quincy
Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy was a French armchair archaeologist and architectural theorist, a Freemason, and an effective arts administrator and influential writer on art....
reported that Blondel's talents for architecture were first tested in 1665, in building the royal ropewalk
Ropewalk
A ropewalk is a long straight narrow lane, or a covered pathway, where long strands of material were laid before being twisted into rope.Ropewalks historically were harsh sweatshops, and frequently caught on fire, as hemp dust forms an explosive mixture. Rope was essential in sailing ships and the...
at Rochefort, Blondel was put in charge of constructing the Roman bridge
Roman bridge
Roman bridges, built by ancient Romans, were the first large and lasting bridges built. Roman bridges were built with stone and had the arch as its basic structure....
at Saintes.
In 1669, Blondel was admitted to the Académie des Sciences, as an associate geomete. That year, in the course of a trip to London in the company of Jean-Baptiste du Hamel
Jean-Baptiste du Hamel
Jean-Baptiste Du Hamel, Duhamel or du Hamel was a notable French cleric and natural philosopher of the late seventeenth century, and the first secretary of the Academie Royale des Sciences...
, secretary of the Académie, he witnessed an unsuccessful blood transfusion effected by the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
in hopes of curing a madman, with the thought that the human passions were transmitted in the blood.
That same year he was commissioned with urbanization
Urbanization
Urbanization, urbanisation or urban drift is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of global change. The United Nations projected that half of the world's population would live in urban areas at the end of 2008....
projects for the embellishment of Paris, notably the reconstruction of the Porte Saint-Denis
Porte Saint-Denis
The Porte Saint-Denis is a Parisian monument located in the 10th arrondissement, at the site of one of the gates of the Wall of Charles V, one of the now-destroyed fortifications of Paris...
and the Porte Saint-Bernard, and the plan for the city's expansion, which he accomplished with the collaboration of the architect Pierre Bullet.
On 31 December 1671, the King named Blondel Director and Professor of the Académie d'architecture
Académie d'architecture
The Académie royale d'architecture was a French learned society founded on December 30, 1671 by Louis XIV, king of France under the impulsion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert...
In 1673, Blondel was appointed professor of mathematics to the Grand Dauphin; if the royal pupil was of mediocre talent, the project resulted in Blondel's Cours de Mathématiques (1683)
From 1670 until his death in 1686, Blondel was wholly occupied in professional matters and teaching. He collaborated on the dictionaries of Antoine Furetière
Antoine Furetière
Antoine Furetière , French scholar and writer, was born in Paris.-Biography:He studied law and practised for a time as an advocate, but eventually took orders and after various promotions became abbé of Chalivoy in the diocese of Bourges in 1662...
, of Adrien Auzout
Adrien Auzout
Adrien Auzout was a French astronomer.He was born in Rouen, France, the son of a clerk in the court of Rouen. His educational background is unknown. In 1664–1665 he made observations of comets, and argued in favor of their following elliptical or parabolic orbits...
for mathematics and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli was a Renaissance Italian physiologist, physicist, and mathematician. He contributed to the modern principle of scientific investigation by continuing Galileo's custom of testing hypotheses against observation...
for astronomy.