Stamatis Voulgaris

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Stamatis Voulgaris
Born1774
Military officer
Urbanist
Architect
Painter
Known forMorea expedition (1828)
First urban plan of the city of Patras, Greece (1829)
TitleLieutenant colonel of the French Army
HonoursKnight of the Legion of Honour
Knight of the Order of Saint Louis

Stamatis Voulgaris or Stamati Bulgari (

Venetian Ionian Islands in 1774, and died in 1842. He was also an officer in the French army and had been also granted French nationality.[1]

Life

Youth

Stamatis Voulgaris was born in

San Giacomo theater in Corfu, a cannon ball fired from a Russian vessel fell beside young Voulgaris without immediately exploding. He immediately grabbed the fuse and then neutralized it, thus saving the theater and a whole French military detachment which passed nearby with heavy weapons and ammunition. French General Louis François Jean Chabot, a friend of Napoleon, to honor his bravery, enlisted him in the French army.[2] When the French left, the young man followed them to Paris, where he studied urban planning
in a military academy.

In 1808, he was appointed lieutenant of the Engineers. At the same time, he studied at the

Barbizon School

Portrait of Stamati Bulgari, seated in front of his easel (by Camille Corot who wrotes down: "Stamati Bulgari in rage with reason")

Voulgaris followed several painting courses in parallel with his studies,

School of Barbizon.[5][6] This colony of landscape artists (called the "open airists"), grouping painters such as Charles-François Daubigny, Théodore Rousseau, Jean-François Millet or Gustave Courbet, were coming together a few kilometers from Paris to work in the forest of Fontainebleau
which was for them a source of inspiration.

Voulgaris and Corot thus lived together in the village of Chailly-en-Bière from July 1821. Corot drew several portraits of Voulgaris, "in his bed" or "sitting in front of his easel" (he wrote at the bottom of the latter with a graphite stylus: "Stamati Bulgari in rage with reason"). Voulgaris also painted in 1821, in his Souvenirs (published in 1835),[7] a literary painting of this forest of Fontainebleau which used to inspire him with a "meditative and religious feeling". This description is considered to be the very first known of this colony of artists.[8]

Spain expedition and travel to the Antilles

In 1823 he fought in the 3rd Corps of the Pyrenees Army during the

tropical fever. He returned to France in August 1826 and devoted a chapter of his Souvenirs to this journey.[7][9]

Morea expedition and urban planning in Greece

General Maison, commander of the French expedition of the Morea, meeting Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt at Navarino in 1828 (by Jean-Charles Langlois)

Since 1821, the

École Polytechnique.[11] Captain Peytier drew the first modern map of the Peloponnese
.

Kapodistrias appreciated the expertise of Voulgaris. The two men met first in Italy in Ancona, and then embarked together aboard the frigate HMS Warspite for Nafplio in Greece, where they arrived on 7 January 1828. Kapodistrias asked Voulgaris to conduct a study on the search for a suitable location in the city to build a colony for war refugees. Allocation of other urban plans followed, such as the urban planning of the cities of Nafplio (historic center and suburb of Prónoia), Tripoli, Pylos and Argos, in collaboration with Captain Garnot.[9][12][13]

The original first urban plan of Patras, drawn up in 1829 by Stamatis Voulgaris and Auguste-Théodore Garnot, captains of the Morea expedition

Yet, the most important urban planning mission of Voulgaris was the planning of the city of Patras in 1829, on Kapodistrias' order.[7][13] He arrived there on 5 December 1828 accompanied by Captain Auguste-Théodore Garnot.[12] The Turkish-Egyptian troops of Ibrahim Pasha had left only ruins in Patras. They had destroyed the houses, burned the gardens, uprooted all the trees and demolished the ramparts of the city fortress.[12] Voulgaris specifically proposed to erect the modern city on the seaside, which was then a freer and more extensive area. The city, with a geometric composition, took the form of a large parallelogram bordering the coastal area and of a second ending at the periphery of the old town. Seventeen vertical and wide uphill streets intersected, at right angles, eight other horizontal streets, thus dividing the city into a hundred large blocks of buildings.[14] He also planned to build nine symmetrical public squares, quays, vast and long boulevards or avenues bordered by trees and perfectly ventilated, fountains, arcades, green areas round the Patras Castle and three main doors which would open on the roads to Gastouni, Kalavryta and Corinth.[12] Voulgaris also wanted to cover out of his own pocket the financial costs for tree planting in Patras.[14]

However, the original plan was not fully implemented, because on the one hand the

Vasilissis Olgas Square
).

