Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau (1510-1584) was a French designer of architecture, ornament, furniture, and metalwork, and the founder of the Androuet du Cerceau family. He is best known for the suites of engravings he produced from his printshop in Orléans beginning in 1549, and for his two-volume folio Les plus excellents bastiments de France (1576 and 1579), which documented the great French châteaux of the age.
The name Cerceau comes from a ring emblem that Jacques Androuet used in place of a signature on his engravings. The French word cerceau means ring or hoop, and this device became so associated with him that it eventually gave his entire family its surname.
Les plus excellents bastiments de France is a two-volume folio of architectural engravings produced by Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau, with the first volume published in 1576 and the second in 1579. The work documented major French châteaux and their gardens through fine engravings and perspective views, and it remains his best-known publication.
Androuet du Cerceau fled to Montargis in 1569 under pressure from the French Wars of Religion. Montargis was a Huguenot stronghold and the seat of Renée de France, duchess of Ferrara and daughter of Louis XII, who sheltered Huguenot refugees there.
After 1906, restorers used the detailed bird's-eye perspective engravings in Androuet du Cerceau's folios to reconstruct the patterned parterres of the Château de Villandry, returning the gardens to their sixteenth-century appearance. His documentary drawings preserved garden layouts that no longer existed in physical form.
Androuet du Cerceau is credited with the designs of the Château de Verneuil in Verneuil-en-Halatte, which Henri IV purchased in 1600, and the Château de Charleval built for Charles IX, which was later demolished. His son Baptiste assisted him on Charleval. Attribution is uncertain because documentation is lacking.