4 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



muddy alleys of French cities, with their crowding gables, the grim blank 

 walls of feudal keeps, the grey stone and darkened timber of the north, 

 should be dazzled at the sight of sun-bathed piazzas and colonnades, 

 paved streets lined with palaces which glowed with marble and frescoes, 

 or that airy villas among terraced gardens, set with fountains and statues, 

 orange trees and vine pergolas, should seem of more than earthly beauty 

 to their new northern owners ? 



Philippe de Commines, though used to the sumptuous court of 

 Burgundy, was astonished at the splendour of Venice, where he went 

 as ambassador. Bishop Bri^onnet, who accompanied Charles, wrote 

 from Naples to Queen Anne : " Madame, I would that you might have 

 seen this city, and the fair things which are therein, for it is an earthly 

 paradise." The king himself wrote home in enthusiastic terms of the 

 painted ceilings of Italy. It may be imagined that a sudden plunge 

 into the central current of the world's art would also create a profound 

 impression on the minds of country squires, who had never before 

 crossed the bounds of their province. 



The material and political fruits of the campaign were lamentably 

 small ; but one thing was effected the idea of Italy as the source of 

 art was implanted in French bosoms. Italy was henceforward the 

 Promised Land, the home of all delights of mind and sense, and it 

 became the ambition of every French gentleman to reproduce at home 

 the palaces and gardens of Italy, and to people them with paintings, 

 statuary, and marble fountains. The work thus begun by Charles 

 VIII. was continued by each succeeding monarch for half a century, as 

 expedition after expedition poured over the Alps, till the attempt to 

 secure a footing in the Peninsula was abandoned as hopeless by Henry 

 II. in the last year of his reign. 



What was it that so captivated these soldiers and statesmen in Italy ? 

 It cannot have been merely the sumptuous appointments of Italian 

 mansions. Their own houses were often richly decorated with colour 

 and gilding, and fitted with carved furniture and costly hangings. Nor 

 is it altogether true that the conception of the country seat as a pleasure 

 house rather than as a fortress was new to them. The comparative 

 security of Louis XL's later years had permitted the rise in France of 

 a certain number of undefended manor houses, and gardens laid out 

 with art were by no means unknown in mediaeval France, though they 

 were small in scale, and designed in a somewhat utilitarian spirit. 



To judge from their own words the French were impressed, first 

 by the beauty of the land and climate, then by the magnificence of the 

 design and decoration of gardens and the richness of building materials, 

 and finally by Italian painting and sculpture, then almost at their zenith. 

 In addition, they no doubt found in contemporary Italian architecture 



