Lorme, Philibert De

, master of the works to the French kin;', was born at Lyons about the beginning of the sixteenth century. At fourteen, he went into Italy, to study the beauties of antiquity. There he became acquainted with Cervius, afterwards pope Marceilus II. who had a good taste for the polite arts, and, conceiving a great esteem for Lorme, communicated to him every thing that he knew. Enriched with the spoils of antiquity, he returned to Lyons in 1536, and banished thence the Gothic taste. At length, going to Paris, to work for the cardinal de Bellay, he was soon employed in the court of Henry II. He made the Horse-shoe, a fortification at Fontainbleau, built the stately chateau of Anet and Meudon; the palace of the Thuilleries, and repaired and ornamented several of the royal houses, as Villiers, Colerets, St. Germain then called the castle of the Muette, the Louvre, &c. These services were recompensed above his expectations. He was made almoner and counsellor to the king, and had | the abbies of St. Eloy and St. Serge of Angers conferred upon him.

Ronsard, the poet, out of envy, published a satire, or satirical sonnet, against him, under the title of “LaTruelle crosse’e,” the Trowel crosier’d. De Lorme revenged himself, by causing the garden-door of the Thuilleries, of which he was governor, to be shut against the poet; and Ronsard, with a pencil, wrote upon the gate these three words: “Fort, reverent, habe.” De Lorme, who understood little Latin, complained of this inscription, as levelled at him, to queen Catharine de Medicis, who, inquiring into the matter, was told by Ronsard, that, by a harmless irony, he had made that inscription for the architect when read in French; but that it suited him still better in Latin, these being the first words abbreviated of a Latin epigram of Ausonius, which begins thus: “Fortunam reverenter habe.” Ronsard added that he only meant that De Lorme should reflect on his primitive grovelling fortune, and not to shut the gate against the Muses. De Lorme died in 1557; leaving several books of architecture, greatly esteemed. These are, 1. “Nouvelles Inventions pour bien bastir & a petit frais,” Paris, 1561, folio, fifty-seven leaves. 2. “Ten Books of Architecture,” 1568, folio. ¹