Claude Chastillon

Claude Chastillon or Chatillon (1559 or 1560 – 27 April 1616) was a French architect, military and civil engineer, and topographical draughtsman, who served under Henry IV of France. His most notable work, Topographie françoise, published posthumously in 1641, is a collection of 500 views of French towns and buildings and constitutes a unique, if partial, historical account of French topography and architecture at the beginning of the 17th century.

Life and career Chastillon was born in Châlons-en-Champagne.

In the 1580s Chastillon became a part of the military retinue of Henry of Navarre (as Henry IV was known before he became king of France in 1589). In 1591 Henry made Chastillon the Royal Topographer (Topographe du Roi), a post that at the time was otherwise unknown, and in 1595, a Royal Engineer (Ingénieur du Roi), a post established in the early 16th century which identified a member of a corps responsible for military fortifications, the mechanics of besiegement, and hydraulics. In 1616 Chastillon died in Paris without having published the bulk of his collection of drawings. Chastillon had produced an expert evaluation for the completion of the lighthouse for Henry IV's minister, the Duke of Sully in 1606. The plates were reordered alphabetically by name, but some of the views lacking titles were misidentified.

The errors of the 1648 and 1655 editions and the tendency of the drawings to exaggerate the sizes of buildings, as well as the coarse quality of many of the engravings, have led some historians to discount the accuracy and utility of Topographie françoise. Unfortunately Chastillon's original drawings have been lost. Nevertheless, Françoise Boudon has argued that an examination of the work reveals that "Chastillon's topographical approach (his search for the best viewpoint, the measurement of distances, the pinpointing of characteristic features of the terrain and distinctive features of building etc)" ... has made it "apparent that these engravings, far from being whimsical and useless images, constitute the pages of a precise 'report' on France in the early 17th century."

The Topographie is a rare book with only about 15 extant copies, including all editions.

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