THE STYLE OF FRANCIS I. 6l 



a master-carpenter, Mangyn Bonneau, also worked at Chambord at 

 different times. These men sometimes contracted for specific works, 

 at others worked at daily wages of from 20 to 30 sols, only attaining 

 to annual salaries comparable to those of architects on promotion, after 

 long service, to posts of general superintendence. However much 

 they may have been left to themselves, it is only reasonable to 

 suppose that if there were an Italian architect at hand, he would be 

 consulted both by the king and by the builders. Now just such a 

 man had been for many years in the royal employ, and during the 

 main building operations referred to was a householder at Blois 



('515-3')- 



BOCCADORO. Domenico Bernabei, surnamed Boccadoro, known in 

 France as " Boccador " and " Dominique de Cortone " (born at Cortona, 

 died 1549 at Paris), is said to have been a pupil of Giuliano da San 

 Gallo. He came to France with Charles VIII. 's colony (1495), an ^ 

 was then described as " menuisier de tous ouvrages," a translation of 

 the Italian legnaiuolo, a term including carpentry, joinery, cabinet and 

 model making, inlay and parquet. 



Dominic was employed by Louis XII. as early as 1497 ; on the 

 departure of Fra Giocondo in 1505, he appears to have succeeded to 

 his position, and on the death of Louis he passed into the service 

 of Francis I. His position -was analogous to that of Inigo Jones at the 

 English Court a century later, and, as Court stage manager, it was his 

 business to organise pageants and festivities, to design and put up the 

 stands, triumphal arches, and temporary halls, and to design the decora- 

 tions. For the lying-in-state of Louis XII. he made a catafalque, 

 architecturally treated, 15 feet long and 26 feet high. He also probably 

 carried out the wooden structures in the garden at Blois, and 

 certainly made suites of furniture for royal and other palaces. Finally 

 he prepared models of cities (i.e., of the fortifications), of bridges, 

 and other edifices ; amongst these was one for Chambord, and another 

 later on for the Paris Hotel de Ville. It will be seen that many of the 

 works of his craft required a thorough knowledge of architecture, and 

 from the year 1516 onwards he is described as " architecteur." It is 

 certain that in the case of the Paris Hotel de Ville he was the designer 

 of a building for which he made a model. That the same was the case 

 at Chambord, and that he stood in the same relation to the masons and 

 joiners there as he undoubtedly did in Paris i.e., in the relation of 

 architect to contractor is highly probable. The model which he made, 

 in all likelihood the same as the one shown in the castle in the seven- 

 teenth century, differed from the executed work in little else than in 

 having a staircase in straight flights. That is precisely what one would 

 expect of an Italian. The spiral form would be a concession to French 

 ideas. If Boccadoro was the architect of Chambord, the attribution to 



