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RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN FRANCE. 



I2O. FONTAINEBI.EAU : CAR- 

 TOUCHE BY IL ROSSO IN THE 



GALLERY OF FRANCIS I. 



of the responsibility for this infantile 

 work, a mere echo of the Loire chateaux. 

 To lay stress on the fact that most of the 

 Italians were decorators rather than archi- 

 tects, and on that ground to deny them 

 a share in the architecture, is to misread 

 the whole state of the arts in that age. 

 The distinction did not exist, more par- 

 ticularly in Italy. With hardly an ex- 

 ception every ariist of note was a master 

 in more than one medium, and it was 

 thought as natural to place a Raphael 

 or a Michael Angelo in charge of the 

 building at St Peter's, as to commission 

 a fresco from a Peruzzi, or a statue from 

 a Sansovino. 



Even if it could be proved that no 

 buildings in France are due to the second 

 generation of Italian architects, their 

 work there, decorative and literary, 

 would still not be a negligible quantity. 

 The existence of the Italian colony 

 being admitted, its influence on French 

 art is the necessary corollary of the 

 qualifications of its members, even taken 

 at the lowest estimate. 



FIRST SUB-PERIODARCHITECTS AND BUILDINGS. 



IL Rosso. The commencement of the new era may be dated from 

 the arrival at Fontainebleau of II Rosso in 1530. Giovanni Battista di 

 Giacopo, known in France as Maitre Roux (or Roux de Rousse) (born 

 1494 at Florence, died 1541 at Fontainebleau), a follower of Michael 

 Angelo and Parmigiano, was engaged by Francis as "conductor of 

 stuccoes and paintings" at 50 1. a month, with a canonry of the 

 Ste Chapelle and other benefices, a house in Paris and a lodging at 

 Fontainebleau. There being no apartment of sufficient dimensions to 

 give full scope to his talents, or to serve as a theatre for great Court 

 functions, it may have been on his advice that it was decided to erect 

 a gallery to connect the old Oval Court and the new forecourt (B on 

 plan, Fig. 61). It is more than probable, at any rate, that the con- 

 necting wing (1530-3), containing the so-called Gallery of Francis I. 

 (or Petite Galerie] (Fig. 62) on the first floor, the royal library in the 

 roof, and steam baths (etuves) below, was designed by him, as it un- 



