Catherine de' Medici's building projects

Catherine de' Medici's building projects

Catherine de' Medici's building projects included the Valois chapel at Saint-Denis, the Tuileries Palace, and the Hôtel de la Reine in Paris, and extensions to the château of Chenonceau, near Blois. Born in 1519 in Florence to an Italian father and a French mother, Catherine de' Medici was a daughter of both the Italian and the French Renaissance. She grew up in Florence and Rome under the wing of the Medici popes, Leo X and Clement VII. In 1533, at the age of fourteen, she left Italy and married Henry, the second son of Francis I and Queen Claude of France. On doing so, she entered the greatest Renaissance court in northern Europe.Knecht, 220.]

King Francis set his daughter-in-law an example of kingship and artistic patronage that she never forgot. [Frieda, 79.] She witnessed his huge architectural schemes at Chambord and Fontainebleau. She saw Italian and French craftsmen at work together, forging the style that became known as the first School of Fontainebleau. Francis died in 1547, and Catherine became queen consort of France. But it wasn't until her husband King Henry's death in 1559, when she found herself at forty the effective ruler of France, that Catherine came into her own as a patron of architecture. Over the next three decades, she launched a series of costly building projects aimed at enhancing the grandeur of the monarchy. During the same period, however, religious civil war gripped the country and brought the prestige of the monarchy to a dangerously low ebb. ["The Day of the Barricades" (12 May 1589), in which a mob took over the streets of Paris, "reduced the authority and prestige of the monarchy to its lowest ebb for a century and a half". Morris, 260.]

Catherine loved to supervise each project personally. [The architect Philibert de l'Orme wrote: "your good judgement ("bon esprit") shows itself more and more and shines as you yourself take the trouble to project and sketch out ("protraire et esquicher") the buildings which it pleases you to commission". Knecht, 228.] The architects of the day dedicated books to her, knowing that she would read them. [Knecht, 228. The poet Ronsard accused her of preferring masons to poets.] Though she spent colossal sums on the building and embellishment of monuments and palaces, little remains of Catherine's investment today: one Doric column, a few fragments in the corner of the Tuileries gardens, an empty tomb at Saint Denis. The sculptures she commissioned for the Valois chapel are lost, or scattered, often damaged or incomplete, in museums and churches. Catherine de' Medici's reputation as a sponsor of buildings rests instead on the designs and treatises of her architects. These testify to the vitality of French architecture under her patronage.

Influences

Historians often assume that Catherine's love for the arts stemmed from her Medici heritage. "As the daughter of the Medici," suggests French art historian Jean-Pierre Babelon, "she was driven by a passion to build and a desire to leave great achievements behind her when she died." [Babelon, "The Louvre", 263.] Born in Florence in 1519, Catherine lived at the Medici palace, built by Cosimo de' Medici to designs by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo. [Frieda, 24.] After moving to Rome in 1530, she lived, surrounded by classical and Renaissance treasures, at another Medici palace (now called the Palazzo Madama). There she watched the leading artists and architects of the day at work in the city. [Frieda, 30–31.] When she later commissioned buildings herself, in France, Catherine often turned to Italian models. She based the Tuileries on the Pitti palace in Florence; [Hautecœur, 523.] and she originally planned the Hotel de la Reine with the Uffizi palace in mind.Thomson, 176.]

Catherine, however, left Italy in 1533 at the age of fourteen and married Henry of Orléans, the second son of King Francis I of France. Though she kept in touch with her native Florence, her taste matured at the royal court of France. Her father-in-law impressed Catherine deeply as an example of what a monarch should be. [Knecht 176; Frieda, 199.] She later copied Francis' policy of setting the grandeur of the dynasty in stone, whatever the cost. His lavish building projects inspired her own. [Frieda, 79, 455; Sutherland, 6.]

Francis was a compulsive builder. He began extension works at the Louvre, [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 80. These extensions, supervised by Pierre Lescot and featuring relief sculptures by Jean Goujon, were continued by the last four Valois kings.] added a wing to the old castle at Blois, and built the vast château of Chambord, which he showed off to the emperor Charles V in 1539. He also transformed the lodge at Fontainebleau into one of the great palaces of Europe, a project that continued under Henry II. Artists such as Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primaticcio worked on the interior, alongside French craftsmen. [Norwich, 158.] This meeting of Italian Mannerism and French patronage bred an original style, later known as the first School of Fontainebleau. [Thornton, 51.] Featuring frescoes and high-relief stucco in the shape of parchment or curled leather strapwork, it became the dominant decorative fashion in France in the second half of the fifteenth century. [Norwich, 157.] Catherine later herself employed Primaticcio to design her Valois chapel. She also patronised French talent, such as the architects Philibert de l'Orme and Jean Bullant, and the sculptor Germain Pilon.

