Jean-Baptiste le Rond d'Alembert was a French mathematician, mechanician, physicist, philosopher, and music theorist. Until 1759 he was, together with Denis Diderot, a co-editor of the Encyclopédie. D'Alembert's formula for obtaining solutions to the wave equation is named after him. The wave equation is sometimes referred to as d'Alembert's equation, and the fundamental theorem of algebra is named after d'Alembert in French.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French statesman who served as First Minister of State from 1661 until his death in 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His lasting impact on the organization of the country's politics and markets, known as Colbertism, a doctrine often characterized as a variant of mercantilism, earned him the nickname le Grand Colbert.
The Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture was founded in 1648 in Paris, France. It was the premier art institution of France during the latter part of the Ancien Régime until it was abolished in 1793 during the French Revolution. It included most of the important painters and sculptors, maintained almost total control of teaching and exhibitions, and afforded its members preference in royal commissions.
The 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of the Library of Sir Thomas Browne highlights the erudition of the physician, philosopher and encyclopedist, Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682). It also illustrates the proliferation, distribution and availability of books printed throughout 17th century Europe which were purchased by the intelligentsia, aristocracy, priest, physician and educated merchant-class.
The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the forefront of scientific developments in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, and is one of the earliest Academies of Sciences.
Georges Duhamel was a French author, born in Paris. Duhamel trained as a doctor, and during World War I was attached to the French Army. In 1920, he published Confession de minuit, the first of a series featuring the anti-hero Salavin. In 1935, he was elected as a member of the Académie française. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature twenty-seven times. He was also the father of the musicologist and composer Antoine Duhamel.
Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau, was a French physician, naval engineer and botanist. The standard author abbreviation Duhamel is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.
From the seventeenth century to the early part of the twentieth century, artistic production in France was controlled by artistic academies which organized official exhibitions called salons. In France, academies are institutions and learned societies which monitor, foster, critique and protect French cultural production.
Noël Alexandre, or Natalis Alexander in Latin was a French theologian, author, and ecclesiastical historian.
François Blondel was a soldier, engineer of fortifications, mathematician, diplomat, military and civil engineer and architect, called "the Great Blondel", to distinguish him in a dynasty of French architects. He is remembered for his Cours d'architecture which remained a central text for over a century. His precepts placed him in opposition with Claude Perrault in the larger culture war known under the heading Querelle des anciens et des modernes. If François Blondel was not the most highly reputed among the académiciens of his day, his were the writings that most generally circulated among the general public, the Cours de Mathématiques, the Art de jetter les Bombes, the Nouvelle manière de fortifier les places and, above all his Cours d'Architecture.
Pierre Sylvain Régis (1632–1707) was a French Cartesian philosopher and a prominent critic of Spinoza. Known as a philosopher, he was nominated to the French Academy of Sciences in 1699.
Jacques Nicolas Colbert was a French churchman.
Charles Errard, also known as Charles Errard the Younger, was a French painter, draughtsman, engraver, writer, as well as co-founder and later director of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. He was also the Director of the French Academy in Rome from 1666 to 1672 and again from 1675 to 1684.
Claude Lefèbvre was a French painter and engraver.
Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud was a French writer and translator.
Jean Truchet, known as Father Sébastian, was a French Dominican priest born in Lyon, who lived under the reign of Louis XIV. He was active in areas such as mathematics, hydraulics, graphics, and typography. He is also known for many inventions.
The Bignon Commission was a group directed by the French minister Colbert to examine the feasibility of compiling a description of all the arts and industrial processes used in France. It was headed by Abbé Bignon, who selected the royal typographer Jacques Jaugeon, the scholar Gilles Filleau des Billettes, and Father Sébastien Truchet to assist him. As part of their participation, the three were named to the Academy by King Louis XIV in 1699. The commission reported that the project would be feasible and began by examining French printing and typography, as the "art by which all others are preserved". As part of the project, Jaugeon and Truchet established the first typographic point system, vector fonts, the bitmap, slanted italic type, and the Romain du Roi font, which later developed into Times New Roman.
Ilsetraut Hadot in Berlin, is a philosopher and historian of philosophy who specialised in Stoicism, Neoplatonism and more generally in Ancient Philosophy.
Claude Bourdelin was a French apothecary and a pioneer of iatrochemistry. He was among the first chemists, along with Samuel Cottereau du Clos, to serve in the French Academy of Sciences at the time of its founding in 1666, chosen by Jean-Baptiste Colbert on behalf of Louis XIV.
Samuel Cottereau du Clos or Duclos was a French physician and apothecary who was among the first members of the Royal Academy of Sciences in France founded by Louis XIV in 1666. He contributed to an early chemical analysis of the mineral waters from around France, examined the composition of plant matter.
