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The labyrinth of Versailles was a hedge maze in the Gardens of Versailles with groups of fountains and sculptures depicting Aesop's fables. André Le Nôtre initially planned a maze of unadorned paths in 1665, but in 1669, Charles Perrault advised Louis XIV to include thirty-nine fountains, each representing one of the fables of Aesop. The work was carried out between 1672 and 1677. Water jets spurting from the animals mouths were conceived to give the impression of speech between the creatures. There was a plaque with a caption and a quatrain written by the poet Isaac de Benserade next to each fountain.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Information on Perrault's ''Labyrinte de Versailles'' at architectura.cesr.univ-tours.fr by Alexandre Maral 2010 )〕 A detailed description of the labyrinth, its fables and sculptures is given in Perrault's ''Labyrinte de Versailles'', illustrated with engravings by Sébastien Leclerc. In 1778 Louis XVI had the labyrinth removed and replaced by an arboretum of exotic trees planted as an English-styled garden. ==Creation== In 1665, André Le Nôtre planned a hedge maze of unadorned paths in an area south of the Latona Fountain near the ''Orangerie''. In 1668 Jean de La Fontaine published his first collection ''Fables Choisies'', dedicated to ''"Monseigneur"'' Louis, ''le Grand Dauphin'', the six-year-old son of Louis XIV. Although La Fontaine had incurred the royal displeasure, his poems perhaps encouraged Charles Perrault, author of the Mother Goose stories, who the year before had been named senior civil servant in the Superintendance of the King's Buildings,〔 to advise Louis XIV in 1669 to remodel the labyrinth in such a way as to serve the Dauphin’s education.〔Perrault, 1677〕 Between 1672 and 1677 Le Nôtre redesigned the labyrinth to feature thirty-nine fountains that depicted stories from Aesop’s Fables. The sculptors Jean-Baptiste Tuby, Etienne Le Hongre, Pierre Le Gros, and the brothers Gaspard and Balthazard Marsy worked on these thirty-nine hydraulic sculptures. Each fountain was accompanied by a plaque on which the fable was printed, with verse written by Isaac de Benserade. It was from these plaques, Louis XIV’s son learned to read. In his ''Fables d'Ésope en quatrains, dont il y en a une partie au labyrinthe de Versailles'' de Benserade claims that, as well being the one to choose the fables, it was the King himself who had wanted a quatrain to describe each of them.〔, which also included fables not in the labyrinth〕 Once completed in 1677 the labyrinth contained thirty-nine fountains with 333 painted metal animal sculptures. The water for the elaborate waterworks was conveyed from the Seine by the Machine de Marly, which used fourteen water-wheels driving 253 pumps, some of which worked at a distance of three-quarters of a mile.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Sacred-texts.com )〕 The layout of the maze was unusual, as there was no central goal, and, despite the five metre high hedges, allowed glimpses ahead. Piganiol de La Force in his ''Nouvelle description du château et parc de Versailles et de Marly'' (1702) describes the labyrinth as a "network of allées bordered with palisades where it is easy to get lost." He continues: "At every turn you see a fountain decorated with delicate rocaille, and representing very simply a fable, the subject of which is indicated by a four-line inscription in gold letters on a bronze plate." Shortly after the labyrinth was completed, Perrault published a description in his ''Recueil de divers ouvrages en prose et en vers''. "At each end of a path," he wrote, "and wherever they cross, there are fountains, so arranged that in whatever place one finds oneself, one sees always three or four and often six or seven of them at once. The basins of these fountains, all different in figure and design, are enriched with fine rock-work and rare shells and for ornamentation have different animals who represent the most charming fables of Aesop. These animals are so well made and lifelike that they seem to be still in the action that they depict; one can even say that they in some way speak the words that the fable attributes to them, since the water that they spout forth at one another seems not only to give them life and action, but serves them also as a voice to express their passions and their thoughts." 〔''Recueil de divers ouvrages en prose et en vers'', (translated here )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The labyrinth of Versailles」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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