The death of Henry II from jousting wounds in 1559 changed Catherine's life. From that day, she wore black and took as her emblem a broken lance. [Knecht, 58.] She turned her widowhood into a political force that validated her authority during the reigns of her three weak sons. ["Catherine's lifelong mourning was not only a manner to express grief: it was also the legitimisation of her political role." Hoogvliet, 106.] She also became intent on immortalizing her sorrow at the death of her husband.Knecht, 223.] She had emblems of her love and grief carved into the stonework of her buildings.Knecht, 223.] She commissioned a magnificent tomb for Henry, as the centrepiece of an ambitious new chapel.

In 1562, a long poem by Nicolas Houël likened Catherine to Artemisia, who had built the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, as a tomb for her dead husband. [Frieda, 266; Hoogvliet, 108. Louis Le Roy, in his "Ad illustrissimam reginam D. Catherinam Medicem" of 1560, was the first to call Catherine the "new Artemisia".] Artemesia had also acted as regent for her children. Houël laid stress on Artemesia's devotion to architecture. In his dedication to "L'Histoire de la Royne Arthémise", he told Catherine:

You will find here the edifices, columns, and pyramids that she had built both at Rhodes and Halicarnassus, which will serve as remembrances for those who reflect on our times and who will be astounded at your own buildings–the palaces at the Tuileries, Montceaux, and Saint-Maur, and the infinity of others that you have constructed, built, and embellished with sculptures and beautiful paintings. [Quoted by Knecht, 224. Catherine commissioned the artists Niccolò dell'Abbate and Antoine Caron to illustrate the poem. The drawings were subsequently turned into tapestries, none of which survive; but, according to Knecht, fifty-nine of the drawings survive. Hoogvliet, 108, on the other hand, says that sixty-eight of the drawings survive.
• Frieda, 266. The story of Artemisia formed an iconography for Catherine and reinforced her right to serve as regent. The later female regents Marie de' Medici (1610–20) and Anne of Austria (1643–60) revived this iconography in their own service.
]

Valois Chapel

In memory of Henry II, Catherine decided to add a new chapel to the basilica of Saint Denis, where the kings of France were traditionally buried. As the centrepiece of this circular chapel, sometimes known as the Valois rotunda, she commissioned a magnificent and innovative tomb for Henry and herself. The design of this tomb should be understood in the context of its planned setting. [Zerner, 383.] The plan was to integrate the tomb's effigies of the king and queen with other statues throughout the chapel, creating a vast spatial composition. The approval of Catherine de' Medici would have been essential for such a departure from funerary tradition. [Zerner, 382.]

Architecture

To lead the Valois chapel project, Catherine chose Francesco Primaticcio, who had worked for Henry at Fontainebleau. Primaticcio designed the chapel as a round building, crowned by a dome, to be joined to the north transept of the basilica. The interior and exterior of the chapel were to be decorated with pilasters, columns, and epitaphs in coloured marble. The building would contain six other chapels circling the tomb of Henry and Catherine. [Hoogvliet, 109.] Primaticcio's circular design solved the problems faced by the Giusti brothers and Philibert de l'Orme, who had built previous royal tombs. Whereas de l'Orme had designed the tomb of Francis I to be viewed only from the front or the side, Primaticcio's design allowed the tomb to be viewed from all angles. [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 56.] Art historian Henri Zerner has called the plan "a grand ritualistic drama which would have filled the rotunda's celestial space”. ["L’art de la Renaissance en France. L'invention du classicisme" (Zerner, 1996: 349–54), quoted by Knecht, 227.]

Work on the chapel began in 1563 and continued over the next two decades. Primaticcio died in 1570, and the architect Jean Bullant took over the project two years later. After Bullant’s death in 1578, Baptiste du Cerceau led the work. [Knecht, 226.] The building was abandoned in 1585. Over two hundred years later, in 1793, a mob tossed Catherine and Henry's bones into a pit with the rest of the French kings and queens. [Knecht, 269.]

