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100-476: King Francis set his daughter-in-law an example of kingship and artistic patronage that she never forgot. 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

200-403: A broken lance. She turned her widowhood into a political force that validated her authority during the reigns of her three weak sons. She also became intent on immortalizing her sorrow at the death of her husband. She had emblems of her love and grief carved into the stonework of her buildings. She commissioned a magnificent tomb for Henry, as the centrepiece of an ambitious new chapel. In 1562,

300-471: 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. The château ceased to be used as

400-608: 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. 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. Du Cerceau's drawings reveal that, before he published them in 1576, Catherine decided to join

500-443: 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. 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". Jacques Androuet du Cerceau

600-416: A heart attack in 1547, the château was not used for almost a century. For more than 80 years after the death of King Francis I, French kings abandoned the château, allowing it to fall into decay. Finally, in 1639 King Louis XIII gave it to his brother, Gaston, Duke of Orléans , who saved the château from ruin by carrying out much restoration work. King Louis XIV had the great keep restored and furnished

700-530: A hundred years. 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. Ch%C3%A2teau de Chambord The Château de Chambord ( French pronunciation: [ʃɑto d(ə) ʃɑ̃bɔʁ] ) in Chambord , Centre-Val de Loire , France,

800-583: 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. 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

900-488: A monarch should be. She later copied Francis' policy of setting the grandeur of the dynasty in stone, whatever the cost. His lavish building projects inspired her own. Francis was a compulsive builder. He began extension works at the Louvre Palace , He added a wing to the old castle at Blois , and built the vast château of Chambord , which he showed off to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in 1539. He also transformed

1000-495: 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. The plan was to integrate the tomb's effigies of the king and queen with other statues throughout

1100-428: 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. Despite its unfinished state, Catherine often visited

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1200-546: A royal residence after 1640, and had fallen into ruin by the time it was demolished by revolutionary decree in 1798. 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 . 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

1300-602: 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. 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." Born in Florence in 1519, Catherine lived at

1400-401: A town: it shows 11 kinds of towers and three types of chimneys, without symmetry, framed at the corners by the massive towers. The design parallels are north Italian and Leonardesque. Writer Henry James remarked, "the towers, cupolas, the gables, the lanterns, the chimneys, look more like the spires of a city than the salient points of a single building." One of the architectural highlights

1500-517: A typical castle with a keep , corner towers, and defended by a moat. Built in Renaissance style , the internal layout is an early example of the French and Italian style of grouping rooms into self-contained suites, a departure from the medieval style of corridor rooms. The massive château is composed of a central keep with four immense bastion towers at the corners. The keep also forms part of

1600-588: Is also seen at Chenonceau and other famous châteaux ; and his tomb of Francis I at Saint Denis Basilica remains a perfect specimen of his art. The most easily viewed work of de l'Orme in Paris is the court facade of the Chateau d'Anet , which was moved to Paris after a major portion of the chateau was demolished, to illustrate for students the major works of the French Renaissance. It is attached to

1700-526: Is an invaluable record of buildings that were never finished or were later substantially altered. Catherine spent ruinous sums of money on buildings at a time of plague, famine, and economic hardship in France. As the country slipped deeper into anarchy, her plans grew ever more ambitious. 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

1800-412: Is attributed, though with several doubts, to Domenico da Cortona , whose wooden model for the design survived long enough to be drawn by André Félibien in the 17th century. In the drawings of the model, the main staircase of the keep is shown with two straight, parallel flights of steps separated by a passage and is located in one of the arms of the cross. According to Jean-Guillaume, this Italian design

1900-513: Is believed that this unique building could have featured the quadruple-spiral open staircase, strangely described by John Evelyn and Andrea Palladio , although it was never built. Regardless of who designed the château, on 6 September 1519 Francis de Pontbriand was ordered to begin construction of the Château de Chambord. The work was interrupted by the Italian War of 1521–1526 , and work

2000-450: Is devised with four [sic] entries or ascents, which cross one another, so that though four persons meet, they never come in sight, but by small loopholes, till they land. It consists of 274 steps (as I remember), and is an extraordinary work, but of far greater expense than use or beauty." The château also features 128 metres (420 ft) of façade, more than 800 sculpted columns and an elaborately decorated roof. When Francis I commissioned

