Villard de Honnecourt

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Self-portrait (?) of Villard de Honnecourt from The Portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt (about 1230)

Villard de Honnecourt lived in 13th century France and may have been an itinerant master-builder of Picardy in northern France. His fame rests entirely on his surviving portfolio of 33 sheets of parchment (animal skin) containing about 250 drawings from about the 1230s, which is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (MS Fr 19093). It appears to be a model-book, with a wide range of religious and secular figures suitable for sculpture, and architectural plans, elevations and details, ecclesiastical objects and mechanical devices, with copious annotations. Other subjects such as animals and human figures also appear.

Perpetuum Mobile of Villard de Honnecourt (about 1230).

Among the devices Villard sketched is a perpetual-motion machine, a mill-driven saw, a number of automata, one of which depicts a simple escapement mechanism, the first known in the west, lifting devices, war engines as well as a number of anatomical, architectural and geometric sketches for portraiture and architecture.

Villard apparently traveled through many of the cathedral building-sites in 13th century France and recorded in his sketchbook in great detail work in construction. Of particular interest are drawings of the Laon cathedral bell towers and the Reims cathedral nave being built, which provide a valuable clue for building techniques of High Gothic architecture.