https://www.amazon.com/Trait-Perspective-LUsage-Artistes-Triquement/dp/1247523322/?tag=2022091-20
1750
https://www.amazon.com/Essai-Theorie-Satellites-Jupiter-French/dp/1165425394/?tag=2022091-20
1766
Astronomer cartographer scientist
Edme-Sébastien Jeaurat was born on September 14, 1725, in Paris, France. He was the son of Edme Jeaurat, and engraver. His maternal grandfather was Sébastien Leclerc, also a noted engraver. His uncle, Étienne Jeaurat, was a noted French painter.
Because his father also pursued that art form and his uncle was a painter, it was appropriate that Jeaurat’s early years were spent in painting and engraving at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, although he also studied mathematics under Lieutaud.
Jeaurat's efforts in mapmaking, including work under Cassini de Thury, and in preparing a treatise aimed at rendering artistic perspective more rigorously geometric led him into scientific pursuits, a professorship in mathematics at the École Militaire in Paris, and astronomical studies.
The most important of his first works were concerned with perfecting planetary tables, especially those of Jupiter and Saturn, by comparing recorded oppositions with tabular predictions. In 1760 he pierced the roof of an attic at the École Militaire and began his own observations of those phenomena. The results of these efforts were presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences, first as memoirs and then, in 1766, as completed tables of the motions of Jupiter.
Although a more permanent and better-equipped observatory was established at the École Militaire in 1769 under his direction, Jeaurat went to live at the royal observatory in 1770. Some of his subsequent work, such as his invention of a “double image” telescope, was devoted to the improvement of instruments. But far more important was his assumption of the editing of the Connaissance des temps. The twelve volumes that he prepared, for the years 1776-1787, were enriched by a number of tables and catalogs: reimpressions, such as J. T. Mayer’s catalog of zodical stars in the volume for 1778; original efforts by others, such as Messier’s list of nebulae (1783); and his own contributions, such as his calculations of the principal towns, cities, and landmarks of France according to the operations forming the basis of Cassini’s map (1787).
Attainment of pensioner rank in 1784 led Jeaurat to abandon his work on the Connaissance des temps. He published a map of the 64 stars of the Pleiades in 1786. Indeed, although he later served the Academy as vice-director (1791) and director (1792), his subsequent contributions consisted largely of protests that his work was being slighted or unjustly criticized.
Partly because of this record of jealousy but also because he had risen within the Academy as a geometer while pursuing almost solely astronomical work, Jeaurat was not among the original members of the First Class of the Institut de France and was not elected to its astronomical section until late in 1796. Neither this recognition nor his regaining of lost lodgings at the observatory, pitiably and unsuccessfully requested many times between 1793 and 1796, restored him to the status of contributing scientist.
Jeaurat became a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1763. He was also elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1783.
It is not known whether Jeaurat was married or not.