2100-487: Is one of the most recognisable châteaux in the world because of its very distinctive French Renaissance architecture , which blends traditional French medieval forms with classical Renaissance structures. The building was constructed by the king of France, Francis I . Chambord is the largest château in the Loire Valley ; it was built to serve as a hunting lodge for Francis I, who maintained his royal residences at

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2200-407: Is posed strikingly, with his head thrown back. From 1583, Pilon also sculpted two later gisants of Catherine and Henry wearing their crowns and coronation robes. In this case, he portrays Catherine realistically, with a double chin. These two statues were intended to flank the altar of the chapel. Pilon's four bronze statues of the cardinal virtues stand at the corners of the tomb. Pilon also carved

2300-399: Is the spectacular open double-spiral staircase that is the centrepiece of the château. The two spirals ascend the three floors without ever meeting, illuminated from above by a sort of light house at the highest point of the château. There are suggestions that Leonardo da Vinci may have designed the staircase, but this has not been confirmed. Writer John Evelyn said of the staircase, "it

2400-628: The Château de Blois and Amboise . The original design of the château is attributed to the Tuscan architect Domenico da Cortona ; Leonardo da Vinci may have also influenced the design. Chambord was altered considerably during the 28 years of its construction (1519–1547), during which it was overseen on-site by Pierre Neveu. With the château nearing completion, Francis showed off his enormous symbol of wealth and power by hosting his old archrival, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor , at Chambord. In 1792, in

2500-502: 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

2600-567: The Loire Valley ; the royal Château de Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne ; the Château de Vincennes , and major modifications to the Palace of Fontainebleau . He also made a reputation as a writer and theorist, and as an innovator in building techniques. He invented a new system for making the essential wooden frameworks for constructing stone buildings, called charpente à petits bois , which

2700-635: The Medici Chapels in Florence. 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 . 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:

2800-539: The Medici palace , built by Cosimo de' Medici to designs by Michelozzo . 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. When she later commissioned buildings herself, in France, Catherine often turned to Italian models. She based

2900-676: The Tuileries on the Pitti palace in Florence; and she originally planned the Hôtel de la Reine with the Uffizi Palace in mind. 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 itinerant royal court of France. Her father-in-law impressed Catherine deeply as an example of what

3000-473: The dormers to make room for inscriptions. 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. 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,

3100-572: The 18th century, through the writings of Dezallier d'Argenville , who wrote in 1787 that he had "abandoned the Gothic covering in order to redress French architecture in the style Ancient Greece." D'Argenville wrote the first biography and catalog of works. Though few of his building survived to be studied carefully, later important academic works on de l'Orme were written in the 19th and 20th centuries by art historians including H. Clouzot and Anthony Blunt . One of De l'Orme's primary accomplishments

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3200-569: The Cardinal Jean du Bellay , whom de l'Orme had met during his time in Rome. Its plan showed the influence of the Italian villas; and, like the Italian buildings, it was decorated with frescoes. Much of his work has disappeared, but his fame remains. He was an ardent humanist and student of the antique, he yet vindicated resolutely the French tradition in opposition to Italian tendencies; he

3300-573: The Château de Chambord, disseminated via the architect Gabriel- Hippolyte Destailleur . For instance, the twin staircase towers, on the north façade, were inspired by the staircase tower at the château. However, following the theme of unparalleled luxury at Waddesdon, the windows of the towers at Waddesdon were glazed, unlike those of the staircase at Chambord, and were far more ornate. Notes Footnotes Bibliography Philibert de l%27Orme Philibert de l'Orme ( pronounced [filibɛːʁ də lɔʁm] ) (3-9 June 1514 – 8 January 1570)

3400-628: 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

3500-524: The King spent barely seven weeks there in total, that time consisting of short hunting visits. As the château had been constructed with the purpose of short stays, it was not practical to live in on a longer-term basis. The massive rooms, open windows and high ceilings meant heating was impractical. Similarly, as the château was not surrounded by a village or estate, there was no immediate source of food other than game. This meant that all food had to be brought with

3600-696: 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. 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. After de l'Orme died in 1570, Catherine abandoned his design for a freestanding house with courtyards. To his unfinished wing she added