Tomb

Several of the monuments built for the Valois chapel have survived. These include the tomb of Catherine and Henry—in Zerner's view, "the last and most brilliant of the royal tombs of the Renaissance".Zerner, 379.] Primaticcio himself designed its structure, which eliminated the traditional bas-reliefs and kept ornamentation to a minimum.Zerner, 379.] The sculptor Germain Pilon, who had provided statues for the tomb of Francis I, carved the tomb’s two sets of effigies, which represented death below and eternal life above. ["With the rise of naturalistic representations beginning in the fifteenth century, the afterlife was imagined as an exact replica of earthly existence. As a result, the tombs of the mighty often insinuated an ambiguous conflation of the glorious Life Eternal with a glorification of their earthly lives." Zerner, 380.] The king and queen, cast in bronze, kneel in prayer ("priants") on a marble canopy supported by twelve marble columns. Their poses echo those on the nearby tombs of Louis XII and Francis I. Pilon’s feel for the material, however, invests his statues with a greater sense of movement. [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 94. Blunt believes that Benvenuto Cellini's Fontainebleau "nymph" may have influenced their carving.]

The cadavers ("gisants") of the king and queen lie in the mortuary chamber below. [Zerner 383–84. Girolamo Della Robbia was originally commissioned to carve the queen’s corpse, but his effort, in which Catherine looks emaciated, was left unfinished in 1566 and is now in the Louvre.] Catherine's corpse suggests sleep rather than death, while Henry is posed strikingly, with his head thrown back. [Zerner, 379; Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 95.] From 1583, Pilon also sculpted two later "gisants" of Catherine and Henry wearing their crowns and coronation robes. [Zerner suggests that these two, apparently superfluous, recumbent effigies, as rigid as those from the thirteenth century, might have been a "call to order". In the context of the wars of religion, they may have represented a pulling back from the sensuality of the tomb, which "was bound to appear somewhat pagan". Zerner, 382–83.] In this case, he portrays Catherine realistically, with a double chin. These two statues were intended to flank the altar of the chapel. [Knecht, 226–27.] Pilon's four bronze statues of the cardinal virtues stand at the corners of the tomb. Pilon also carved the reliefs round the base that recall Bontemps' work on the monument for the heart of Francis I.Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 94.]

tatuary

In the 1580s, Pilon began work on statues for the chapels that were to circle the tomb. Among these, the fragmentary "Resurrection", now in the Louvre, was designed to face the tomb of Catherine and Henry from a side chapel. [Zerner, 383. Whereas the "Resurrection" for the tomb of Francis I was positioned close to the corpses, this design would have involved the visitor.] This work owes a clear debt to Michelangelo, who had designed the tomb and funerary statues for Catherine's father at the Medici chapels in Florence. [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 95. Pilon based the Christ on Michelangelo's cartoon for "Noli me tangere" (1531) and carved the soldiers in Michelangelo's "contrapposto" style.] Pilon’s statue of "St Francis in Ecstasy" now stands in the church of St Jean and St François. In art historian Anthony Blunt’s view, it marks a departure from the tension of Mannerism and "almost foreshadows" the Baroque.Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 95.]

Pilon had by this time developed a freer style of sculpture than previously seen in France. Earlier French sculpture seems to have influenced him less than Primaticcio's decorations at Fontainebleau:Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 94.] the work of his predecessor Jean Goujon, for example, is more linear and classical. [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 94, 97.] Pilon openly depicts extreme emotion in his work, sometimes to the point of the grotesque. His style has been interpreted as a reflection of a society torn by the conflict of the French wars of religion. [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 96–97.]

Montceaux

Catherine’s earliest building project was the château of Montceaux-en-Brie, near Paris, which Henry II gave her in 1556, three years before his death. The building consisted of a central pavilion housing a straight staircase, and two wings with a pavilion at each end. Catherine wanted to cover the alley in the garden where Henry played pall mall, an early form of croquet. For this commission, Philibert de l'Orme built her a grotto. He set it on a base made to look like natural rock, from which guests could watch the games while taking refreshments. The work was completed in 1558 but has not survived. [Knecht, 228–229.] The château ceased to be used as a royal residence after 1640, and had fallen into ruin by the time it was demolished by revolutionary decree in 1798. [Coope, [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0075-4390%28195901%2F06%2922%3A1%2F2%3C71%3ATCOM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage "The Chateau of Montceaux-en-Brie"] , 71–87.]

