University of Virginia Library

46. Fréart de Chambray, Roland.

PARALLELE / DE / L'ARCHITECTURE / ANTIQUE / AVEC LA
MODERNE, / Suivant les dix principaux Auteurs / qui ont écrit
sur les cinq Ordres. / Par MM. ERRARD & DE CHAMBRAY. /
NOUVELLE EDITION / Augmentée des Piedestaux pour les cinq
Ordres, / suivant les mêmes Auteurs, & du Parallel de / M. Errard avec
M. Perrault, &c. / Par CHARLES-ANTOINE JOMBERT. / A PARIS,
RUE DAUPHINE, / Chez L'AUTEUR, Libraire du Roi pour l'Artillerie
/ & le Génie, à l'Image Notre-Dame. / M. DCC. LXVI. / Avec
Approbation & Privilege du Roi.

8vo. Engraved frontispiece ([ii]); title page ([iii]); note ([v]-vii); preface
(viii-xvi); table of contents (xvii-xx); text, with 63 engraved plates
inserted ([1]-132); glossary (133-39).

Roland Fréart, sieur de Chambray (d. ca. 1676), was born at Le Mans.
He studied architecture in Italy where he knew Poussin. The Parallèle,
1650, was his first work. After that he translated the Quatre livres d'architecture
de Palladio, 1651, and Leonardo da Vinci's Treatise of Painting
(see No. 72), and issued the Idée de la perfection de la peinture (Le
Mans, 1662) and the Perspective d'Euclid (Le Mans, 1663).

Charles Errard (1606-89) was the son of an elder Charles Errard,
a painter, architect, and engraver. The younger Charles studied in Rome
where he met Fréart. He took an early interest in the establishment of
the French academies in both Paris and Rome and became the first director
of the one at Rome. He, too, was both a painter and an architect,
but of his many works only a small drawing of Fréart has survived.

The first (1650) edition of the Parallèle was in folio with plates
which were very baroque, the heads in the triglyphs of the Doric of Diocletion
having their hair arranged in a seventeenth-century fashion rather
like the contemporary wigs, for example. It was issued again in 1689
and 1702 using the 1650 engravings. In 1733 it was translated into
English by John Evelyn.

This edition was issued by Charles Antoine Jombert (1712-84), a
Parisian author-publisher who was most knowledgeable in matters of
mathematics, architecture, and iconography and who issued many reprints
of earlier architectural works. The Parallèle in his edition (1766)
was the fourth book in a collection entitled Bibliothèque portative d'architecture
élémentaire, à l'usage des artistes (Paris, 1764-66). Although six
parts were planned, only four volumes were published. The other three

volumes were: 1. Règles des cinq ordres d' architecture, by Giacomo Barrozzio
da Vignola (No. 123a); 2. Architecture de Palladio (no. 91); and
3. Oeuvres d'architecture de Vincent Scamozzi (No. 111c).

Jombert said in his note:

No less than twenty-five plates were added to this edition.

Kimball (p. 94) says Jefferson acquired his copy of the Parallèle
sometime after 1789. Its influence on Jefferson needs further investigation.
Not only had he used Plates 2, 3, 4, and 5 at Monticello, according
to inscriptions in his own hand on each of those plates in his own copy,
which has survived at the Library of Congress, but the book's orders
may be traced in at least six of the pavilions at the University of Virginia,
two of them directly and the other four indirectly.

On the reverse of Jefferson's drawing for Pavilion I (see Plate
XXXVI), executed sometime between May 1817 and July 8, 1819, is inscribed
in his hand "No. I. the Doric of Diocletion's baths. Chambray."
Similar wording also appears in his manuscript notebook, called "Operations
at & for the College" (p. 25, U. Va. Library). The plate in the
Parallèle (facing p. 27) illustrating this order is labeled "Ordre Dorique:
Au Termes de Diocletien à Rome" (see Plate XXXVII). Chambray
has this to say about the order: "ce profil est d'une si noble composition
& si régulier, qu'il ne cede en rien au précédent: enfin quoique les
propriétés spécifiques de cet Ordre soient d'être simple & solide, néamoins
les ornemens y sont si judicieusement appliqués sur chaque membre,
qu'il conservent l'une sans blesser l'autre" (p. 27).

Although Jefferson on his drawing for Pavilion VIII (see Plate
XXXVIII), executed between June 12 and June 27, 1819, said only "Pavilion

No. VIII. East. Corinthian of Diocletian's Baths" and used similar
wording on page 19 of "Operations at & for the College," he wrote in a
letter of specifications to Thomas Appleton, the American consul at Leghorn,
on April 16, 1821:

The plate in the Parallèle (facing p. 80) illustrating this is labeled
"Ordre Corinthien: Des Termes de Diocletien" (see Plate XXXIX).
Fréart de Chambray says: "Après cet example Corinthien il ne faut plus
rien chercher de riche dans l'Architecture, mais il n'appartient qu'aux
judicieux de le mettre en oeuvre, car l'abondance des ornemens n'est pas
toujour estimable ni avantageuse à un édifice. . . . Il ne faut jamais en
faire de profusion, parce qu'ils . . . sont naître entre les membres une
confusion qui blesse l'oeil des savans & qui est antipathique au nom
d'Ordre. On ne doit donc l'employer qu'aux grands ouvrages publics"
(p. 79).

