THE STYLE OF FRANCIS I. 



59 



55. CHAMBORD : LANTERN, ROOFS. 



roofs of Italy. Each 

 of the towers was 

 covered by a conical 

 roof terminating in 

 an open lantern, 

 while the rectangular 

 blocks had hipped 

 roofs. The four 

 quarters of the 

 donjon were treated 

 thus, leaving a flat 

 terrace carried on 

 the vaults over the 

 cruciform hall. 

 From the centre of 

 this, over the great 

 staircase, sprang a 

 high and graceful 

 open stone lantern, 

 circular on plan, ter- 

 minating in a fleur- 

 de-lys finial (Fig. 



55). The staircases throughout, both in the angles of the court and 

 in the interior of the building, are surmounted by stone cupolas, and 

 the roofs are broken by a forest of dormers and chimney-stacks, all of 

 which features are profusely decorated (Fig. 52). The introduction of 

 slate panels among the cream-coloured stonework has a happy effect. 



Merits of the Design. With all its wayward charm, its pictur- 

 esque grouping, its wealth of ornamental features, this strange pile 

 strikes the beholder rather with wonder than admiration. When every 

 allowance has been made for its incompleteness, for successive mutila- 

 tions and alterations, and for the removal of the moat, in whose waters 

 its walls were mirrored, gaining thereby in apparent height, the verdict 

 must be that, from the architectural point of view, Chambord is a 

 pleasing failure. Formality of setting out in the plan and elevations is 

 counteracted by the confusion of the roofs, where innumerable features, 

 individually beautiful but mutually destructive, set unsymmetrically and 

 at all angles, and poised in apparently impossible situations, give a 

 sky-line too restless to be even picturesque. The whole design is a 

 tour de force, a splendid freak, suitable only for the makeshift life of 

 a Court picnic during a few sunny days of summer, but too ponderous 

 a creation to be justified by so ephemeral an object. 



THE DESIGNERS OF THE LOIRE CHATEAUX. Much controversy 

 has raged over the authorship of these and other buildings of this 



