antique sculpture in the Renaissance
The rediscovery of classical sculpture and architectural remains exercised a profound influence on Renaissance artists. Artists such as Gentile da Fabriano, Pisanello, and Giuliano da Sangallo drew ...
Benvenuto Cellini
(1500–71),Italian goldsmith and sculptor, the most renowned goldsmith of his day. His work is characterized by its elaborate virtuosity. His autobiography is famous for its racy style and its vivid ...
Bibliothèque Nationale
The national library of France, in Paris, which receives a copy of every book and periodical published in France.
Cerceau, Du, Family
Group of French architects and decorators founded by Jacques Androuet Du Cerceau the Elder (1510/12–c.1585), whose Les Trois Livres d'Architecture (The Three Books of Architecture—1559–72) was very ...
château
A castle or country house in France, particularly associated with the reign of Francis I and the region of the Loire.
courts
Traditionally the power base of a prince and the refuge for courtiers, took on what is now judged their characteristic form during the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Stable ...
Diane de Poitiers
(1499–1566) French royal mistressduring Henri II’s reign (1547–59), daughter of the comte de Saint-Vallier, himself a bibliophile. Her library remained with the Vendôme family at Anet until it was ...
Du Cerceau
A family of French architects and engineers. Jacques Androuet the Elder (c.1515–1585) was an architect, decorator, engraver, and publisher. During his life he was famous as an engraver with a ...
English architecture
English ecclesiastical architecture has long drawn on continental styles but articulated those styles in ways that are distinctly English. Norman architecture in England clearly shares many features ...
English garden
Informal, asymmetrical, ‘natural’ type of landscape evolved in C18, associated with L. Brown, H. Repton, and others, and widely copied in Europe, where it was called jardinanglo-chinois because of ...
Etienne Dupérac
(1525/35–1604),French architect and garden designer. He moved to Rome in 1550 and stayed for twenty years; the Italian form of his name was Stefano du Perac. His engravings of ...
Flemish Mannerism
North-European mutation and mélange of Flamboyant Gothic, High Renaissance Italian Mannerist, and French Renaissance Fontainebleau styles. It exploited cartouches, caryatides, grotesque ornament, ...
Fontainebleau School
The art produced for Francis I's palace of Fontainebleau from the 1530s to the first decade of the 17th century. In painting it was characterized by elegant, elongated figures, often in mythological ...
Francesco Primaticcio
(1504–70).Italian painter, draughtsman, stuccoist, and architect, who with Rosso Fiorentino and Cellini carried the Italian Mannerist style to France, where he was one of the leading artists of the ...
Francini family
A dynasty of Florentine hydraulic engineers who came to work in France at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries and were involved with some of the most notable ...
Francis I
(1494–1547)King of France (1515–47). He was in many respects an archetypal Renaissance prince, able, quick-witted, and licentious, and a patron of art and learning, but he developed into a cruel ...
French architecture
The Gothic style that was to dominate European architecture in the late Middle Ages originated in France, where it is known as the style ogivale. Individual features of Gothic architecture ...
furniture
Table, chair, and couch are the central items of ancient furnishing. Their principal characteristic is portability, essential in the circumstances of ancient domestic life, with use of space, and ...
Gilles Le Breton
(d. 1553).Master-mason in charge of François Ier's works at Fontainebleau. Surviving designs at Fontainebleau include the Porte Dorée, with superimposed loggie (1528–40), the entrance to the Cour ...
grotesque
A term originally used in the visual arts to describe a type of fanciful wall decoration (painted, carved, or moulded in stucco) characterized by the use of interlinked floral motifs, animal and ...
