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Nicolas-François-Antoine de Chastillon: The Défilement of Fortifications at the Roots of Descriptive Geometry
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Nicolas-François-Antoine de Chastillon: The Défilement of Fortifications at the Roots of Descriptive Geometry
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Journal Article
Nicolas-François-Antoine de Chastillon: The Défilement of Fortifications at the Roots of Descriptive Geometry
2014
Overview
This contribution focuses on studies concerning the art of
défilement
(defilade) of fortifications, that is, the art of using uneven terrain to provide protection from the enemy; in particular it will analyse the issues and events which made this military technique one of the first chapters of descriptive geometry, and the important role played by Nicolas-François-Antoine de Chastillon, the first commandant of the School of Mézières. As firearms became more powerful new studies were required about how to defend military fortifications from enemy fire. To solve these, Chastillon first highlighted the flaws of Vauban’s empirical approach and then radically overhauled the study of
défilement
by tackling it theoretically using graphic analyses carried out ‘on the drawing board’. This new approach concentrated on the depiction of space in two dimensions the need to graphically manage the territory around the fortification. Thus it is Chastillon who, well before Gaspard Monge, identified a method which was to rapidly lead to the definition of the basic operations of descriptive geometry. Together with the study of wood and stone stereotomy, it also paved the way for the new science of scientific representation, the invention of cartography and the geometric control of topographical surfaces.