Tuileries

After the death of Henry II, Catherine abandoned the palace of the Tournelles, where Henry had lain after a lance fatally pierced his eye and brain in a joust. [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 104. Catherine planned a grid of streets to replace the palace, with houses designed by de l'Orme, but the work was never carried out. Henry IV, who ruled France from 1589 to 1610, later constructed a square on the site called the Place Royale, now known as the Place des Vosges.] To replace the Tournelles, she decided in 1563 to build herself a new Paris residence on the site of some old tile kilns or "tuileries". The site was close to the congested Louvre, where she kept her household. The grounds extended along the banks of the Seine and afforded a view of the countryside to the south and west.Frieda, 335.] The Tuileries was the first palace that Catherine had planned from the ground up. It was to grow into the largest royal building project of the last quarter of the sixteenth century in western Europe. Her massive building schemes would have transformed western Paris, as seen from the river, into a monumental complex. [Thomson, 165.
• This additions.
]

To design the new palace, Catherine brought back Philibert de l'Orme from disgrace. This arrogant genius had been sacked as superintendent of royal buildings at the end of Henry II's reign, after making too many enemies. [Knecht, 229. Historian R. J. Knecht suggests, (after Blunt, "Philibert de l’Orme", London, 1958), that Catherine may have been moved to rehabilitate de l’Orme after reading his "Instruction", in which he defended himself against all charges and pleaded for fair treatment.
• Randall, 82–84. The reasons for de l'Orme's disgrace are not clear, but it seems that he was prone to arrogance and had made enemies.
• Zerner, 402. Zerner, who calls him "haughty", mentions allegations of embezzlement and an incident in which de l'Orme and his brother killed two men in a brawl.
] De l'Orme mentioned the project in his treatises on architecture, but his ideas are not fully known. It appears from the small amount of work carried out that his plans for the Tuileries departed from his known principles. De l'Orme is said to have "taught France the classical style—lucid, rational and regular". [Sharp, 44.] He notes, however, that in this case he added rich materials and ornaments to please the queen. [De l’Orme recorded that Catherine told him "to make several encrustations of different kinds of marble, gilded bronze and of minerals, like marcassites" on both the inside and the outside of the building. Knecht, 228.] The plans therefore include a decorative element that looks forward to Bullant's later work and to a less classical style of architecture.Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 55.]

For the pilasters of Catherine's palace, de l’Orme chose the Ionic order, which he considered a feminine form:

I will not go on to other matters without pointing out to you that I chose the present Ionic order, from amongst all others, in order to ornament and to give lustre to the palace, which Her Majesty the Queen, mother of the most Christian King Charles IX, today is having built at Paris . . .The other reason why I wanted to use and to show the Ionic order properly, on the palace of Her Majesty the Queen, is because it is feminine and was devised according to the proportions and beauties of women and goddesses, as was the Doric to those of men, which is what the ancients have told me: for, when they decided to build a temple to a god, they used the Doric, and to a goddess, the Ionic. Yet all architects have not followed that [principle] , shown in Vitruvius's text . . . accordingly I have made use, at the palace of Her Majesty the Queen, of the Ionic order, on the view that it is delicate and of greater beauty than the Doric, and more ornamented and enriched with distinctive features. [Quoted by Thomson, 169.]

Catherine de’ Medici was closely involved in planning and supervising the building. [De l’Orme wrote that Catherine, with "an admirable understanding combined with great prudence and wisdom," took the trouble "to order the organization of her said palace (the Tuileries) as to the apartments and location of the halls, antechambers, chambers, closets and galleries, and to give the measurements of width and length". Quoted by Knecht, 228.] De l'Orme records, for example, that she told him to take down some Ionic columns that struck her as too plain. She also insisted on large panels between the dormers to make room for inscriptions. [Thomson, 171; Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 55. The way the dormers overlap the pedimented panels gives the effect of blurrier lines than in the more classical works de l'Orme had designed for Henry II.] Only a part of de l’Orme’s scheme was ever built: the lower section of a central pavilion, containing an oval staircase, and a wing on either side.Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 55.] Though work on de l'Orme's design was abandoned in 1572, two years after his death, it is nonetheless held in high regard. According to Thomson, "The surviving portions of the palace scattered between the Tuileries gardens, the courtyards of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts [Paris] and the Château de la Punta in Corsica show that the columns, pilasters, dormers and tabernacles of the Tuileries were the outstanding masterpieces of non-figurative French Renaissance architectural sculpture". [Thomson, 171
• Pons, 79. Counts Jérome and Charles Pozzo di Borgo bought sections of the ruins during the demolition of the Tuileries in 1883 and used them to construct the château de la Punta in Corsica, overlooking the gulf of Ajaccio (1885–7).
]