The evidence for the other four pavilions is not quite so direct, yet
it would seem fairly safe to assume Fréart de Chambray served as a
precedent.

On his drawing for Pavilion IV (see Plate XL), executed between
June 12 and June 27, 1819, and again on page 17 of the "Operations at &
for the College," Jefferson noted "Pavilion No. IV. East. Doric of Albano."
Facing page 28 of the Parallèle there is a plate labeled "Ordre
Dorique: A Albane pres de Rome" (see Plate XLI). Fréart de Chambray
says of the order:

Plate XXXVI. Jefferson's drawing for Pavilion I, University of Virginia (N-355).

Plate XXXVII. From No. 46. "Ordre Dorique: Au Termes de Diocletien à Rome"
(Pl. 3).

Plate XXXVIII. Jefferson's drawing for Pavilion VIII (N-325).

Plate XXXIX. From No. 46. "Ordre Corinthien: Des Termes de Diocletien" (Pl.
33).

Plate XL. Jefferson's drawing for Pavilion IV, University of Virginia (N-322).

Plate XLI. From No. 46. "Ordre Dorique: A Albane pres de Rome" (Pl. 4).

Plate XLII. Jefferson's drawing for Pavilion VI (N-324).

Plate XLIII. From No. 46. "Order Ionique: Du Theatre de Marcellus a Rome"
(Pl. 16).

Plate XLIV. Jefferson's drawing for Pavilion VII, University of Virginia (N-311).

Plate XLV. From No. 46. "Ordre Dorique: Palladio [and] Scamozzi" (Pl. 5).

Plate XLVI. Jefferson's drawing for Pavilion X, University of Virginia (N-326).

Plate XLVII. From No. 46. "Ordre Dorique: Au Theatre de Marcellus a Rome"
(Pl. 2).

On his drawing for Pavilion VI (see Plate XLII), made between
June 12 and June 27, 1819, and again on page 21 of the "Operations at
& for the College," Jefferson notes "Pavilion No. VI. East. Ionic of the
theatre of Marcellus." Facing page 50 of the Parallèle there is a plate
labeled "Ordre Ionique: Du Theatre de Marcellus a Rome" (see Plate
XLIII). Fréart de Chambray says: "j'ai considéré depuis que la grandeur
de l'entablement, jointe à sa simplicité extraordinaire, étoit un effet
particulier de la discrétion de l'Architecte, lequel voulant placer cet
Ordre en un très grand édifice, & de plus en un lieu fort élevé" (p. 50).

On his drawing for Pavilion VII (see Plate XLIV), made between
May and June 23-28, 1817, Jefferson noted "Pavilion No. VII. w. Doric
Palladio." Although Plate XVI, Book I, of Leoni's Palladio (No. 92b)
shows this order, it is drawn with ox skulls in the metopes, whereas the
frieze of Pavilion VII is without ox skulls. It would seem, then, that the
plate facing page 30 of the Parallèle labeled "Ordre Dorique: Palladio"
(see Plate XLV), which is labeled in Jefferson's own hand in his copy at
the Library of Congress as having been used in the dining room at Monticello,
and which is without ox skulls, might very well have been the
model for Pavilion VII.

And finally, the drawing for Pavilion X (see Plate XLVI), made
between June 12 and June 27, 1819, and page 23 of "Operations at & for
the College" have the notation in Jefferson's hand, "Pavilion No. X. East.
Doric of the Theatre of Marcellus." Facing page 26 of the Parallèle there
is a plate labeled "Ordre Dorique: Au Theatre de Marcellus a Rome"
(see Plate XLVII).

From the comparative wording, the descriptions of the appropriate
uses for these orders, and the uses to which Jefferson put them, as well
as his previous use of Fréart de Chambray's plates as proved by his own
notes on them in the Library of Congress copy, it would seem that they
were more than probably the precedent for the orders for Pavilions IV,
VI, and X, and very possibly for Pavilion VII.

The Parallèle is also one of the few architectural books which Jefferson
replaced in his own library after his earlier collection had been
sold to Congress. He had been well aware before that sale that the Parallèle
formed only one of four parts in the Bibliothéque portative, as the
correspondence in Sowerby shows, and after that sale he managed to obtain
all four parts, which were still in his library at the time of his death.
They were sold as lot 723 in the 1829 sale.

Jefferson ordered the complete multivolume set for the University
in the section on "Architecture" of the want list, but there is no record of
the library's having acquired it. The copy of the Parallèle in the library

at the present time is a recent acquisition, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson
Memorial Foundation.

U. Va.

*NA2810.F8.1766

M

Sowerby 4216