Jacques Perret (c. 1540–1610) was a French

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

in the service of the Catholic King

Henry IV of France Henry IV (; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry (''le Bon Roi Henri'') or Henry the Great (''Henri le Grand''), was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 16 ...

. He was a

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...

, from the

Savoie Savoie (; Arpitan: ''Savouè'' or ''Savouè-d'Avâl''; English: ''Savoy'' ) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Southeastern France. Located in the French Alps, its prefecture is Chambéry. In 2019, Savoie had a population o ...

. In July 1601, he published a sequence of 22 plates, engraved by Thomas de Leu, and a textual commentary, ''Des Fortifications et Artifices Architecture et Perspective''. Perret offered his work, a series of ideal city plans with fortifications, to the service of the king. The plans themselves are unremarkable as descendants of the Italian Renaissance penchant for radially symmetrical city design (e.g.

Filarete Antonio di Pietro Aver(u)lino (; – ), known as Filarete (; from , meaning "lover of excellence"), was a Florentine Renaissance architect, sculptor, medallist, and architectural theorist. He is perhaps best remembered for his design of the ide ...

's ''Sforzinda''); what makes Perret's work noteworthy is the compulsive ornamentation of the city walls with biblical quotes, particularly from the psalms. His closest French Protestant predecessor was

Bernard Palissy Bernard Palissy (; c. 1510c. 1589) was a Huguenot, French Huguenot pottery, potter, Hydraulics, hydraulics engineer and craftsman, famous for having struggled for sixteen years to imitate Chinese porcelain. He is best known for his so-called "rus ...

, better known for his work in ceramics, who includes a similar city in an appendix to his 1563 ''Recette véritable,'' a garden based on the psalms. Perret's choice of texts also favors the psalms, reinforcing his identity as a Protestant. One statement that shows up repeatedly is, "In God alone is there repose and true happiness," implying that worldly fortifications are useless even against worldly dangers. Several inscriptions carry variations on the theme of the king as God's delegated punisher of evil and protector of the good, an idea with a personal stake for the Calvinist Perret in a Catholic and often hostile France.

References

17th-century French architects French Protestants Huguenots Prix Interallié winners {{France-architect-stub 1540s births 1610s deaths