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45-605: Weighing half a ton, René of Anjou commissioned it in 1476 for the tomb designed for his entrails. It originally stood on the altarpiece in the Grands-Carmes convent , destroyed in 1792 during the French Revolution , when it was moved to Aix Cathedral in 1808. After a restoration it was reinstalled in the cathedral's Saint-Lazare chapel late in January 2011. A trompe-l’œil grisaille on its outer panels shows

90-621: A regency in Bar and Lorraine, he set sail for Naples in 1438. Naples, however, was also claimed by Alfonso V of Aragon , who had been first adopted and then repudiated by Joanna II. In 1441 Alfonso laid a six-month siege to Naples. René returned to France in the same year, and though he retained the title of king of Naples his effective rule was never recovered. Later efforts to recover his rights in Italy failed. His mother Yolande, who had governed Anjou in his absence, died in 1442. René took part in

135-457: A deluxe manuscript—on paper and painted in watercolor . It may represent drawings by Barthélemy d'Eyck , intended as preparatory only, which were later illuminated by him or another artist. There are twenty-six full and double page miniatures. The description given in the book is different from that of the pas d'armes held at Razilly and Saumur ; conspicuously absent are the allegorical and chivalresque ornamentations that were in vogue at

180-677: A love quest, Le Livre du Cuer d'amours espris ( The Book of the Love-Smitten Heart, 1457). The latter fuses the conventions of Arthurian romance with an allegory of love based on the Romance of the Rose. Both works were exquisitely illustrated by his court painter, Barthélémy d'Eyck. Le Mortifiement survives in eight illuminated manuscripts. Although Barthélémy's original is lost, the extant manuscripts include copies of his miniatures by Jean le Tavernier, Jean Colombe, and others. René

225-432: A prisoner who had to be ransomed by Louis XI in 1476. René retired to Aix-en-Provence and in 1474 made a will by which he left Bar to his grandson René II, Duke of Lorraine; and Anjou and Provence to his nephew Charles, count of Le Maine . King Louis XI seized Anjou and Bar, and two years later sought to compel René to exchange the two duchies for a pension. The offer was rejected, but further negotiations assured

270-659: A theater troupe at his court, led by a jester and playwright Triboulet . The duke rewarded Triboulet generously for his talents. René married: His legitimate children by Isabelle were: He also had three illegitimate children: He appears as "Reignier" in William Shakespeare 's play Henry VI, part 1 . His alleged poverty for a king is satirised. He pretends to be the Dauphin to deceive Joan of Arc, but she sees through him. She later claims to be pregnant with his child. René's honeymoon, devoted with his bride to

315-586: A truce with Antoine, but the duke remained a prisoner of the Burgundians until April 1432, when he recovered his liberty on parole on yielding up as hostages his two sons, John and Louis . René's title as duke of Lorraine was confirmed by his suzerain , Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund , at Basel in 1434. This proceeding roused the anger of the Burgundian duke, Philip the Good , who required him early in

360-559: Is a suite for wind quintet , composed in 1941 by Darius Milhaud . Chant du Roi René ( Song of King René ) is a piece for organ (or harmonium ) by Alexandre Guilmant (1837–1911) from his collection of Noels (Op.60) . The theme used throughout this piece was alleged to have been written by René (Guilmant's source was Alphonse Pellet, organist at Nîmes Cathedral ). René frequently changed his coat of arms, which represented his numerous and fluctuating claims to titles, both actual and nominal. The Coat of arms of René in 1420; Composing

405-526: Is sometimes credited with the pastoral poem "Regnault and Jeanneton", but this was more likely a gift to the king honoring his marriage to Jeanne de Laval. King René's Tournament Book ( Le Livre des tournois or Traicte de la Forme de Devis d'un Tournoi ; c.  1460 ) describes rules of a tournament . The most famous and earliest of the many manuscript copies is kept in the French National Library . This is—unusually for

450-595: The Annunciation , with Gabriel and Mary's words inscribed on scrolls in the centre and Gabriel holding an olive branch with twelve olives, a symbol of peace. Opened, the left panel shows René wearing his coats of arms ( Hungary , Sicily , Anjou and Aragon ), kneeling and wearing the habit of the canons of the Abbey of St Victor . Around him are his patron saints Mary Magdalene , Anthony the Great and Maurice carrying

495-421: The castle of Angers . He was the second son of Duke Louis II of Anjou , King of Naples , by Yolanda of Aragon . René was the brother of Marie of Anjou , who married the future Charles VII and became Queen of France. Louis II died in 1417 and his sons, together with their brother-in-law Charles, were brought up under the guardianship of their mother. The elder son, Louis III , succeeded to

