Philibert Delorme

Philibert Delorme, the builder of the château d'Anet in northern France, was one of the first to elevate the architect's status from craftsman to artist. Trained in Rome between 1533 and 1536, he brought back technical knowledge unmatched in France at the time.

For Diane de Poitiers, he built the château d'Anet (1547-1555), his most iconic work. He also worked on the bridge at Chenonceau and, for Catherine de Médicis, on the Tuileries palace.

A theorist as much as a practitioner, he published Les Nouvelles Inventions pour bien bâtir (1561) and later Le Premier Tome de l'Architecture (1567), works that would leave a lasting mark on French Renaissance architecture.