Le voyage en France des architectes et fonctionnaires des bâtiments du Saint-Empire : son importance dans les parcours et titres professionnels

Abstract

Although Italy had been the most popular destination for architects seeking an education since the 16th century, after the Thirty Years’ War France became increasingly important, and ended up taking over this mantle in the second half of the 18th century. This essay sets out to give a more precise picture of these developments and to briefly present the statistical method deployed in the analysis of 409 biographies of architects active in the states of the Holy Roman Empire at the beginning of the modern period. It should be noted that those who visited France usually contented themselves with visiting Paris. (Similarly, in Italy it was above all Rome that interested German visitors, with Venice rarely featuring in their itineraries.) In this essay, we will attempt to show that an interest in art and architecture was not the sole reason for their voyages. In fact, these foreign trips – be they to France, Italy or the Netherlands – seem to have had a positive effect on architects’ careers during the Holy Roman Empire. This observation is clearly borne out by the statistics. Another eloquent sign of France’s increasingly exemplary status was the adoption of French names to refer to civil servants of certain public building administrations, in particular those of Saxe and Brandenburg-Prussia. Nevertheless – as our last part shows – that does not mean that the people concerned were assigned the same functions as they were in France. Evidence of this can be seen in the missions entrusted, during the Holy Roman Empire, to the ‘Director’, the ‘Intendant’ and, above all, the ‘Civil Engineer’.

Keywords

• German architects
• educational tour
• journey preparation
• sights of interest
• cultural transfer
• building officers