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François Andréossy

French engineer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 8, 2025
Entity authorityQ1450888 ↗
Source-derived summary

François Andréossy (1633–1688) was a French engineer, cartographer, and a citizen of Narbonne. He was born in Paris on 10 June 1633. After completing his engineering studies in Paris, Andréossy went to Italy in 1660 to study Italian canal technology in Lombardy and Padua. He returned from the trip and sought out Pierre-Paul Riquet as a patron. Riquet was beginning his investigation into the possibility of building a canal across southern France from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. Andréossy supplied the technical expertise that Riquet lacked and became Riquet's right-hand man throughout the construction of the canal.

He was also responsible for the levelling and the drawing of maps. He monitored the construction and assisted Riquet until Riquet's death. Andréossy continued to work at the canal and serve the family of Riquet until he died in Castelnaudary on 3 June 1688.

Andréossy's descendants continued like him for a century.

Editorial summary

“François Andréossy” enters the record as french engineer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what François, Andréossy and French can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1633, 1688, 1660—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1633-06-10. Its strongest next move is a source search built around François, Andréossy and French.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“François Andréossy” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, François, Andréossy and French provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 8, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1450888. VIAF identifies the subject as 222128729. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1633, 1688 and 1660.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “François Andréossy”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow François Andréossy primary sources, François Andréossy archive and François research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “François Andréossy”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “François Andréossy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.