Though Claude Perrault (Paris, 25 September 1613 - Paris, p October 1688) is best known as the architect of the eastern range of the Louvre Palace in Paris (see Perrault’s Colonnade), he also achieved success as physician and anatomist, and as an author, who wrote treatises on physics and natural history .
Aside from his influential architecture, Perrault is best regarded for his translation of the ten books of Vitruvius, the only surviving Roman...
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Though Claude Perrault (Paris, 25 September 1613 - Paris, p October 1688) is best known as the architect of the eastern range of the Louvre Palace in Paris (see Perrault’s Colonnade), he also achieved success as physician and anatomist, and as an author, who wrote treatises on physics and natural history .
Aside from his influential architecture, Perrault is best regarded for his translation of the ten books of Vitruvius, the only surviving Roman work on architecture, into French, done at the instigation of Colbert, and published, with Perrault's annotations, in 1673. His treatise on the five classical orders of architecture followed in 1683. As physician and physicist with a degree of doctor from the University of Paris, Perrault became one of the first members of the French Academy of Sciences when it was founded in 1666.
In the competition for the new range of building for the Louvre he was successful over all rivals, even Bernini, who had traveled from Italy expressly for the...
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