60 RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



period. The hierarchy of the architectural personnel was still ill-defined, 

 and uncertainty as to the respective shares of responsibility for the design 

 in given buildings of the various participants in it must be expected to 

 continue. It is at any rate clear that the superior class of designers 

 and these were generally Italians was admitted to social intercourse with 

 their clients, as in the case of Fra Giocondo, Leonardo da Vinci, and 

 Boccadoro. They had a footing at Court as valets de chambre du rot 

 (grooms of the chamber), and, though occasionally receiving fixed salaries, 

 were more often remunerated by appointment to ecclesiastical benefices 

 in commendam. The influence which they could exert on architecture by 

 their advice and in the selection of minor artists cannot but have been 

 considerable, even if they made no actual designs for specific edifices. 



At the same time, many of the French master-masons and master- 

 carpenters reared under the new influences were learning to express 

 themselves in Italian forms, if their ideas were still French, and would 

 with growing frequency originate at least parts of the greater and 

 perhaps the whole of the minor buildings. 



LEONARDO DA VINCI. Attempts have been made to prove that 

 Leonardo da Vinci was the designer of much of the Loire architecture, 

 particularly of the great staircase at Blois. It is not, indeed, impossible 

 that it may embody suggestions from him, for he was in France at the 

 time of its building. He arrived in 1516 at the invitation of Francis, 

 who gave him an allowance of 3,000 1. a year and a house at Amboise, 

 where he died three years later. Moreover, a sketch plan made by 

 him at this time for a castle with rectangular courts and round angle 

 towers is extant. But he was an old and broken man when he came; 

 his hand became partly paralysed shortly after, and it is not probable 

 that he can have made important or detailed designs. Yet his sojourn 

 on the banks of the Loire was doubtless not without result. The 

 presence of such a celebrated master cannot have failed to stimulate the 

 Renaissance movement. 



THE FRENCH BUILDERS. On the other hand it is hardly conceiv- 

 able that the men who undoubtedly carried out the work could, in the 

 early years of Francis' reign, have originated the complete designs 

 unaided. Jacques Sourdeau (born c. 1470, died c. 1530) was master- 

 mason at the castle, and later master of all works in the county of Blois. 

 His son Denis (died 1534) succeeded him in both offices. Between 

 them they carried out the bulk of the work of all trades in the Francis I. 

 wing. At Chambord there appear to have been always two master- 

 masons working in conjunction. At first they were Denis Sourdeau 

 and Pierre Nepveu (nicknamed Trinqueau). Jacques Coqueau (died 

 1569) replaced the former when he succeeded his father at Blois 

 (c. 1530), and the latter when he became Controller of the Works 

 at Chambord (1536). Another master-mason, Jean Gobereau, and 



