Claude Perrault was a French architect, physician, and writer born in 1613 in Paris who died in 1688. He played a crucial role in establishing the principles of classical architecture and devising a practical system for applying classical principles in building design. His most important work, The Ordinance of the Five Columnar Orders According to the Methods of the Ancients, published in 1683, was a seminal manual on architectural composition that had widespread influence through its many translations. Perrault's colonnade design for the eastern facade of the Louvre has been emulated in architectural works across Europe and America for centuries.