DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0420
CHAPTER IX
FRANCE IN THE TIME OF THE RENAISSANCE
IT is wonderful to see how cheerfully France accepted the leadership of Italy and
recognised her aims, while she was from the very beginning conscious of her own
style, and guarded it strictly.
In the year 1495 the young and romantic King Charles VIII. began his
triumphal march into Italy. He passed with little opposition into the South. His
spirit, intoxicated with sheer beauty, received into itself that glamour which the new-
Italian art diffused over all things in those joyful days of the Early Renaissance. Both
he and the young knights, his companions, were loud m their praises, which reached
the highest point v/hen Charles arrived at Naples. Here they thought they had truly
found the Earthly Paradise. "The king in his gracious favour," writes Cardinal Brioonnet
to Queen Anne of Bretagne, "has been pleased to show me everything, both inside and
outside the city. And I assure you that the beauty of the places is incredible, with the
furnishings of this world's pleasures m every possible kind." And Charles himself writes
to Pierre de Bourbon: "You cannot believe what lovely gardens I have seen in this town;
for, on my word, it seems as though only Adam and Eve were wanting to make an Earthly
Paradise, so full are they of rare and beautiful things."
There was one night, spent by the king at Poggio Reale, that seemed to him and his
chroniclers, the poets at court, to be the crowning point of all this glory. "To describe
the beauty of this place, one would need have the beau parler de Maistre Alexis Chartier,
la subtilite de Maistre Jean de Meung, et la main de Fouqutt," says one of his companions.
Charles did not bring home much in the way of political gains; the stakes which he won
he lost again. But for the education of France this journey of his had far-reaching conse-
quences; it was the birthday of the French Renaissance. He came back with twenty-two
Italian artists of the most diverse types, and he gave them a home at the castle of Amboise.
With them there arrived, under the care of Nicolas Fagot, the king's tent-maker, a con-
signment of various tapestries, libraries, pictures, sculptures in marble, and porphyry,
weighing in all 87,000 pounds. The French writer who makes this statement goes on
to say: "To tell of these would take, not a single sentence, but twenty sheets; for what
the upholsterer Nicolas Fagot brought into the heart of France from the depths of Italy
was nothing more nor less than the whole of Italian art—that art which was destined to
bring forth at Amboise, at Gaillon, and in our entire fatherland, countless marvels, perhaps
the choicest that France has ever seen."
Charles felt a burning desire to make Amboise beautiful. Bnconnet had repeated the
king's words to the Queen of Naples about the Earthly Paradise, and added that "he now
no longer values Amboise as he did." But when the king was home again it was his earnest
wish to make another paradise there. The rebuilding of the castle—already put in hand
391
FRANCE IN THE TIME OF THE RENAISSANCE
IT is wonderful to see how cheerfully France accepted the leadership of Italy and
recognised her aims, while she was from the very beginning conscious of her own
style, and guarded it strictly.
In the year 1495 the young and romantic King Charles VIII. began his
triumphal march into Italy. He passed with little opposition into the South. His
spirit, intoxicated with sheer beauty, received into itself that glamour which the new-
Italian art diffused over all things in those joyful days of the Early Renaissance. Both
he and the young knights, his companions, were loud m their praises, which reached
the highest point v/hen Charles arrived at Naples. Here they thought they had truly
found the Earthly Paradise. "The king in his gracious favour," writes Cardinal Brioonnet
to Queen Anne of Bretagne, "has been pleased to show me everything, both inside and
outside the city. And I assure you that the beauty of the places is incredible, with the
furnishings of this world's pleasures m every possible kind." And Charles himself writes
to Pierre de Bourbon: "You cannot believe what lovely gardens I have seen in this town;
for, on my word, it seems as though only Adam and Eve were wanting to make an Earthly
Paradise, so full are they of rare and beautiful things."
There was one night, spent by the king at Poggio Reale, that seemed to him and his
chroniclers, the poets at court, to be the crowning point of all this glory. "To describe
the beauty of this place, one would need have the beau parler de Maistre Alexis Chartier,
la subtilite de Maistre Jean de Meung, et la main de Fouqutt," says one of his companions.
Charles did not bring home much in the way of political gains; the stakes which he won
he lost again. But for the education of France this journey of his had far-reaching conse-
quences; it was the birthday of the French Renaissance. He came back with twenty-two
Italian artists of the most diverse types, and he gave them a home at the castle of Amboise.
With them there arrived, under the care of Nicolas Fagot, the king's tent-maker, a con-
signment of various tapestries, libraries, pictures, sculptures in marble, and porphyry,
weighing in all 87,000 pounds. The French writer who makes this statement goes on
to say: "To tell of these would take, not a single sentence, but twenty sheets; for what
the upholsterer Nicolas Fagot brought into the heart of France from the depths of Italy
was nothing more nor less than the whole of Italian art—that art which was destined to
bring forth at Amboise, at Gaillon, and in our entire fatherland, countless marvels, perhaps
the choicest that France has ever seen."
Charles felt a burning desire to make Amboise beautiful. Bnconnet had repeated the
king's words to the Queen of Naples about the Earthly Paradise, and added that "he now
no longer values Amboise as he did." But when the king was home again it was his earnest
wish to make another paradise there. The rebuilding of the castle—already put in hand
391