Page - 504 - in Jacopo Strada and Cultural Patronage at the Imperial Court - The Antique as Innovation, Volume 1

Chapter 9504 Dammartin, ‘homme fort amateur de l’architecture’ according to Du Cerceau. It was probably designed by the patron himself and/or his close friend, the Pléiade poet Etienne Jodelle [Fig. 9.101]. Another instance is the central sec- tion of the facade of the Château de Saint-Maur, originally built for Cardinal Jean du Bellay, Archbishop of Paris, by his protégé Philibert de l’Orme, but later adapted by Cathérine de Médicis for her son Charles ix [Fig. 9.102]. Its coupled rustic pilasters supporting the two superior arcades are of particular relevance in this context, since they carry arches instead of a straight entablature.107 In any case none of these possible precedents can compare in scale with the col- onnade on coupled columns as realized at the Neugebäude, nor was it equalled until the construction of Claude Perrault’s celebrated east facade of the Louvre, a century later.108 Moreover, the concept of a continuing series of paired col- umns or pilasters carrying arches instead of architraves makes it unique: I have not been able to find one single earlier example, and even later it is a relatively rare phenomenon.109 107 On the Hôtel d Assézat, cf. Rosci/Brizio 1966, p. 50; on Saint-Maur, see Androuet Du Cer- ceau/Thomson 1988, pp. 226–233; on Verneuil, ibidem, pp. 118–139. The recent paper by Sabine Frommel is relevant to this argument [Frommel 2013]. 108 Perrault, who had earlier published his learned translation and commentary of Vitruvius, devoted some space to the coupled column, defending its use against critics who con- demned it as unknown in ancient architecture; a full discussion in Berger 1993, pp. 94–99, appendix B: ‘The Coupled Columns Debate’. 109 Later examples are, for instance, the logge at the end facades of the Palazzo del Principe in Genoa and, significantly, Ippolito Pedemonte’s galleries surrounding the Giardino Pen- sile at the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua of the 1570s: since the Duchess was Maximilian’s sister, this is probably a conscious citation of the Neugebäude. Figures 9.99–9.100 Sebastiano Serlio, rustic portico, featuring coupled Tuscan columns and a design for a courtyard facade in the Corinthian order, both from the Quarto Libro, proposals xii and lvii.