Philippe de La Hire (or Lahire, La Hyre or Phillipe de La Hire) (18 March 1640 – 21 April 1718) was a French painter, mathematician, astronomer, and architect. According to Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, he was an "academy unto himself".
He was born in Paris, the son of Laurent de La Hire, a distinguished artist, and Marguerite Coquin. In 1660, he moved to Venice for four years to study painting. Upon his return to Paris, he became a disciple of Girard Desargues from whom he learned geometrical perspective and was received as a master painter on 4 August 1670. His paintings have sometimes been confused with those of his son, Jean Nicolas de La Hire, who was a doctor as well as a painter.
He also began to study science and showed an aptitude for mathematics. He was taught by the French Jesuit theologian, mathematician, physicist and controversialist Honoré Fabri and became part of a circle formed by Fabri which included Giovanni Domenico Cassini, Claude François Milliet Dechales, Christiaan Huygens and his brother Constantijn, Gottfried Leibniz, René Descartes and Marin Mersenne.
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