1.
Henry II of France
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Henry II was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 31 March 1547 until his death in 1559. The second son of Francis I, he became Dauphin of France upon the death of his elder brother Francis III, Duke of Brittany, as a child, Henry and his elder brother spent over four years in captivity in Spain as hostages in exchange for their father. Henry pursued his fathers policies in matter of arts, wars and he persevered in the Italian Wars against the House of Habsburg and tried to suppress the Protestant Reformation, even as the Huguenot numbers were increasing drastically in France during his reign. Henry suffered a death in a jousting tournament held to celebrate the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis at the conclusion of the Eighth Italian War. The kings surgeon, Ambroise Paré, was unable to cure the infected wound inflicted by Gabriel de Montgomery and he was succeeded in turn by three of his sons, whose ineffective reigns helped to spark the French Wars of Religion between Protestants and Catholics. Henry was born in the royal Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris and his father was captured at the Battle of Pavia in 1525 by the forces of his sworn enemy, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and held prisoner in Spain. To obtain his release, it was agreed that Henry and his brother be sent to Spain in his place. They remained in captivity for four years. Henry married Catherine de Medici, a member of the family of Florence, on 28 October 1533. The following year, he became involved with a thirty-five-year-old widow. They had always very close, she had publicly embraced him on the day he set off to Spain. Diane became Henrys mistress and most trusted confidante and, for the next years, wielded considerable influence behind the scenes. Extremely confident, mature and intelligent, she left Catherine powerless to intervene and she did, however, insist that Henry sleep with Catherine in order to produce heirs to the throne. When his elder brother Francis, the Dauphin and Duke of Brittany, died in 1536 after a game of tennis and he succeeded his father on his 28th birthday and was crowned King of France on 25 July 1547 at Reims Cathedral. Henrys reign was marked by wars with Austria and the persecution of Protestants, Henry II severely punished them, particularly the ministers, for example by burning at the stake or cutting off their tongues for uttering heresies. Even those only suspected of being Huguenots could be imprisoned and it also strictly regulated publications by prohibiting the sale, importation or printing of any unapproved book. It was during the reign of Henry II that Huguenot attempts at establishing a colony in Brazil were made, persecution of Protestants at home did not prevent Henry II from becoming allied with German Protestant princes at the Treaty of Chambord in 1552. Simultaneously, the continuation of his fathers Franco-Ottoman alliance allowed Henry II to push for French conquests towards the Rhine while a Franco-Ottoman fleet defended southern France, an early offensive into Lorraine was successful
2.
French Renaissance
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The French Renaissance was the cultural and artistic movement in France between the 15th and early 17th centuries. The period is associated with the pan-European Renaissance, a word first used by the French historian Jules Michelet to define the artistic, the French Renaissance traditionally extends from the French invasion of Italy in 1494 during the reign of Charles VIII until the death of Henry IV in 1610. The reigns of Francis I of France and his son Henry II are generally considered the apex of the French Renaissance, the word Renaissance is a French word, whose literal translation into English is Rebirth. The word Renaissance was first used and defined by French historian Jules Michelet, in his 1855 work, as a French citizen and historian, Michelet also claimed the Renaissance as a French movement. His work is at the origin of the use of the French word Renaissance in other languages, for a chronological list of French Renaissance artists, see List of French Renaissance artists. In 1516, Francis I of France invited Leonardo da Vinci to the Château dAmboise and provided him with the Château du Clos Lucé, then called Château de Cloux, as a place to stay and work. Leonardo, a painter and inventor, arrived with three of his paintings, namely the Mona Lisa, Sainte Anne, and Saint Jean Baptiste. There are a number of French artists of talent in this period including the painter Jean Fouquet of Tours. Marie de Medici, Henry IVs queen, invited the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens to France, another Flemish artist working for the court was Frans Pourbus the younger. Outside France, working for the dukes of Lorraine, one finds a very different late mannerist style in the artists Jacques Bellange, Claude Deruet and Jacques Callot. Having little contact with the French artists of the period, they developed a heightened, extreme, and often erotic mannerism, the old Louvre castle in Paris was also rebuilt under the direction of Pierre Lescot and would become the core of a brand new Renaissance château. To the west of the Louvre, Catherine de Medici had built for her the Tuileries palace with extensive gardens and they became an extension of the chateaux that they surrounded, and were designed to illustrate the Renaissance ideals of measure and proportion. Burgundy, the mostly French-speaking area unified with the Kingdom of France in 1477, was the center of Europe in the early. The Burgundian style gave birth to the Franco-Flemish style of polyphony which dominated European music in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. However, by the end of the 15th century, a French national character was becoming distinct in music of the French royal and aristocratic courts, guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois are two notable examples from the Burgundian school during the early Renaissance period. The most renowned composer in Europe, Josquin des Prez, worked for a time in the court of Louis XII, Francis I, who became king that year, made the creation of an opulent musical establishment a priority. By far the most significant contribution of France to music in the Renaissance period was the chanson, the chanson in the early 16th century was characterised by a dactylic opening and contrapuntal style which was later adopted by the Italian canzona, the predecessor of the sonata. Typically chansons were for three or four voices, without accompaniment, but the most popular examples were inevitably made into instrumental versions as well
3.