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540-528: The diocese of Angers . Anjou was bordered by Brittany to the west, Maine to the north, Touraine to the east and Poitou to the south. The adjectival form is Angevin , and inhabitants of Anjou are known as Angevins. In 1482, the duchy became part of the Kingdom of France and then remained a province of the Kingdom under the name of the Duchy of Anjou. After the decree dividing France into departments in 1791,

585-659: The Baugeois, the Haut-Anjou (or Segréen), the Mauges, and the Saumurois. It occupied the greater part of what is now the department of Maine-et-Loire . On the north, it further included Craon , Candé , Bazouges ( Château-Gontier ), Le Lude ; on the east, it further added Château-la-Vallière and Bourgueil ; while to the south, it lacked the towns of Montreuil-Bellay , Vihiers , Cholet , and Beaupréau , as well as

630-838: The Crescent were adopted as "historical founders" by the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity in 1912, as exemplars of Christian chivalry and charity. Ceremonies of the Order of the Crescent were referenced in formulating ceremonies for the fraternity. In conspiracy theories , such as the one promoted in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail , René has been alleged to be the ninth Grand Master of the Priory of Sion . La Cheminée du roi René ( The Fireplace of King René ), op. 205,

675-490: The Revolution to form a separate gouvernement , which included, besides Anjou, portions of Poitou and Mirebalais. Attached to the généralité (administrative circumscription) of Tours, Anjou on the eve of the Revolution comprised five êlections (judicial districts):-- Angers , Baugé , Saumur , Château-Gontier , Montreuil-Bellay and part of the êlections of La Flèche and Richelieu . Financially it formed part of

720-596: The arms of Anjou. He was far from sympathizing with the Burgundians. Joining the French army at Reims in 1429, he was present at the consecration of Charles VII. When Louis of Bar died in 1430, René inherited the duchy of Bar . The next year, on his father-in-law's death, he succeeded to the duchy of Lorraine . The inheritance was contested by the heir-male, Antoine de Vaudemont , who with Burgundian help defeated René at Bulgneville in July 1431. The Duchess Isabella effected

765-557: The arms of the House of Valois-Anjou (top left and bottom right), Duchy of Bar (top right and bottom left), and of the Duchy of Lorraine (superimposed shield). In 1434 were added Hungary , Kingdom of Naples and Jerusalem . The arms of the Crown of Aragon were shown from 1443 to 1470. In 1453 the arms of Lorraine were removed and in 1470 Valois-Anjou were substituted for the modern arms of

810-631: The arts, is imagined in Walter Scott 's novel Anne of Geierstein (1829). The imaginary scene of his honeymoon was later depicted by the Pre-Raphaelite painters Ford Madox Brown , Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti . In 1845 the Danish poet Henrik Hertz wrote the play King René's Daughter about René and his daughter Yolande de Bar ; this was later adapted into the opera Iolanta by Tchaikovsky. René and his Order of

855-709: The banner of the Ordre du Croissant , founded by René. Facing him on the right hand panel is his wife Jeanne de Laval , kneeling before her prayer book and backed by John the Baptist , Catherine of Alexandria and Nicholas of Myra . This shows the Madonna and Child on the Burning Bush from the Book of Exodus , with Moses in the right foreground looking at the vision. The town in the right background evokes Avignon , whilst

900-651: The believers saved by their faith. Ren%C3%A9 of Anjou René of Anjou ( Italian : Renato ; Occitan : Rainièr ; 16 January 1409 – 10 July 1480) was Duke of Anjou and Count of Provence from 1434 to 1480, who also reigned as King of Naples from 1435 to 1442 (then deposed ). Having spent his last years in Aix-en-Provence , he is known in France as the Good King René ( Occitan : Rei Rainièr lo Bòn ; French : Le bon roi René ). René

945-493: The castle on the left may be René's château de Saumur in Anjou . The scene is full of symbols, including the ewes, vegetation, gestures, mirror, clothes, rising sun, river, beasts and colours, along with the rock (a biblical image of God) out of which the bush's twelve fig branches grow. The medallion on the angel's chest shows Adam and Eve , whose original sin was redeemed due to Mary's bearing of Christ. A painted frame around

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990-432: The central panel shows the twelve Kings of Judah , with an inscription on the base of the frame which translates as "In the bush which Moses saw burning without being consumed, we recognised, Holy Mother of God, your virginity wondrously preserved". At its top is another inscription which translates as "Whoever finds me will find life and draw salvation from the bosom of God", a free translation of Proverbs 8: 35 alluding to

