Material construction and abstract geometry in the Traité de la Coupe des Pierres by Jean-Baptiste de la Rue

Jean-Baptiste de la Rue’s Traité de la coupe des pierres occupies a strange place in stonecutting literature. Ten years later, Amedée-François Frézier (1682-1773) dubbed him as a sectateur (follower) of François Derand (1591-1644), who had published a stonecutting treatise more than eighty years before. Jean-Marie Pérouse de Montclos, although remarking his high graphical quality and clear organisation, downplayed its theoretical content, praising the treatise as “an excellent elementary manual”; he included De la Rue among the last masons, remarking that the subject matter of his treatise had shrunk in comparison with Derand’s treatise. The paper focus on the analysis of the treatise by De la Rue highlighting the most important innovation from a geometrical point of view.