Sculpture
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Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies. The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple. Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
4.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
5.
Louvre
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The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is the worlds largest museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. A central landmark of the city, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the citys 1st arrondissement, approximately 38,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 72,735 square metres. The Louvre is the second most visited museum after the Palace Museum in China. The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II, remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. Due to the expansion of the city, the fortress eventually lost its defensive function and. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace, in 1692, the building was occupied by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres and the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, which in 1699 held the first of a series of salons. The Académie remained at the Louvre for 100 years, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum to display the nations masterpieces. The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The collection was increased under Napoleon and the museum renamed Musée Napoléon, the collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and bequests since the Third Republic, whether this was the first building on that spot is not known, it is possible that Philip modified an existing tower. According to the authoritative Grand Larousse encyclopédique, the name derives from an association with wolf hunting den, in the 7th century, St. Fare, an abbess in Meaux, left part of her Villa called Luvra situated in the region of Paris to a monastery. This territory probably did not correspond exactly to the modern site, the Louvre Palace was altered frequently throughout the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, Charles V converted the building into a residence and in 1546, Francis acquired what would become the nucleus of the Louvres holdings, his acquisitions including Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa. After Louis XIV chose Versailles as his residence in 1682, constructions slowed, however, on 14 October 1750, Louis XV agreed and sanctioned a display of 96 pieces from the royal collection, mounted in the Galerie royale de peinture of the Luxembourg Palace. Under Louis XVI, the museum idea became policy. The comte dAngiviller broadened the collection and in 1776 proposed conversion of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre – which contained maps – into the French Museum, many proposals were offered for the Louvres renovation into a museum, however, none was agreed on. Hence the museum remained incomplete until the French Revolution, during the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences, on 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property
6.
School of Fontainebleau
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In 1532 he was joined by another Italian artist, Francesco Primaticcio. Rosso died in France in 1540, on the advice of Primaticcio, Niccolò dellAbbate was invited to France in 1552 by Françoiss son Henri II. Although known for their work at Fontainebleau, these artists were invited to create works of art for other noble families of the period and were much esteemed. The works of this first school of Fontainebleau are characterized by the use of stucco and frescos. Renaissance decorative motifs such as grotesques, strapwork and putti are common, the figures are elegant and show the influence of the techniques of the Italian Mannerism of Michelangelo, Raphael and especially Parmigianino. Primaticcio was also directed to make copies of antique Roman statues for the king, many of the works of Rosso, Primaticcio and dellAbate have not survived, parts of the Chateau were remodelled at various dates. The paintings of the group were reproduced in prints, mostly etchings, which were produced initially at Fontainebleau itself. These disseminated the style through France and beyond, and also several paintings that have not survived. These were the first etchings made in France, and not far behind the first Italian uses of the technique, the earliest impressions of all the Fontainebleau prints are in brown ink, and their intention seems to have been essentially reproductive. The intention of the workshop was to disseminate the new style developing at the more widely. Whether the initiative to do came from the king or another patron. David Landau believes that Primaticcio was the force, he had stepped up to become the director of the work at Fontainebleau after the suicide of Rosso Fiorentino in 1540. The enterprise seems to have been just slightly premature in terms of catching a market, the plates were often poorly executed and not well printed, they were often scratched or not well polished and did not wipe clean. Some may have made of metals soft as copper, such as pewter. A broadening market for prints preferred the highly finished textures of Nicolas Beatrizet, Rosso Fiorentino Francesco Primaticcio Niccolò dellAbbate Juste de Juste Franco-Italian sculptor and etcher Luca Penni Francesco Scibec da Carpi Italian furniture maker, who worked on the boiseries. They are sometimes referred to as the school of Fontainebleau. Their late mannerist works, many of which have been lost, continue in the use of elongated and undulating forms, many of their subjects include mythological scenes and scenes from works of fiction by the Italian Torquato Tasso and the ancient Greek novelist Heliodorus of Emesa. Their style would continue to have an influence on artists through the first decades of the 17th century, but other artistic currents would soon eclipse them
7.
