2. THE CHATEAU OF TANLAY. 



INTRODUCTION 



DURING the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the peoples of Europe, 

 led by Italy, passed from their mediaeval to their modern stage of 

 development, with all that those expressions imply. The great 

 transforming process, which brought this about, and. was to a great 

 extent inspired by the New Learning, or recovered lore of Classical 

 Antiquity, is known as the Renaissance. The value of its character 

 and work has been variously estimated at different periods, but we have 

 now emerged from the controversial era, and with the growth of the 

 historical spirit it can be viewed dispassionately, as an inevitable 

 step in the advance of civilisation, not more exempt from defect than 

 others. The twentieth century may, in fact, be content to strike a 

 balance between the abuse with which the nineteenth attacked the 

 Renaissance and the indiscriminate admiration with which it was 

 previously regarded. 



Its history has been told, and told exhaustively, from almost every 

 point of view. The task attempted in these pages is to trace its effects, 

 both immediate and secondary, on the art of architecture in France, a 

 country which for a thousand years has played so commanding a part 



