Stamatis Voulgaris was the first urban planner

Urban planning

Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....

 of modern Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. He was born in Lefkimmi

Lefkimmi

Lefkimmi is a town and a former municipality on the island of Corfu, Ionian Islands, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corfu, of which it is a municipal unit. Its land area is 50.819 km² and its population was 6,704 at the 2001 census. Lefkimmi is the...

 (1779) in the island of Corfu

Corfu

Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...

.

An interesting incident led him to his decision to become an urban planner. During the Russian-Turkish siege (1799), the San Giacomo theater of Corfu was in peril of fire when a cannon

Cannon

A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...

 ball that hadn't exploded landed next to him. Young Voulgaris immediately grabbed the fuse eliminating the danger. He thus saved the theater as well as a whole French military detachment which was passing nearby carrying heavy weaponry and ammunition. The French, in order to honor his bravery, enlisted him in the guard, and when they left, the young man followed them to Paris, where he studied urban planning. He excelled in engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

 and painting.

He designed the city of Patras

Patras

Patras , ) is Greece's third largest urban area and the regional capital of West Greece, located in northern Peloponnese, 215 kilometers west of Athens...

and the central square.

Books

• "Notice sur le Comte Capodistrias de la Grece"
• "Ηθοπλαστική μελέτη" (Study on didactism)
• "Αναμνήσεις" (Memories)