CHAPTER IV 



FRENCH GARDENS OF THE SIXTEENTH 

 AND EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES 



N France the art of garden design had a very definite 

 beginning with the reign of Frangois I, and its 

 development continued without interruption during 

 the next two centuries until the culminating point 

 was reached under Le Notre and his school. 

 Chambord, Fontainebleau, and Saint Germain 

 were the principal creations of Francois I, who, 

 like his great successor Louis XIV, appears to have been always 

 fortunate in attracting the best artists of the day to his court. Few 

 kings have shown an equal amount of discrimination and taste, or exercised a 

 more powerful influence on the art of their country. From Italy he drew 

 the greatest talent of the day, and employed such artists as II Rosso, 

 Primaticcio, Serlio and Vignola, who handed on the finest traditions of 

 the Italian Renaissance to a most brilliant school of Frenchmen, a school 

 numbering in its ranks Pierre Lescot, Jean Goujon and Philibert de I'Orme. 

 In laying out the gardens of Fontainebleau (illus., p. d'])^ Frangois I 

 introduced many Italian features, and although at the present time hardly 

 anything remains of the gardens as they existed at this period, Du Cerceau's 

 plan of about 1570 enables us to form a very accurate idea of them. The 

 great parterre must have been a most delightful garden, an admirable comple- 

 ment to the irregular outline of the quaint collection of turrets and pavilions 

 that constituted the palace. The gardens were not long allowed to remain 

 as Frangois left them. Henri IV considerably extended the boundaries 

 and employed Francini, an Italian designer, to -^^arrange the great parterre 

 or King's Garden, which was now known as ie jardin du Tibre, from a 