1035-528: The crown of Sicily and the Duchy of Anjou; René then became Count of Guise . In 1419, when René was only ten, he was legally married to Isabella , elder daughter of Charles II, Duke of Lorraine . René, then only ten, was to be brought up in Lorraine under the guardianship of Charles II and Louis, cardinal of Bar , both of whom were attached to the Burgundian party, but he retained the right to bear

1080-464: The death of the latter (10 July 1480) he again added Anjou to the royal domain. Later, King Francis I again gave the duchy as an appanage to his mother, Louise of Savoy, by letters patent of 4 February 1515. On her death, in September 1531, the duchy returned into the king's possession. In 1552 it was given as an appanage by Henry II to his son Henry of Valois , who, on becoming king in 1574, with

1125-453: The department of Maine-et-Loire, as at present constituted. Under the kingdom of France , Anjou was practically identical with the diocese of Angers , bound on the north by Maine , on the east by Touraine , on the south by Poitou ( Poitiers ) and the Mauges , and the west by the countship of Nantes or the duchy of Brittany . Traditionally Anjou was divided into four natural regions:

1170-417: The duchy (superimposed shield). Attribution: Duchy of Anjou The Duchy of Anjou ( UK : / ˈ ɒ̃ ʒ uː , ˈ æ̃ ʒ uː / , US : / ɒ̃ ˈ ʒ uː , ˈ æ n ( d ) ʒ uː , ˈ ɑː n ʒ uː / ; French: [ɑ̃ʒu] ; Latin : Andegavia ) was a French province straddling the lower Loire . Its capital was Angers , and its area was roughly co-extensive with

1215-516: The duchy was increasingly administered in the same fashion as the royal domain and the royal government often exercised the ducal power while the dukes were away. On 17 February 1332, Philip VI bestowed it on his son John the Good , who, when he became king in turn (22 August 1350), gave the countship to his second son Louis I , raising it to a duchy in the peerage of France by letters patent of 25 October 1360. Louis I, who became in time count of Provence and titular king of Naples, died in 1384, and

1260-671: The lapse to the crown of the duchy of Anjou and the annexation of Provence was only postponed until the death of the Count of Le Maine. René died on 10 July 1480 at Aix , but was buried in the Angers Cathedral , Angers. In the 19th century, historians bestowed on him the epithet "the good". He founded an order of chivalry, the Ordre du Croissant , which preceded the royal foundation of St Michael but did not survive René. The King of Sicily's fame as an amateur painter formerly led to

1305-529: The most brilliant in the kingdom of France. But after the sudden death of his son John in December 1470, René, for reasons which are not altogether clear, decided to move his residence to Provence and leave Anjou for good. After making an inventory of all his possessions, he left the duchy in October 1471, taking with him the most valuable of his treasures. On 22 July 1474 he drew up a will by which he divided

1350-624: The most famous works formerly attributed to René are the triptych of the Burning Bush of Nicolas Froment of Avignon in Aix Cathedral , showing portraits of René and his second wife, Jeanne de Laval , and two illuminated Book of Hours in the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the British Library . Among the men of letters attached to his court was Antoine de la Sale , whom he made tutor to his son John. He encouraged

1395-466: The negotiations with the English at Tours in 1444, and peace was consolidated by the marriage of his younger daughter, Margaret , with Henry VI of England at Nancy . René now made over the government of Lorraine to his son John, who was, however, only formally installed as Duke of Lorraine on the death of Queen Isabella in 1453. René had the confidence of Charles VII, and is said to have initiated

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1440-545: The next year to return to his prison, from which he was released two years later on payment of a heavy ransom. At the death of his brother Louis III in 1435, he succeeded to the Duchy of Anjou and County of Maine. The marriage of Marie of Bourbon, niece of Philip of Burgundy, with John, Duke of Calabria , René's eldest son, cemented peace between the two families. Joanna II , queen of Naples, had chosen Louis III as her presumptive heir and upon Louis' death offered it to René to inherit her kingdom after her death. After appointing

1485-597: The optimistic attribution to him of many paintings in Anjou and Provence, in many cases simply because they bore his arms. These works are generally in the Early Netherlandish style, and were probably executed under his patronage and direction, so that he may be said to have formed a school of the fine arts in sculpture, painting, goldsmith's work and tapestry. He employed Barthélemy d'Eyck as both painter and varlet de chambre for most of his career. Two of

1530-503: The parlement of Paris; Angers was the seat of a presidial court, of which the jurisdiction comprised the sénéchaussées of Angers, Saumur, Beaugé, Beaufort and the duchy of Richelieu; there were besides presidial courts at Château-Gontier and La Flèche. When the Constituent Assembly, on 26 February 1790, decreed the division of France into departments, Anjou and the Saumurois, with the exception of certain territories, formed