De l'Orme's original plans have not survived. Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, however, has left us a set of plans for the Tuileries. One engraving shows a grandiose palace, with three courts and two oval halls. This design is atypical of de l’Orme’s style and so is likely to have been du Cerceau's own proposal or his son Baptiste's. [Knecht, 229; Thomson 165–66.] It recalls the houses with tall pavilions and multiple courtyards that du Cerceau often drew in the 1560s and 1570s. Architectural historian David Thomson suggests that the oval halls within du Cerceau's courtyards were Catherine de' Medici's idea. She may have planned to use them for her famously lavish balls and entertainments. [Thomson, 168. In June 1565 and September 1581, Catherine had temporary oval structures built to house entertainments for state occasions.] Du Cerceau's drawings reveal that, before he published them in 1576, Catherine decided to join the Louvre to the Tuileries by a gallery running west along the north bank of the Seine. Only the ground floor of the first section, the "Petite Galerie", was completed in her lifetime. [Thomson, 173. The reliefs on the arches of the "Petite Galerie", like those on the court front of the Louvre, symbolise the might and moral authority of the Valois monarchy. Those of de l’Orme at the Tuileries are purely classical in style and follow the principles of Vitruvius.] It was left to Henry IV, who ruled from 1589 to 1610, to add the second floor and the "Grande Galerie" that finally linked the two palaces. [Thomson, 172.]

After de l’Orme died in 1570, Catherine abandoned his design for a freestanding house with courtyards. To his unfinished wing she added a pavilion that extended the building towards the river. This was built in a less experimental style by Jean Bullant. Bullant attached columns to his pavilion, as advocated in his 1564 book on the classical orders, to mark proportion. Some commentators have interpreted his different approach as a criticism of de l’Orme’s departures from the style of Roman monuments. [Thomson, 173–4. The only elements Bullant harmonised with de l'Orme's work were the ground-floor Ionic columns and the frieze and cornice between the first and ground floors.]

Despite its unfinished state, Catherine often visited the palace. She held banquets and festivities there and loved to walk in the gardens.Frieda, 335.] According to the French military leader Marshal Tavannes, it was in the Tuileries gardens that she planned the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, in which thousands of Huguenots were butchered in Paris. [Frieda, 306.] The gardens had been laid out before work on the palace halted. They included canals, fountains, and a grotto decorated with glazed animals by the potter Bernard Palissy.Knecht, 232.] In 1573, Catherine hosted the famous entertainment at the Tuileries that is depicted on the Valois tapestries. This was a grand ball for the Polish envoys who had come to offer the crown of Poland to her son, the duke of Anjou, later Henry III of France. [Knecht, 230.] Henry IV later added to the Tuileries; but Louis XVI of France was to dismantle sections of the palace. The communards set fire to the remainder in 1871. Twelve years later, the ruins were demolished and then sold off. [Ayers, 42.]

aint-Maur

The palace of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, south east of Paris, was another of Catherine's unfinished projects. She bought this building, on which Philibert de l'Orme had worked, from the heirs of Cardinal Jean du Bellay, after the latter's death in 1560. [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 49.] She then commissioned de l'Orme to finish the work he had begun there. Drawings by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau in the British Museum may shed light on Catherine's intentions for Saint-Maur. They show a plan to enlarge each wing by doubling the size of the pavilions next to the main block of the house. The house was to stay as one storey, with a flat roof and rusticated pilasters. That meant the extensions would not unbalance the masses of the building as seen from the side.Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 55.]

De l’Orme died in 1570; in 1575 an unknown architect took over at Saint-Maur. [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 89, believes this architect was Jean Bullant, of whom he writes: "In these last years, Bullant's desire for the colossal seems to have grown greater, and in this case it could not be harmonized with the existing building".] The new man proposed to heighten the pavilions on the garden side and top them with pitched roofs. He also planned two more arches over de l’Orme’s terrace, which joined the pavilions on the garden side. [Knecht, 231. The terrace was supported by a cryptoporticus, a covered passageway.] In historian R. J. Knecht's view, the scheme would have given this part of the house, a "colossal, even grotesque" pediment.Knecht, 231.] The work was only partly carried out, and the house was never fit for Catherine to live in.

Hôtel de la Reine

After de l'Orme's death, Jean Bullant replaced him as Catherine's chief architect. In 1572, Catherine commissioned Bullant to build a new home for her within the Paris city walls. She had outgrown her apartments at the Louvre and needed more room for her swelling household. [Knecht, 230. Between 1575 and 1583, for example, the number of Catherine’s ladies-in-waiting rose from 68 to 111.] To make space for the new scheme and its gardens, she had an entire area of Paris demolished. [Frieda, 335. The area, in the parish of Saint-Eustache, included the Hôtel Guillart and the Hôtel d'Albret.]

