Born in
Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, he was the son of a
master mason and took over his father's workshop before settling in
Avignon, where he became an architect around 1715. He probably trained with the great Avignon architects of the previous generation,
Pierre II Mignard and
Jean Péru. He worked under the supervision of two of his sons, François II and Jean-Pierre, mainly in the
south of France, from
Toulon to
Carcassonne, passing through
Viviers where they made the vaults of the
cathedral. Jean-Baptiste remains the best known of this family of Avignon architects. Towards the 1740s, his personal works became difficult to distinguish from those carried out in collaboration with his sons. Thus, François, who had attended the
French School in Rome and was a member of the
Royal Academy of Architecture in
Paris, was the co-author of the palace of Villeneuve-Martignan (today's
Musée Calvet), the palace of Caumont, the church of
Notre-Dame des Pommiers in
Beaucaire and the central portal of the
Saint Martha's hospital, which is now the seat of the
University of Avignon. His younger brother Jean-Pierre, followed his father's local work and was still active during the
French Revolution. In Avignon you can admire the Saint-Charles chapel (created by Jean-Baptiste in collaboration with his son François), the
butchers and
fishmongers of the rue du Vieux-Sextier (with his son Jean-Pierre), a part of the Aumône Générale. In
Châteauneuf-du-Pape, it conceives the
castle la Nerthe, historical place of the wine appellation; the castle was finished by François after his death. In Viviers, he realized the episcopal palace and the palaces de Roqueplane, de Beaulieu and de Tourville. At Beaucaire, he built the palace de Linage. He died in March 1758, but his work was continued, such as the facade of the church of
Richerenches which is finished building in 1765 following his plans. Jean-Baptiste Franque marked the regional architecture, realizing the synthesis between the local tradition with Italian tendency, of which Jean Péru was the continuator, and the
French classicism, established in Avignon by
Pierre II Mignard. Franque's domination and knowledge of
stereotomy allowed him to cover a large number of works with daring vaults, with an inventive structure; he also tried to create suspended staircases, whose supporting structure were the steps themselves, but the technique would be perfected only half a century later by
Victor Louis. == References ==