1575-636: The performance of mystery plays ; on the performance of a mystery of the Passion at Saumur in 1462 he remitted four years of taxes to the town, and the representations of the Passion at Angers were carried out under his auspices. He exchanged verses with his kinsman, the poet Charles of Orléans . René was also the author of two allegorical works: a devotional dialogue, Le Mortifiement de vaine plaisance ( The Mortification of Vain Pleasure, 1455), and

1620-468: The province was disestablished and split into six new départements : Deux-Sèvres , Indre-et-Loire , Loire-Atlantique , Maine-et-Loire , Sarthe , and Vienne . The county of Anjou was united to the royal domain between 1205 and 1246, when it was turned into an apanage for the king's brother, Charles I of Anjou . This second Angevin dynasty, a branch of the Capetian dynasty , established itself on

1665-548: The rebellious Catalans offered the crown of Aragon to René. His son John, unsuccessful in Italy, was sent to take up the conquest of that kingdom but died —apparently by poison— at Barcelona on 16 December 1470. John's eldest son Nicholas perished in 1473, also under suspicion of poisoning. In 1471, René's daughter Margaret was finally defeated in the Wars of the Roses . Her husband and her son were killed and she herself became

1710-548: The reduction of the men-at-arms set on foot by the king, with whose military operations against the English he was closely associated. He entered Rouen with him in November 1449. After his second marriage with Jeanne de Laval , daughter of Guy of Laval and Isabella of Brittany , René took a less active part in public affairs, devoting himself to composing poetry and painting miniatures, gardening and raising animals. The fortunes of his house declined in his old age: in 1466,

1755-406: The so-called pays de grande gabelle , and comprised sixteen special tribunals, or greniers à sel (salt warehouses):-- Angers , Baugé , Beaufort , Bourgueil , Candé , Château-Gontier, Cholet , Craon , La Flèche, Saint-Florent-le-Vieil , Ingrandes , Le Lude , Pouancé , Saint-Rémy-la-Varenne , Richelieu, Saumur. From the point of view of purely judicial administration, Anjou was subject to

1800-447: The succession between his grandson René II of Lorraine and his nephew Charles II, count of Maine. On hearing this, King Louis XI , who was the son of one of King René's sisters, seeing that his expectations were thus completely frustrated, seized the duchy of Anjou. He did not keep it very long, but became reconciled to René in 1476 and restored it to him, on condition, probably, that René should bequeath it to him. However that may be, on

1845-402: The thrones of Naples and Sicily , and the joint throne of Croatia and Hungary . Anjou itself was united to the royal domain again in 1328, but was detached in 1360 as the Duchy of Anjou for the king's son, Louis I of Anjou . The third Angevin dynasty, a branch of the House of Valois , also ruled for a time the Kingdom of Naples. The dukes had the same autonomy as the earlier counts, but

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1890-623: The time. René instead emphasizes he is reporting on ancient tournament customs of France, Germany and the Low Countries, combining them in a new suggestion on how to hold a tournament. The tournament described is a melee fought by two sides. Individual jousts are only briefly mentioned. As a patron, René commissioned translations and retranslations of classical works into French prose. These include Strabo , which Guarino da Verona completed in 1458; and Ovid 's Metamorphoses by an unknown translator, completed in 1467. Rene also kept

1935-548: The title of Henry III, conceded it to his brother Francis, duke of Alençon , at the treaty of Beaulieu near Loches (6 May 1576). Francis died on 10 June 1584, and the vacant appanage definitively became part of the royal domain . At first Anjou was included in the gouvernement (or military command) of Orléanais, but in the 17th century was made into a separate one. Saumur, however, and the Saumurois, for which King Henry IV had in 1589 created an independent military governor-generalship in favour of Duplessis-Mornay, continued till

1980-411: Was a member of the House of Valois-Anjou , a cadet branch of the French royal house, and the great-grandson of John II of France . He was a prince of the blood , and for most of his adult life also the brother-in-law of the reigning king Charles VII of France . Other than the aforementioned titles, he was for several years also Duke of Bar and Duke of Lorraine . René was born on 16 January 1409 in

2025-723: Was succeeded by his son Louis II , who devoted most of his energies to his Neapolitan ambitions, and left the administration of Anjou almost entirely in the hands of his wife, Yolande of Aragon . On his death (29 April 1417), she took upon herself the guardianship of their young son Louis III , and, in her capacity of regent, defended the duchy against the English. Louis III, who also devoted himself to winning Naples, died on 15 November 1434, leaving no children. The duchy of Anjou then passed to his brother René , second son of Louis II and Yolande of Aragon. Unlike his predecessors, who had rarely stayed long in Anjou, René from 1443 onwards paid long visits to it, and his court at Angers became one of

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