The new palace was known in Catherine's time as the Hôtel de la Reine and later as the Hôtel de Soissons. The original design was based on the Uffizi palace in Florence, but Catherine dropped that idea for a less costly plan after 1576. Engravings made by Israël Silvestre in about 1650 and a plan from about 1700 show that the Hôtel de la Reine possessed a central wing, a courtyard, and gardens. [ that could be dismantled in winter.Knecht, 232.] The actual construction work was carried out after Bullant’s death in 1582. [Thomson, 176–7.] The building was demolished in the 1760s.

All that remains of the Hôtel de la Reine today is a single Doric column, known as the Colonne de l’Horoscope, which stood in the courtyard. [Thomson, 176. On the left of the stairway of the tower was a hall, the largest room in the complex. The central wing, as drawn by Silvestre from the garden, extended on its north side.] It can be seen next to the domed Bourse de Commerce. Catherine's biographer Leonie Frieda has called it "a poignant reminder of the fleeting nature of power". [Frieda, 455.] The staircase inside leads to a platform that can hold three persons and is topped by an iron cage. A balcony is thought to have once encircled the top. [Frieda, 336.] The purpose of the column is not clear, but it would have served as a useful observation post. Catherine’s astrologers may have used it to look at the stars.Knecht, 223.] The column also seems to have had a memorial significance. [Thomson, 175.] Carvings of shattered mirrors, torn love-knots, and the intertwined letters "C" and "H"—all symbols of Catherine's grief at the loss of her husband—are embedded in the fluting.Knecht, 223.]

Chenonceau

In 1576, Catherine decided to enlarge her château of Chenonceau, near Blois. On Henry II’s death, she had demanded this property from Henry’s mistress Diane de Poitiers. She had not forgotten that Henry had given this crown property to Diane instead of to her.Frieda, 144.] In return, she gave Diane the less prized Chaumont.Knecht, 232.] When Diane arrived at Chaumont, she found signs of the occult, such as pentangles drawn on the floor. She quickly withdrew to her château of Anet and never set foot in Chaumont again. [Frieda, 148.]

Diane had carried out major works at Chenonceau, such as de l'Orme's bridge over the Cher River. Now Catherine set out to efface or outdo her former rival’s work.Frieda, 144.] She lavished vast sums on the house and built two galleries on the extension over the bridge. The architect was almost certainly Bullant. The decorations show the fantasy of his late style.Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 89.]

Catherine loved gardens and often conducted business in them. [Benes, 211.] At Chenonceau, she added waterfalls, menageries, and aviaries, laid out three parks, and planted mulberry trees for silkworms.Knecht, 232.] Jacques Androuet du Cerceau made drawings of a grandiose scheme for Chenonceau. A trapezoidal lower court leads to a forecourt of semicircular atria joined to two halls that flank the original house.Thomson, 165.] These drawings may not be a reliable record of Bullant’s plans. Du Cerceau "sometimes inserted in his book designs embodying ideas which he himself would have liked to see carried out rather than those of the actual designer of the building in question". [Knecht, 232, quotes Blunt, "Philibert de l’Orme" (London, 1958), 89–91.]

Jacques Androuet du Cerceau was a favourite architect of Catherine's. Like Bullant, he became a more fantastical designer with time. [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 90.] Nothing he built himself, however, has survived. He is known instead for his engravings of the leading architectural schemes of the day, including Saint-Maur, the Tuileries, and Chenonceau.Thomson, 165.] In 1576 and 1579, he produced the two-volume "Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de France", a beautiful publication dedicated to Catherine. [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 91. The original drawings are now in the British Museum.] His work is an invaluable record of buildings that were never finished or were later substantially altered. [Blunt, "Art and Architecture in France", 91.]

End of the dynasty

Catherine spent ruinous sums of money on buildings at a time of plague, famine, and economic hardship in France. [Cunningham, 280–81. So widespread and serious was the plague of 1565, for example, that Catherine had the surgeon Ambroise Paré write an account of it. He concluded that plague resulted from poisoning of the air and was "often sent by the just anger of God punishing our offences".] As the country slipped deeper into anarchy, her plans grew ever more ambitious. [Thomson, 168.] Yet the Valois monarchy was crippled by debt and its moral authority was in steep decline. The popular view condemned Catherine's building schemes as obscenely extravagant. This was especially true in Paris, where the "parlement" was often asked to contribute to her costs.

