THE STYLE OF LOUIS XII. 37 



that which touches their religion, and by the existence among the 

 masons and other craftsmen specially employed in the service of the 

 Church, of a peculiarly complex and deep rooted body of tradition, often 

 handed down from father to son for several generations. 



RENAISSANCE INFLUENCE. Renaissance forms, however, began to 

 percolate in even here, and as in secular architecture, detail rather than 

 design was first affected. Church building was no longer a popular 

 enthusiasm, and though occasionally paid for by public subscription or 

 out of municipal funds, it was more often due to the bounty or vanity 

 of the rich. Bishops, too, had lost the taste for lengthy constructions 

 and preferred to undertake works they could hope to see finished in their 

 lifetime. Therefore Renaissance influence is at first chiefly traceable in 

 private chapels and mausolea, in single features such as a steeple, a 

 doorway, a buttress, or a tomb ; or in fittings such as altars or screens. 



HYBRID STYLE. No important complete churches of a Transitional 

 character exist. The chapel of Gaillon, which was probably the most 

 splendid example (Fig. 15), has all but entirely disappeared. Those that 

 survive show precisely the same lack of a grasp of Renaissance principles, 

 and the same sprinkling of Gothic designs with Renaissance items as 

 contemporary secular work, but with this difference that the Gothic 

 element remains more constantly predominant. In so far as any system 

 at all can be observed in these attempts, it is the same as in secular 

 work. The bearing and enclosing members remain Gothic, the portions 

 carried and enclosed receive Renaissance treatment. The general lines 

 of the elevations are affected but seldom, and only then to a very slight 

 degree, and the plan and section practically not at all. 



In view then of the haphazard character of the design of this phase, 

 it will be well to reserve the interesting subject of the various methods 

 of translating the elements of a Gothic church into Renaissance equiva- 

 lents till the chapter on the following phase, in which the attempts to do 

 so become more systematic, and to confine the remarks here to a notice 

 of a few examples. 



ST PIERRE, AVIGNON. The west front of St Pierre at Avignon is 

 a good Flamboyant design in which two be-ribboned Renaissance 

 wreaths are introduced as the decoration of the wall surface and two 

 circular turret lights have carved Renaissance architraves. This may 

 be regarded as the first stage. The elements are in juxtaposition and 

 do not mingle. 



ST CALAIS. In the transitional front of the church of St Calais 

 (begun 1518) there is a great diminution in the amount of Gothic 

 detail but still little attempt at horizontality (Fig. 33). In spite of the 

 beauty of certain of its individual features, as, for example, the central 

 doorway and its traceried fanlight, it is as a whole an unskilful essay in 