3700-578: The Renaissance". Primaticcio himself designed its structure, which eliminated the traditional bas-reliefs and kept ornamentation to a minimum. 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. 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

3800-444: The Tuileries departed from his known principles. De l'Orme is said to have "taught France the classical style—lucid, rational and regular". He notes, however, that in this case he added rich materials and ornaments to please the queen. The plans therefore include a decorative element that looks forward to Jean Bullant 's later work and to a less classical style of architecture. For the pilasters of Catherine's palace, de l'Orme chose

3900-416: The Tuileries; but Louis XVI 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. 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

4000-528: The art collections of the Louvre and Compiègne museums (including the Mona Lisa ) were stored at the Château de Chambord. An American B-24 Liberator bomber crashed onto the château lawn on 22 June 1944. The image of the château has been widely used to sell commodities from chocolate to alcohol and from porcelain to alarm clocks; combined with the various written accounts of visitors, this made Chambord one of

4100-533: The best known examples of France's architectural history. Today, Chambord is a major tourist attraction, and in 2007 around 700,000 people visited the château. After unusually heavy rainfall, Chambord was closed to the public from 1 to 6 June 2016. The River Cosson , a tributary of the Loire , flooded its banks and the château's moat. Drone photography documented some of the peak flooding. The French Patrimony Foundation  [ fr ] described effects of

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4200-423: The building, from the volumes to the lambris to adding up the cost, making detailed three-dimensional drawings of vaults, judging if wood was dry enough, and knowing to stop digging the foundation when the first sand was encountered. He had scorn for those architects who could design a facade but had no knowledge actual construction. His opponents scorned him for his background as the son of a masonry contractor. He

4300-464: 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. 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

4400-417: The chapel, creating a vast spatial composition. Catherine's approval would have been essential for such a departure from funerary tradition. 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

4500-570: The château was used as a field hospital. The final attempt to make use of the colossus came from the Count of Chambord, but after the Count died in 1883, the château was left to his sister's heirs, the titular Dukes of Parma , then resident in Austria-Hungary ; firstly Robert, Duke of Parma , who died in 1907 and after him, Elias, Prince of Parma . Any attempts at restoration ended with the onset of World War I in 1914. The Château de Chambord

4600-523: The city. When Philibert was nineteen he departed Lyon for Italy, where he remained for three years, working on building projects for Pope Paul III . In Rome he was introduced to Cardinal Jean du Bellay , the Ambassador of King François I to the Vatican, who became his protector and client. Du Bellay was also the patron of his friend Francois Rabelais . In about 1540 de l'Orme moved to Paris, and

4700-451: The construction of Chambord, he wanted it to look like the skyline of Constantinople . The château is surrounded by a 52.5-square-kilometre (13,000-acre) wooded park and game reserve maintained with red deer , enclosed by a 31-kilometre (19-mile) wall. The king's plan to divert the Loire to surround the château came about only in a novel; Amadís de Gaula , which Francis had translated. In

4800-473: The courtyards of the École 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". 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

4900-546: The day dedicated books to her, knowing that she would read them. 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 Garden , 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

5000-428: 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. In memory of Henry II, Catherine decided to add

5100-437: 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. Catherine loved to supervise each project personally. The architects of

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5200-406: The extensions would not unbalance the masses of the building as seen from the side. De l'Orme died in 1570; in 1575 an unknown architect took over at Saint-Maur. 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. In historian Roberrt Knecht 's view,

5300-511: The father-in-law of King Louis XV , lived at Chambord. In 1745, as a reward for valour, the king gave the château to Maurice de Saxe , Marshal of France , who installed his military regiment there. Maurice de Saxe died in 1750, and once again the colossal château sat empty for many years. In 1792, the Revolutionary government ordered the sale of the furnishings; the wall panellings were removed and even floors were taken up and sold for

5400-586: The first volume of a work on architectural theory, which was scientific and philosophical. It was published in 1567, and was followed by new editions after his death in 1576, 1626 and 1648. Under Charles IX and Catherine de Medici , he returned to royal favor. He was employed on the enlargement of the Chateau of Saint Maur (1563) and, along with Jean Bullant , on additions to the Tuileries Palace (1564). He died in Paris in 1570, while this project