Ronsard captured the mood in a poem:

The queen must cease building,Her lime must stop swallowing our wealth...Painters, masons, engravers, stone-carversDrain the treasury with their deceits.Of what use is her Tuileries to us?Of none, Moreau; it is but vanity.It will be deserted within a hundred years. [Knecht, 233. Ronsard addressed these lines to the financial official Raoul Moreau. "Au tresorier de l'esparne" (ca. 1573).]

Ronsard was in many ways proved correct. The death of Catherine's beloved son Henry III in 1589, a few months after her own, brought the Valois dynasty to an end. Precious little of Catherine's grand building work has survived.

ee also

*Catherine de' Medici's court festivals
*Catherine de' Medici's patronage of the arts

Notes and references

Bibliography

*Ayers, Andrew. "The Architecture of Paris". Stuttgart: Edition Axel Menges, 2004. ISBN 393069896X.
*Fr icon Babelon, Jean-Pierre. " _fr. Châteaux de France au siècle de la Renaissance." Paris: Flammarion/Picard, 1989. ISBN 208012062X.
*Babelon, Jean-Pierre. "The Louvre: Royal Residence and Temple of the Arts". "Realms of Memory: The Construction of the French Past. Vol. III: Symbols". Edited by Pierre Nora. English language edition edited by Lawrence D. Kritzman and translated by Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998. ISBN 0231109261.
*Benes, Mirka. "Villas and Gardens in Early Modern Italy and France." Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. ISBN 0521782252.
* Blunt, Anthony. "Art and Architecture in France: 1500–1700". New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, [1957] 1999 edition. ISBN 0300077483.
*Blunt, Anthony. "Philibert de l'Orme". London: Zwemmer, 1958. [http://worldcat.org/oclc/554569&referer=brief_results OCLC 554569.]
*Fr icon Bullant, Jean. " _fr. Reigle generalle d'architectvre des cinq manieres de colonnes, á sçauoir, Tuscane, Dorique, Ionique, Corinthe, & Coposite; enrichi de plusieurs autres, à l'exemple de l'antique; veu, recorrigé & augmenté par l'auteur de cinq autre ordres de colonnes auiuant les reigles & doctrine de Vitruue; au proffit de tous ouvriers besongnans au compas & à l'esquierre a Escouën par Iehan Bullant." Paris: Hierosme de Marnef & Guillaume Cauellat, 1568. [http://worldcat.org/oclc/20861874&referer=brief_results OCLC 20861874.]
*Fr icon Du Cerceau, Jacques Androuet. " _fr. Les plus excellents bastiments de France." Paris: Sand & Conti, [1576, 1579] 1988 edition. ISBN 271070420X.
*Chastel, A. "French Art: The Renaissance, 1430–1620." Translated by Deke Dusinberre. Paris: Flammarion, 1995. ISBN 208013583X.
*Coope, Rosalys. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0075-4390%28195901%2F06%2922%3A1%2F2%3C71%3ATCOM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage "The Chateau of Montceaux-en-Brie."] Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 22, No. 1/2 (Jan.–Jun., 1959), 71–87. Retrieved 29 March 2008.
*Cunningham, Andrew, and Ole Peter Grell. "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine and Death in Reformation Europe". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN 0521467012.
* Frieda, Leonie. "Catherine de Medici." London: Phoenix, 2005. ISBN 0173820390.
*Fr icon Hautecœur, Louis. " _fr. Histoire de l'architecture classique en France". Paris: Picard, 1943. [http://worldcat.org/oclc/1199768&referer=brief_results OCLC 1199768.]
*Hoogvliet, Margriet. "Princely Culture and Catherine de Médicis". "Princes and Princely Culture, 1450–1650." Edited by Martin Gosman, Alasdair A. MacDonald, and Arie Johan Vanderjagt. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill Academic, 2003. ISBN 9004135723.
*Knecht, R. J. "Catherine de' Medici." London and New York: Longman, 1998. ISBN 0582082412.
*Morris, T. A. "Europe and England in the Sixteenth Century." London and New York: Routledge, 1998. ISBN 041515040X.
*Neale, J. E. "The Age of Catherine de' Medici." London: Jonathan Cape, 1945. [http://worldcat.org/oclc/39949296&referer=brief_results OCLC 39949296.]
* Norwich, John Julius. "Great Architecture of the World." Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2001 edition. ISBN 0306810425.
*Fr icon L'Orme, Philibert de. " _fr. Architecture de Philibert de L'Orme. Oeuvre entiere contenant unze livres, augmentée de deux; & autres figures non encores veuës, tant pour desseins qu'ornemens de maison. Avec une belle invention pour bien bastir, & à petits frais." Ridgewood, NJ: Gregg Press, [Reprint of the 1648 Rouen edition] 1964. [http://worldcat.org/oclc/1156874&referer=brief_results OCLC 1156874.]
*Pons, Bruno. "Architecture and Panelling: The James. A. Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor". London: Philip Wilson, 2001. ISBN 0856674370.
*Randall, Catharine. "Building Codes: The Aesthetics of Calvinism in Early Modern Europe." Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999. ISBN 0812234901.
*Sharp, Dennis, ed. "The Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture and Architects". London: Headline, 1991. ISBN 0747202710.
*Sutherland, N. M. "Catherine de Medici and the Ancien Régime." London: Historical Association, 1966. [http://worldcat.org/oclc/1018933 OCLC 1018933.]
*Thomson, David. [http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft0x0n99zf/ " Renaissance Paris: Architecture and Growth, 1475-1600".] Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. ISBN 0520053478. Retrieved 21 March 2008.
*Thornton, Peter. "Form and Decoration: Innovation in the Decorative Arts, 1470–1870." London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000. ISBN 0297824880.
*Zerner, Henri. "Renaissance Art in France. The Invention of Classicism." Translated by Deke Dusinberre, Scott Wilson, and Rachel Zerner. Paris: Flammarion, 2003. ISBN 2080111442.

