Acknowledgments

Ballon, Hilary

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Acknowledgments

Hilary Ballon

Louis Le Vau: Mazarin’s Collège, Colbert’s Revenge

~~IT IS A PLEASURE TO ACKNOWLEDGE the friends and colleagues who helped improve this book in concrete ways. I am indebted to Philip Benedict, Joseph Bergin, Richard Brilliant, Richard Cleary, Joseph Connors, and Sarah McPhee, who read the manuscript in whole or in part; their insights, corrections, and suggestions were...

Author

Hilary Ballon

PublisherPrinceton University Press

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00077.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19124

Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the friends and colleagues who helped improve this book in concrete ways. I am indebted to Philip Benedict, Joseph Bergin, Richard Brilliant, Richard Cleary, Joseph Connors, and Sarah McPhee, who read the manuscript in whole or in part; their insights, corrections, and suggestions were enormously valuable and made the writing of this book a learning process to the very end. For their help in unraveling historical puzzles, answering queries, reacting to my thoughts, and providing advice, my thanks go to James Ackerman, Nicholas Adams, Christy Anderson, Robert Berger, Giuseppe Dardanello, Elizabeth Easton, Pierre Force, Alice Jarrard, Susan Klaiber, Polly Maguire, Tod Marder, Claude Mignot, John Pinto, Orest Ranum, Victoria Sanger, John Beldon Scott, Peter Smith, Cathryn Steeves, Katherine Tachau, Patrice de Vogüé, and Carol Willis. The doctoral students whom I have been privileged to teach at Columbia University and my colleagues in the Department of Art History and Archaeology gave me the opportunity to present work in progress and enriched my work in significant ways. I do, indeed, feel fortunate to be part of this community of scholars.

Research for this book was undertaken mostly in the Archives Nationales, the Bibliothèque de l’Institut, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. I thank the many conservators and archivists in those institutions who facilitated my work. Writing began during a year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where Irving Lavin created a tremendously stimulating environment.

It is my good fortune to work with Patricia Fidler, Curtis Scott, and Elizabeth Steiner at Princeton University Press; I am grateful for their attentiveness, efficiency, and editorial skill. A word of thanks as well to the Graham Foundation and the Millard Meiss Publication Fund of the College Art Association for the publication subventions they granted this book.

Finally, the contribution of my family, which was not at all concrete: it was impalpable, pervasive, and essential. I am incomparably blessed to be the mother of Sophie and Charles and to journey through life with Orin Kramer, my husband, to whom I dedicate this book.

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BOOKLouis Le Vau: Mazarin’s Collège, Colbert’s Revenge

Hilary Ballon

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00077

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-19122

From Vaux-le-Vicomte to Versailles, the buildings of Louis Le Vau shaped the image of French court society. None, however, has had as dramatic an effect as Mazarin's Collège (1661–70), the Parisian landmark that now houses the Institut de France. In this first English-language book on Louis XIV's celebrated architect, Hilary Ballon deftly portrays the brilliance and controversy of Le Vau's late career through an exploration of this masterpiece, a hybrid of baroque and classical styles. She tracks the design and construction of the Collège on the basis of splendid drawings, fully illustrated here, integrating into this account previously unknown dimensions of Le Vau's creative personality, his financial entanglements, and his feuds with government leaders.

The story of the Collège begins in 1661 with the death of Cardinal Mazarin, who left an extravagant sum of money for a school to be built in his memory. Le Vau responded with an ambitious architectural tribute intended to launch the development of Paris in a new artistic direction. As Ballon shows, many personal factors figured into the final product, including Le Vau's activities as a real estate developer and entrepreneur, and his explosive response to the Italian baroque master Gianlorenzo Bernini, who visited Paris in 1665. The project ended up significantly over budget, and officials charged Le Vau shortly after his death with embezzling funds. The chief minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, led the attack on Le Vau, turning the ethical scandal into an aesthetic crusade to maintain a "classical" look for central Paris.

By relating the intriguing context in which the Collège was created, Ballon explains why traditional definitions of the baroque and classical styles have failed to offer a cohesive understanding of the building. Her examination of the elements informing Le Vau's personal style and his relationship with Colbert brings into sharper focus the phenomenon of royal patronage and opens a new perspective on the development of French classicism at a turning point in Parisian architectural history.

Author

Hilary Ballon

PublisherPrinceton University Press

Print publication date September 1999 (out of print)

Print ISBN 9780691048956

EISBN 9780300251692

Illustrations 109

Print Status out of print

Publisher (out of print)

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