5500-428: The flooding on Chambord's 13,000-acre (5,300 ha) property. The 20-mile (32 km) wall around the château was breached at several points, metal gates were torn from their framing, and roads were damaged. Trees were also uprooted and certain electrical and fire protection systems were put out of order. However, the château itself and its collections reportedly were undamaged. The foundation observed that paradoxically

5600-436: The front wall of a larger compound with two larger towers. Bases for a possible further two towers are found at the rear, but these were never developed, and remain the same height as the wall. The château features 440 rooms, 282 fireplaces, and 84 staircases. Four rectangular vaulted hallways on each floor form a cross-shape. The castle was never intended to provide any form of defence from enemies; consequently

5700-408: The grounds but not the château itself. Châteaux in the 16th century departed from castle architecture. Indeed, while they were off-shoots of castles, with features commonly associated with them, they did not have serious defences. Extensive gardens and water features, such as a moat , were common amongst châteaux from this period. Chambord is no exception to this pattern. The layout is reminiscent of

5800-427: The group, typically numbering up to 2,000 people at a time. As a result of all the above, the château was completely unfurnished during this period. All furniture, wall coverings, eating implements and so forth were brought specifically for each hunting trip, a major logistical exercise. It is for this reason that much furniture from the era was built to be disassembled to facilitate transportation. After Francis died of

5900-411: 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. Catherine loved gardens and often conducted business in them. At Chenonceau, she added waterfalls, menageries , and aviaries , laid out three parks, and planted mulberry trees for silkworms . Jacques Androuet du Cerceau made drawings of

6000-426: The lack of symmetry of some façades derives from an original design, abandoned shortly after the construction began, and which ground plan was organised around the central staircase following a central gyratory symmetry. Such a rotative design has no equivalent in architecture at this period of history, and appears reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci's works on hydraulic turbines or the helicopter. Had it been respected, it

6100-677: The later half of the 19th century, the château's style proliferated across the United Kingdom, influencing the Founder's Building at Royal Holloway, University of London , designed by William Henry Crossland and the main building of Fettes College in Edinburgh, designed by David Bryce in 1870. Between 1874 and 1889, the country house in Buckinghamshire, Waddesdon Manor , was built with similar architectural frameworks as

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6200-494: The latter's death in 1560. 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

6300-510: The less prized Chaumont . 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. Diane had carried out major works at Chenonceau, such as de l'Orme's bridge over the Cher . Now Catherine set out to efface or outdo her former rival's work. She lavished vast sums on

6400-410: 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. This meeting of Italian Mannerism and French patronage bred an original style, later known as the first School of Fontainebleau . Featuring frescoes and high-relief stucco in

6500-453: The mercy of rival architects who resented his success and his style. Two days later, on 10 July, he was dismissed from his official posts, and replaced by an Italian artist and architect, Francesco Primaticcio , whose work was much in fashion. He had joined a religious order, and decided to turn his attention to meditation, scholarship and writing. He made another trip to Rome to inspect the new works of Michelangelo . Beginning in 1565 wrote

6600-511: The natural disaster effected Francis I's vision that Chambord appears to rise from the waters as if it were diverting the Loire. Repairs are expected to cost upwards of a quarter-million dollars. The Château de Chambord has further influenced a number of architectural and decorative elements across Europe. Château de Chambord was the model for the reconstruction and new construction of the original Schwerin Palace between 1845 and 1857. Yet in

6700-401: 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. The remains of the King and Queen originally lay in the mortuary chamber below, but in 1793, a mob tossed Catherine and Henry's bones into a pit with the rest of the French kings and queens. Catherine's effigy suggests sleep rather than death, while Henry

6800-428: The novel the château is referred to as the Palace of Firm Isle . Chambord's towers are atypical of French contemporary design in that they lack turrets and spires. In the opinion of author Tanaka Hidemichi, who suggests Leonardo da Vinci influenced the château's design, they are closer in design to minarets of 15th-century Milan . Who designed the Château de Chambord is a matter of controversy. The original design

6900-534: The palace halted. They included canals, fountains, and a grotto decorated with glazed animals by the potter Bernard Palissy . 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 . Henry IV later added to

7000-425: 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. Catherine de' Medici was closely involved in planning and supervising the building. 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