External links

*Fr icon [http://www.cesr.univ-tours.fr/architectura/Traite/index.asp?param= "Architectura: Les Livres d'Architecture. Architecture, Textes et Images, XVI–XVII siècles."] Academic website containing texts, drawings, and bibliographical material about sixteenth- and seventeenth-century French architects, including Philibert de l'Orme, Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, and Jean Bullant. A large-scale project in development.


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Catherine de' Medici — Catherine de Medici, attributed to François Clouet, c. 1555 Queen consort of France Reign 31 March 1547 – 10 July 1559 …   Wikipedia

  • Catherine de' Medici's patronage of the arts — made a significant contribution to the French Renaissance. Catherine was inspired by the example of her father in law, King Francis I of France (reigned 1515–1547), who had hosted the leading artists of Europe at his court. As a young woman, she… …   Wikipedia

  • Catherine de' Medici's court festivals — Ball at the Court of Henri III (detail), Franco Flemish school, c. 1582. Catherine de Medici s court festivals were a series of lavish and spectacular entertainments, sometimes called magnificences , laid on by Catherine de Medici, the queen… …   Wikipedia

  • Projets architecturaux de Catherine de Médicis — Catherine de Médicis, par François Clouet. Les projets architecturaux de Catherine de Médicis ont inclus la chapelle des Valois à la basilique Saint Denis, le palais des Tuileries et l hôtel de la Reine à Paris, ainsi que des agrandissements au… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Germain Pilon — (c. 1537 [In 1583 he said he was forty six or thereabouts (Babelon 1927:33).] Paris 1590 Paris) was one of the most important sculptors of the French Renaissance. Trained by his father and (perhaps) Pierre Bontemps, Pilon was an expert with… …   Wikipedia

  • Jean Bullant — See also: Jean Bullant (composer) Jean Bullant (1515 1578) was a French architect and sculptor who built the tombs of Anne de Montmorency, Grand Connétable of France, Henri II, and Catherine de Medici, as well as the Tuileries, the Louvre, and… …   Wikipedia

  • Philibert de l'Orme — Engraved portrait of Philibert DeLorme, c. 1626 Philibert DeLorme (pronounced: [filibɛːʁ dəlɔʁm]) (c. 1514 – January 8, 1570) was a French architect, one of the great masters of the French Renaissance. He was born at Lyon, the son of Jean… …   Wikipedia

  • Portal:Architecture — Shortcut: P:ARCH Wikipedia portals: Culture Geography Health History Mathematics Natural sciences Peop …   Wikipedia

  • Androuet du Cerceau — was a family of French architects and designers active in the 16th and early 17th century. Jacques I Androuet du Cerceau (1510–1584) Jean Baptiste Androuet du Cerceau (1544/47–1590) Jacques Androuet II du Cerceau (ca 1556–1614) Jean Androuet du… …   Wikipedia

  • Western architecture — Introduction       history of Western architecture from prehistoric Mediterranean cultures to the present.       The history of Western architecture is marked by a series of new solutions to structural problems. During the period from the… …   Universalium

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”