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Antoine Desgodetz (b. Nov 1653; d. Paris, May 1728) was both an architect and theorist. He figures as a draughtsman of plans in the Comptes des Batiments du Roi from the age of 16.He may have taken part in the competition to invent a French order of architecture in 1672, before being sent to Rome on a royal bursary. He spent his two-year stay there recording ancient architecture. On his return, at the request of Jean-Baptiste Colbert he published this, his first work, "Les Edifices antiques de Rome". For this work he was formally congratulated by the Academie and rewarded with the sum of 2,000 livres. Claude Perrault used the variations noted by Desgodetz in the proportions of the Classical orders as a basis for his theory that the canons of the orders were subject to free interpretation.The Edifices Antiques was reprinted in 1779, and Desgodetz.s work is today regarded as the beginning of modern scientific study of the classical orders of architecture. |