7100-638: The palace. She held banquets and festivities there and loved to walk in the gardens. In June 1572, Charles IX of France brought English diplomats to the gardens to "see the designs of his mother", and they dined in a slated-roofed open-sided pavilion or banqueting house. According to the French military leader Marshal Tavannes , it was in the Tuileries Garden that she planned the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre , in which thousands of Huguenots were butchered in Paris. The gardens had been laid out before work on

7200-448: The reliefs round the base that recall Bontemps' work on the monument for the heart of Francis I. 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. This work owes a clear debt to Michelangelo , who had designed the tomb and funerary statues for Catherine's father at

7300-438: The river, into a monumental complex. 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. 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

7400-419: The royal apartments. The king then added a 1,200-horse stable, enabling him to use the château as a hunting lodge and a place to entertain for a few weeks each year, for example Molière presented the premiere of his celebrated comedy, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme here. Nonetheless, Louis XIV abandoned the château in 1685. From 1725 to 1733, Stanisław Leszczyński (Stanislas I), the deposed King of Poland and

7500-522: The scheme would have given this part of the house, a "colossal, even grotesque" pediment . The work was only partly carried out, and the house was never fit for Catherine to live in. The Château de Saint-Maur, still in the possession of the Condé family , was nationalised during the French Revolution , emptied of its contents, and its terrains divided up among real-estate speculators. The structure

7600-492: The shape of parchment or curled leather strapwork , it became the dominant decorative fashion in France in the second half of the sixteenth century. 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

7700-440: The side, Primaticcio's design allowed the tomb to be viewed from all angles. Art historian Henri Zerner has called the plan "a grand ritualistic drama which would have filled the rotunda's celestial space". 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

7800-454: The value of their timber, and, according to M de la Saussaye, the panelled doors were burned to keep the rooms warm during the sales; the empty château was left abandoned until Napoleon Bonaparte gave it to his subordinate, Louis Alexandre Berthier . The château was subsequently purchased from his widow for the infant Duke of Bordeaux, Henry Charles (1820–1883) who took the title Count of Chambord. A brief attempt at restoration and occupation

7900-580: The wake of the French Revolution , some of the furnishings were sold and timber removed. For a time the building was left abandoned, though in the 19th century some attempts were made at restoration. During the Second World War, art works from the collections of the Louvre and the Château de Compiègne were moved to the Château de Chambord. The château is now open to the public, receiving 700,000 visitors in 2007. Flooding in June 2016 damaged

8000-476: The walls, towers and partial moat are decorative, and even at the time were an anachronism. Some elements of architecture—open windows, loggias , and a vast outdoor area at the top—borrowed from the Italian Renaissance architecture —are less practical in cold and damp northern France. The roofscape of Chambord contrasts with the masses of its masonry and has often been compared with the skyline of

8100-532: The work of his predecessor Jean Goujon , for example, is more linear and classical. 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 . Catherine's earliest building project was the Château de Montceaux-en-Brie , near Paris, which Henry II gave her in 1556, three years before his death. The building consisted of

8200-453: The work. Du Cerceau made minor alterations to Bullant's designs and completed the walls to the top of the second story when construction was abandoned in 1585. The chapel was demolished in the early 18th century. 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

8300-454: Was a French architect and writer, and one of the great masters of French Renaissance architecture . His surname is also written De l'Orme , de L'Orme , or Delorme . Philbert de l'Orme was born between 3 and 9 June 1514 in Lyon . His father was Jehan de L'Orme, a master mason and entrepreneur, who, in the 1530s, employed three hundred workers and built prestigious buildings for the elite of

8400-440: Was a favourite architect of Catherine's. Like Bullant, he became a more fantastical designer with time. 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. In 1576 and 1579, he produced the two-volume Les Plus Excellents Bastiments de France , a beautiful publication dedicated to Catherine. His work

8500-497: Was a man of independent mind and a vigorous originality. His masterpiece was the Château d'Anet (1552–1559), built for Diane de Poitiers , the plans of which are preserved in Jacques Androuet du Cerceau 's Plus excellens bastimens de France , though only part of the building remains. His designs for the Tuileries (also given by Androuet du Cerceau), begun by Catherine de' Medici in 1565, were magnificent. His work

8600-759: Was carried out after Bullant's death in 1582. 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 or Medici column , which stood in the courtyard. 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". 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. In return, she gave Diane