After handing over the city's plans to Governor Kapodistrias, Voulgaris joined the troops of the regular Greek army, then commanded by the governor's brother,

Continental Greece. Captain Voulgaris was responsible in particular for drawing the plan of the siege of Lepanto (Nafpaktos) and the direction of its works.[7] In April 1829 the siege ended and the city was taken over from the Turks. Voulgaris indicated in his Souvenirs that "this important conquest brought that of Missolonghi (in May), where ended, with this Greek expedition, my military career."[7]

Last years in Corfu

In August 1830, Voulgaris, sick, returned to France and was raised in 1831 to the rank of

chef de bataillon. In 1838, he retired to his native Corfu, in the village of Potamos near Lefkimmi, where he died in 1842. In his will, he left money to various friends and relatives, and, moreover, to the French Consulate to distribute to the French indigents of Corfu.[15]
He was:

Decorations

Publications

  • Stamatis Voulgaris, Examen moral des principaux tableaux de la galerie du Luxembourg en 1818, et considérations sur l'état actuel de la peinture en France, par M. Stamati Bulgari, (Gallica – BnF), Paris, 1827.
  • Stamatis Voulgaris, Notice sur le comte Jean Capodistrias, Président de la Grèce, suivie d'un extrait de sa correspondance ; par Stamati Bulgari, Chef de bataillon au Corps Royal d’État-major, Delaunay, Paris, 1832.
  • Stamatis Voulgaris, Souvenirs de Stamati Bulgari, Chef de bataillon au Corps Royal d'État-major, en retraite, (Gallica – BnF), A. Pihan de La Forest, Paris, 1835.

References

  1. .
  2. ^ a b Pavlos Kyriazis (1976). "Σταμάτης Βούλγαρης. Ο αγωνιστής, ο πολεοδόμος, ο άνθρωπος" [Stamatis Voulgaris. The fighter, the urbanist, the man]. Πρώτοι Έλληνες τεχνικοί επιστήμονες περιόδου απελευθέρωσης [First Greek Technical Scientists of the Liberation Period] (in Greek). Athens: Technical Chamber of Greece. p. 152.
  3. ^ (Nº 1753) ORDONNANCE DU ROI qui accorde des Lettres de déclaration de naturalité au Sr. Stamati Bulgari, capitaine d'infanterie, dessinateur extraordinaire au dépôt général de la guerre, né à Corfou, îles ioniennes, le 17 mai 1777 (Paris, 30 Janvier 1817), p.147, in Bulletin des lois, Partie principale, Éditeur Imprimerie nationale, 1817.
  4. ^ "Βούλγαρης Σταμάτης". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 7 December 2011.
  5. ^ David C. Thomson, The Barbizon School of Painters, Londres, Chapman & Hall, 1891, réédité en 1902.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Stamatis Voulgaris, Souvenirs de Stamati Bulgari, Chef de bataillon au Corps Royal d'État-major, en retraite, (Gallica – BnF), A. Pihan de La Forest (Paris), 1835.
  7. , 9782221140161
  8. ^ a b Pavlos Kyriazis (1976). "Σταμάτης Βούλγαρης. Ο αγωνιστής, ο πολεοδόμος, ο άνθρωπος" [Stamatis Voulgaris. The fighter, the urbanist, the man]. Πρώτοι Έλληνες τεχνικοί επιστήμονες περιόδου απελευθέρωσης [First Greek Technical Scientists of the Liberation Period] (in Greek). Athens: Technical Chamber of Greece. p. 156.
  9. ^ Michel Sivignon, Université Paris X – Nanterre, Les enseignements de la carte de Grèce à l’échelle de 1/200.000 (publiée en 1852) (Pergamos – Digital Library of the University of Athens (UoA)). Communication presented in the seminar of Gythion-Areopolis Lakonias « Voyageurs et expéditions scientifiques: témoignages sur l'espace et la société de Mani », 4–7 Nov 1993 and published in « Mani. Témoignages sur l’espace et la société. Voyageurs et expéditions scientifiques (15°-19° siècle) », Athens, Institut d’Études Néo-helléniques, 1996, p. 435-445.
  10. ISSN 0315-0860
    .
  11. ^ a b c d Jacques Mangeart, Souvenirs de la Morée: recueillis pendant le séjour des Français dans le Peloponèse, Igonette; Paris, 1830.
  12. ^ .
  13. ^ a b Pavlos Kyriazis (1976). "Σταμάτης Βούλγαρης. Ο αγωνιστής, ο πολεοδόμος, ο άνθρωπος" [Stamatis Voulgaris. The fighter, the urbanist, the man]. Πρώτοι Έλληνες τεχνικοί επιστήμονες περιόδου απελευθέρωσης [First Greek Technical Scientists of the Liberation Period] (in Greek). Athens: Technical Chamber of Greece. p. 158.
  14. ^ (Nº 19,587) ORDONNANCE DU ROI (contre-signée par le garde des sceaux, ministre de la justice et des cultes) qui autorise le ministre des affaires étrangères à accepter la disposition faite par M. Stamati Bulgari, chef de bataillon en retraite, dans son testament, en date du 12 juillet 1842, au profit des Français indigents qui arriveraient à Corfou ; pour, ladite disposition, être exécutée conformément aux intentions du testateur. (Paris, 19 Mai 1845.), p.896, in Bulletin des lois de la République Française, Volume 27, Éditeur Imprimerie nationale des lois, 1845.