Vries, Hans Vredeman de

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Vries, Hans Vredeman de (1527–1606). Dutch architect, painter, decorator, and prolific writer. His engravings were widely distributed throughout Europe, and his architectural devices, derived from Serlio, made the style evolved at Fontainebleau familiar. His treatises on architecture (1565) and his pattern-books were hugely influential throughout Northern Europe, notably in England, where direct quotations of strap-work and much else informed much Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture. His published work demonstrates how important was the Flemish and Dutch contribution to Mannerism, and includes Architectura oder Bauung der Antiquen aus dem Vitruvius (1577), Variae Architecturae Formae (1601), and many other books, (e.g. Architectura (1606—a joint effort with his son, Paul (1567—after 1630) ). Smythson and Thorpe were influenced by his publications, and his designs for parterres were adopted in many places (e.g. the celebrated gardens (c.1615–20) at Heidelberg Schloss).

Bibliography

Borggrefe et al. (eds.) (2002);
Gerson & and Ter Kuile (1960);
Jervis (1984);
Journal of Garden History, i/1/2 (1981), 67–104, and 179–202;
Lewis & and Darley (1986);
Jane Turner (1996);
Vries (1617, 1651)

A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture