Engraving Plan of a Roman Theater

In 1665, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister to Louis XIV, commissioned Claude Perrault to produce a new French edition of Vitruvius's *De architectura*. This ancient treatise is one of the foundational texts of French architectural theory, and Colbert hoped that the Royal Academy of Architecture, which...

In 1665, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister to Louis XIV, commissioned Claude Perrault to produce a new French edition of Vitruvius's *De architectura*. This ancient treatise is one of the foundational texts of French architectural theory, and Colbert hoped that the Royal Academy of Architecture, which he had founded just two years earlier, would benefit from it. This new edition was ultimately published in ten volumes, illustrated with 64 engravings. Plan of a Roman Theater is one of the many examples of engraved plates featured in Perrault's edition. The precision of the lines and the accuracy of the architectural forms depicted illustrate the work's academic and scientific purpose.