8700-512: 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. 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

8800-426: Was confiscated as enemy property in 1915, but the family of the duke of Parma sued to recover it, and that suit was not settled until 1932; restoration work was not begun until a few years after World War II ended in 1945. The Château and surrounding areas, some 5,440 hectares (13,400 acres ; 21.0  sq mi ), have belonged to the French state since 1930. In 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II,

8900-462: Was demolished for the value of its materials; virtually nothing remains. 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. To make space for the new scheme and its gardens, she had an entire area of Paris demolished. The new palace

9000-418: Was especially true in Paris, where the parlement was often asked to contribute to her costs. Pierre de Ronsard captured the mood in a poem: The queen must cease building, Her lime must stop swallowing our wealth... Painters, masons, engravers, stone-carvers Drain 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

9100-520: Was known in Catherine's time as the Hôtel de la Reine and later as the Hôtel de Soissons. Engravings made by Israel 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. The walled gardens of the hôtel included an aviary , a lake with a water jet, and long avenues of trees. Catherine also installed an orangery that could be dismantled in winter. The actual construction work

9200-416: Was later replaced with the centrally located spiral staircase, which is similar to that at Blois , and a design more compatible with the French preference for spectacular grand staircases. However, "at the same time the result was also a triumph of the centralised layout—itself a wholly Italian element." In 1913 Marcel Reymond suggested that Leonardo da Vinci , a guest of Francis at Clos Lucé near Amboise,

9300-545: Was made by his grandfather King Charles X (1824–1830) but in 1830 both were exiled. In Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea , published in the 1830s, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow remarked on the dilapidation that had set in: "all is mournful and deserted. The grass has overgrown the pavement of the courtyard, and the rude sculpture upon the walls is broken and defaced". During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871)

9400-453: Was quicker and less expensive than previous methods and used much less wood. He demonstrated it before the King in 1555, and put it to work in construction at the new royal Château de Montceaux and at the royal hunting lodge La Muette  [ fr ] in the Forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye . The death of Henry II of France on July 10, 1559 suddenly left him without a patron and at

9500-467: Was referred to by Bernard Palissy as "The god of the stone masons", which deeply offended him. His other major accomplishment was to resist the tendency to simply copy Italian architectural styles; he traveled and studied in Italy, and borrowed much, but he always added a distinctly French look to each of his projects. The first major building of de l'Orme was the Château of Saint Maur (1541), built for

9600-497: Was responsible for the original design, which reflects Leonardo's plans for a château at Romorantin for the King's mother, and his interests in central planning and double-spiral staircases; the discussion has not yet concluded, although many scholars now agree that Leonardo was at least responsible for the design of the central staircase. Archaeological findings by Jean-Sylvain Caillou & Dominic Hofbauer have established that

9700-486: Was slowed by dwindling royal funds and difficulties in laying the structure's foundations. By 1524, the walls were barely above ground level. Building resumed in September 1526, at which point 1,800 workers were employed in building the château. At the time of the death of King Francis I in 1547, the work had cost 444,070  livres . The château was built to act as a hunting lodge for King Francis I; however,

9800-425: Was soon occupied with royal projects. On April 3, 1548 he was a named architect of the King by Henry II . For a period of eleven years, he supervised all of the King's architectural projects, with the exception of changes to the Louvre , which were planned by another royal architect, Pierre Lescot . His major projects included the Château de St Maur-des-Fossés , the Château d'Anet , the Château de Chenonceau in

9900-436: Was to change the way architects trained and studied. He insisted that architects needed formal education in classical architecture, as well as in geometry and astronomy and the sciences, but also needed practical experience in construction. He himself was an accomplished scholar of ancient Greek and Roman architecture, as well as a humanist scholar. He argued that architects needed to be able to design and manage every aspect of

10000-671: Was underway. In the 17th century, during the period of Louis XIV style that followed his death, his reputation suffered. The grand stairway that he built at the Tuileries Palace was demolished in 1664, as was his Château de Saint-Léger in 1668, to make way for classical structures. In 1683, he was denounced by François Blondel of the Royal Academy for his "villainous Gothic ornaments" and his "petty manner". Nonetheless, his two major theoretical works on construction and design continued to be important textbooks, and were regularly republished and read. His reputation rose again in

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