Philibert de l'Orme
architect; b. about 1515; d. January 8, 1570.
De l'Orme's father was Jehan de l'Orme, architect at Lyons, France. Berty supposes that he was related to Pierre and Toussaint Delorme, master masons at Gaillon. Various passages in his works point to 1515 as about the date of his birth. He went to Rome at nineteen or twenty, and in 1534 became a protégé of the learned Marcellus Cervinus, who was elected Pope in 1555 as Marcellus II. He was also employed by Paul III (Pope, 1534- 1549) at S. Martino del Bosco in Calabria. In 1536 de l'Orme returned to Lyons with the famous General Guillaume du Bellay and his brother, Jean du Bellay, the cardinal. The portal of S. Nizier at Lyons is ascribed to him. He followed the Cardinal du Bellay to Paris and began for him the château of Saint-Maur-les-Fosses. In 1546 he entered the royal service charged with the inspection of fortresses in Brittany, and distinguished himself by defending the city of Brest against the English. January 29, 1548, he was designated architecte du roy and April 3 was appointed inspecteur des bâtiments royaux at Fontainebleau, Saint-Germain, etc. He also directed the manufacture of tapestry at Fontainebleau. Becoming the preferred architect of Henri II and Diane de Poitiers, he was endowed by them with the benefices of five abbeys having a revenue of 6000 livres, and September 5, 1550, was made a canon of Notre Dame (Paris). After the death of Henri II (July 10, 1559) he was superseded in the office of inspecteur by Primaticcio. He retained his benefices, however, and his will, published in the Archives de l'art français, shows a considerable fortune. The palace of the Tuileries was begun by de l'Orme in 1564 under the personal direction of the queen dowager, Catherine de' Medici (b. 1519; d. 1589). His design contemplated an immense rectangle 188 m. long by 118 m. wide. Of this only the garden front was built, and of this front only the central pavilion with its connecting wings was by de l'Orme. His work was almost entirely remodelled by Jacques Lemercier, Louis Levau, and d'Orbay in the reign of Louis XIV, and by the architects of Napoleon III. The palace was destroyed by the commune on the night of May 23-24, 1871. The château of Anet was the chief glory of Philibert de l'Orme. An inscription over the main portal dates the work between 1548 and 1552. The château was spared by the Revolution, but was sold February 1, 1798 for 3,200,000 francs without its movables. Much of the architectural decoration was bought for the government by Alexandre Lenoir, assisted by Napoleon Bonaparte, then first consul. The portal of the main building stands now in the court of the Écoles des Beaux Arts in Paris. The palace was then broken up for building material, except the left wing, partially restored in 1828. The chapel was restored by A. N. Caristie and reopened September 3, 1851. The tomb of François I at Saint-Denis is the only work of de l'Orme which is now intact. The architecture is ascribed to him exclusively in the Comptes des bâtiments du roi. He became superintendent at Fontainebleau after the death of François I and in the Salle du Bal substituted a fine ceiling of wood for the vault projected by Gilles le Breton. At the château of Monceaux he first used the couverture à la Philibert de l'Orme, a method of building wooden roofs which substituted for single heavy beams planks bolted together "so that the junction in each case took place upon the centre of the piece by which it was doubled.". There is a record of a contract with him dated January 27, 1557, for the construction of the bridge and gallery at Chenonceau. In 1561 de l'Orme published, avec privilège du roi (Charles IX), Nouvelles inventions pour bien bastir et a petite fraiz, etc., and in 1567, Le premier tome de l'architecture, etc., dedicated to Catherine de' Medici. The second volume never appeared. In 1858 M. Leopold Delisle discovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale a manuscript entitled Instruction de Monsieur d'Ivry dict De l'Orme, a personal defence of about 1560 which throws much light upon his career. It is printed in Berty, Les grands architectes français.
1870
Pirro Ligorio (Ligori), (Pyrrho, incorrectly Piero)
architect, engineer, and archæologist; b. c.1510; d. October 30, 1583.
Pirro Ligorio was a Neapolitan architect who entered the service of Paul IV (Pope 1555-1559), and was probably employed on S. Peter's under Michelangelo. He continued the construction of the Belvedere at the Vatican, and commenced during the reign of Paul IV the famous villa of the Vatican gardens which was finished under Pius IV (Pope 1559- 1565), and from him received the name Villa Pia (finished 1561). Ligorio saved the vault of the Sistine chapel by building buttresses and strengthening foundations. He built the Palazzo Lancellotti in the Piazza Navoua, Rome. September 1, 1564, he was associated with Vignola in the superintendence of the construction of S. Peter's church. In 1568 he entered the service of Alfonso II d'Esté at Ferrara, where he died. The manuscripts of his intended work, L'Antichità di Roma, came into the possession of Emmanuele I, of Savoy. Thirty volumes are still in the library at Turin; others are in Naples, at the Vatican, at Windsor, the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and elsewhere. Ligorio's manuscripts contain numerous important drawings of antique monuments which have disappeared. They contain also thousands of inscriptions (3000 from Rome and vicinity alone) which are deliberately forged or falsified. These inscriptions have drifted into the various compilations, to the perpetual annoyance of scholars and epigraphists. Those which are printed in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinorum are marked with an asterisk.
Laurent Regnauldin
sculptor; d. about 1570.
A sculptor of Florentine origin, whose name figures in the accounts of the château of Fontainebleau from 1534 to 1550. In 1541 he was associated with Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon in the construction of the choir screen (jubé) of the church of S. Germain 1'Auxerrois in Paris. In 1564 he was employed on the monument of Henri II at S. Denis.
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Tullio Lombardo, San Salvatore (Venice: 1506-34).
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