Julien-David Le Roy

Stuart and Revett were researching Athens since 1748[1] but Le Roy had an advantage in accessing the ruins due to good relations between France and the Ottoman Empire.

[2] Le Roy's studies, supported by Comte de Caylus and his art circle, recruited the finest engravers and architects to produce illustrations, and became sort of a national project for the pre-revolutionary France.

[3] Le Roy's success alienated not only the Britons who harshly attacked his book and theories but also Piranesi who considered the Frenchman a threat to his national pride and, worse, means of subsistence.

[7] Le Roy directly advised Soufflot on the philosophy and history of architecture and provided a classic single-sheet scheme of principal Christian church types, solving the problem of marrying the dome with cross-shaped floorplan.

[8] An important correspondence with him is conserved in Poitiers (France), published in 2020 in Le Journal des Savants, the oldest scientist review in Europe (17th century).