PERRAULT, CLAUDE, a celebrated architect, was born at Paris in the year 1613. His father, an advocate of the parliament, caused him to study medicine, anatomy, and the mathematics; and he even took the degree of doctor of physic in the faculty of Paris. But Colbert, the celebrated French minister, having advised him to undertake a translation of Vitruvius, the studies in which he found it necessary to engage in order to understand that writer inspired him with a decided taste for architecture, and gave a new direction to his pursuits. When the Academy of Sciences was established, in 1666, Perrault was admitted a member of this body, and was employed to furnish designs and building-plans for the Observatory. But this edifice, which, with all its merits, is in a heavy style, was far from giving any indication of the talents which Perrault afterwards displayed. His grand work is the palace of the Louvre, the façade of which was designed by him, and is certainly one of the noblest monuments of architecture in the world. The building had been commenced, and even part of the façade raised according to the designs of Laval. But Colbert, dissatisfied with these, which he justly considered as deficient in grandeur, and unsuitable to the nature of the subject, appealed to the genius of other architects; and Perrault produced a design so superior to those of his competitors, that it immediately obtained a decided preference. Nevertheless, before commencing the work, the king wished to have the ideas of the best artists of Italy; and with this view, Bernini, who then enjoyed a great reputation, both as a sculptor and an architect, was sent for from Rome, and received in France with the greatest distinction. But the pre-eminent merit of Perrault was, notwithstanding, fully recognised; his plans were adopted by the court, although objections had been strenuously urged as to the practicability of their execution; and a model constructed by the artist himself at length removed every doubt on the subject, by proving that the difficulties raised were altogether imaginary, and that the solidity of the fabric might be rendered commensurate with the beauty of the design. Such were the preliminaries of the erection of this monument, which may justly be regarded as the masterpiece of French architecture, and the finest edifice that exists in Paris. Perrault furnished designs for other works, particularly the triumphal arch erected at the extremity of the Rue Saint-Antoine, the foundation-stone of which was laid on the 6th of August 1670; and, in all his works, he displayed that superiority of genius, which was first exhibited in his translation of Vitruvius, particularly in the plates with which it was enriched, and which have ever been considered as masterpieces of their kind. The first edition of this work appeared in 1673, and the second in 1684, in one volume folio; after which the translator published an abridgement in one volume 12mo. To the same author we are likewise indebted for another work, entitled Ordonnances des Cinq Espèces de Colonnes selon la Méthode des Anciens, in one volume folio, forming a kind of supplement to the translation of Vitruvius, and containing explanations of several points which had not been touched upon in the notes to that work. Of his other productions the principal are, 1. Essais de Physique, 1680-1688, in two vols. 4to, and four vols. 12mo; 2. Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire
Naturelle des Animaux, Paris, 1671-1676, in folio; 3. Recueil d'un grand Nombre des Machines de son Invention, for raising and transporting the heaviest weights, Paris, 1700, in one vol. 4to. Claude Perrault assisted his brother Charles in preparing the memoirs relating to the establishment of the Academy of Sciences, and that of Painting and Sculpture, and took a warm interest in the success of that institution. He died at Paris, on the 9th of October 1688, in consequence, it is believed, of having wounded himself whilst dissecting, in the Jardin du Roi, a camel which had died of some contagious disease; and the faculty of medicine caused his portrait to be placed amongst those of their most distinguished members. (A.)