82 



RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



HOTEL DE VILLE, 

 PARIS. When it was 

 decided in 1531 to 

 build a new town hall 

 in the capital, Bocca 

 doro was sent for by 

 the king from Blois, 

 and shortly after re- 

 moving to Paris, where 

 he lived to his death 

 (c. 1549), he prepared 

 a model for the pro- 

 posed building, and 

 exhibited it before the 

 city authorities at the 

 Louvre (22nd Decem- 

 ber 1532). His design 

 was approved, and he 

 remained in charge of 

 the works till their 

 completion, his name 

 appearing as that of 

 the architect on an in- 

 scription on the facade. 

 Pierre Chambiges 

 worked on the build- 

 ing as carver, mason, and clerk of works. The new Hotel de Ville (Fig. 

 80) consisted of a central block of seven bays, two storeys high, and a 

 three storeyed pavilion at each end, an arrangement which established a 

 type still often followed in buildings of the same class. The composition 

 showed a nearer approach to the monumental manner of the culminat- 

 ing period of the Italian Renaissance than anything that had preceded 

 it in France, but the detail and some of the features were still of the 

 Francis I. type. Boccadoro's building, which was frequently added to 

 subsequently, and formed the central portion of the building burnt down 

 in the Commune (1871), has been substantially reproduced in the 

 new building erected since. 



INTERIORS : CEILINGS, FLOORS. In the interior, complete schemes 

 of permanent decoration were still a luxury reserved for halls of State 

 and the chambers of the wealthiest, but entrances, staircases, and the 

 features of the principal apartments were richly treated. Rib and coffer 

 vaults in many patterns, and stone-slab ceilings with pendents were in 

 use in the parts of a building usually vaulted hitherto, as in the halls at 

 Chambord (Fig. 54) and the stair at Azay. Open ceilings were still the 



79. BEAUGENCY ON THE LOIRE : 

 HOTEL DE VILLE (1526). 



