Biography of Claude Perrault (1613-1688)

Claude Perrault (see his calculating device) was born in Paris on September, 25th, 1613 in the wealthy bourgeois family of a parisian advocate—Pierre Perrault and his wife Paquette Le Clerc. Perrault was a numerous and famous parisian family—Pierre Perrault-the father, was an advocate at the Parlement de Paris. Claude Perrault had a sister-Marie, who died as a child, and 4 brothers—Jean (1609-1669), an advocate; Pierre (1611-1680), a hydrologist, lawyer, and receiver general of finances in Paris; Nicolas (1624-1662), a doctor of theology in Sorbonne; and the youngest—Charles (1628-1703), who is the world renowned author of the fairly tales like Cinderella and The Sleeping Beauty.

Perrault was educated at the prestigious Collège de Beauvais and then studied medicine at the University of Paris. He received his bachelor's degree in 1639 and two years later received his master degree.

After graduation he started a career as a doctor of medicine and later on became a leader of a group of anatomists, who undertook dissections and descriptions of various animals. He proposed two theories, concerning the circulation of sap in plants and embryonic growth from preformed germs. These theories were highly influential in his lifetime and for many years thereafter. In 1681 he began publishing of an all-embracing natural philosophy, which comprehended his researches in anatomy, various aspects of animal and plant physiology, and acoustics. In his longest essay he explained sound as an agitation of air, rather than by the concept of sound waves.

After twenty years of practicing medicine, Claude turned his attention to architecture and now he is best known as the one of the architects of the eastern facade of the Louvre (see the photo bellow), known as the Colonnade, built between 1665 and 1680 and cited everywhere as a example of the classicistic phase of the French baroque style. Perrault’s architectural career was actually inspired by the translation he had started of the ten books of Vitruvius (published in 1673), the only surviving Roman work on architecture, into french language. When King Louis XIV decided to rebuild the Louvre in the 1660’s, Perrault collaborated with the famous architects Louis Le Vau, Charles Le Brun and Francois d’Orbay to submit a worthy design for competition, and his design was selected. Perrault’s architecture projects include also several other building in Paris—the observatory of the Académie, the church of St-Benoît-le-Bétourné, the church of Ste-Geneviève, the altar in the Church of the Little Fathers, a triumphal arch on Rue St-Antoine, the château of Louis XIV's prime minister— Jean Baptiste Colbert, etc.

Eastern facade of the Louvre, known as the Colonnade, designed by Claude Perrault

Claude Perrault became a founding member of the French Academy of Sciences (Académie des Sciences), when it was founded in 1666.

Although he stopped practicing medicine c. 1661, he continued to treat family, friends, and the poor. Besides the calculating device, which is of a particular interesting for us, Perrault designed several other mechanical devices (a pendulum-controlled water clock, a pulley system to rotate the mirror of a reflecting telescope, etc.) and machines to overcome the effects of friction. Many of his machines were used in the Louvre and by 1691 at Les Invalides.

Claude Perrault died of an infection, catch during a dissection of a camel in the Botanical Garden, in Paris on October, 9th, 1688 .