Michelangelo
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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered to be the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since described as one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of Michelangelos works of painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence and he sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty. As an architect, Michelangelo pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library, at the age of 74, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peters Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan so that the end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification. Michelangelo was unique as the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive, in his lifetime he was often called Il Divino. One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, the attempts by subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelos impassioned and highly personal style resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance. Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, at the time of Michelangelos birth, his father was the Judicial administrator of the small town of Caprese and local administrator of Chiusi. Michelangelos mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena, the Buonarrotis claimed to descend from the Countess Mathilde of Canossa, this claim remains unproven, but Michelangelo himself believed it. Several months after Michelangelos birth, the returned to Florence. There Michelangelo gained his love for marble, as Giorgio Vasari quotes him, If there is good in me. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, as a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches, the city of Florence was at that time the greatest centre of the arts and learning in Italy. Art was sponsored by the Signoria, by the merchant guilds and by patrons such as the Medici. The Renaissance, a renewal of Classical scholarship and the arts, had its first flowering in Florence, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti had laboured for fifty years to create the bronze doors of the Baptistry, which Michelangelo was to describe as The Gates of Paradise. The exterior niches of the Church of Orsanmichele contained a gallery of works by the most acclaimed sculptors of Florence – Donatello, Ghiberti, Andrea del Verrocchio, and Nanni di Banco. The interiors of the churches were covered with frescos, begun by Giotto. During Michelangelos childhood, a team of painters had been called from Florence to the Vatican, among them was Domenico Ghirlandaio, a master in fresco painting, perspective, figure drawing, and portraiture who had the largest workshop in Florence at that period
8.
Mannerism
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Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, lasting until about 1580 in Italy, when the Baroque style began to replace it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century, stylistically, Mannerism encompasses a variety of approaches influenced by, and reacting to, the harmonious ideals associated with artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and early Michelangelo. Where High Renaissance art emphasizes proportion, balance, and ideal beauty, Mannerism exaggerates such qualities, Mannerism is notable for its intellectual sophistication as well as its artificial qualities. Mannerism favors compositional tension and instability rather than the balance and clarity of earlier Renaissance painting, Mannerism in literature and music is notable for its highly florid style and intellectual sophistication. The definition of Mannerism and the phases within it continue to be a subject of debate among art historians, for example, some scholars have applied the label to certain early modern forms of literature and music of the 16th and 17th centuries. The term is used to refer to some late Gothic painters working in northern Europe from about 1500 to 1530. Mannerism also has been applied by analogy to the Silver Age of Latin literature, the word mannerism derives from the Italian maniera, meaning style or manner. Like the English word style, maniera can either indicate a type of style or indicate an absolute that needs no qualification. Vasari was also a Mannerist artist, and he described the period in which he worked as la maniera moderna, james V. Mirollo describes how bella maniera poets attempted to surpass in virtuosity the sonnets of Petrarch. This notion of bella maniera suggests that artists thus inspired looked to copying and bettering their predecessors, in essence, bella maniera utilized the best from a number of source materials, synthesizing it into something new. As a stylistic label, Mannerism is not easily defined, “High Renaissance” connoted a period distinguished by harmony, grandeur and the revival of classical antiquity. The term Mannerist was redefined in 1967 by John Shearman following the exhibition of Mannerist paintings organised by Fritz Grossmann at Manchester City Art Gallery in 1965. The label “Mannerism” was used during the 16th century to comment on social behaviour, however, for later writers, such as the 17th-century Gian Pietro Bellori, la maniera was a derogatory term for the perceived decline of art after Raphael, especially in the 1530s and 1540s. From the late 19th century on, art historians have used the term to describe art that follows Renaissance classicism. By the end of the High Renaissance, young artists experienced a crisis, no more difficulties, technical or otherwise, remained to be solved. The young artists needed to find a new goal, and they sought new approaches, at this point Mannerism started to emerge. The new style developed between 1510 and 1520 either in Florence, or in Rome, or in both cities simultaneously and this period has been described as a natural extension of the art of Andrea del Sarto, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Michelangelo from an early age had developed a style of his own, one of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and subsequent artists attempted to imitate it
9.
Catherine de' Medici's building projects
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Catherine de Medicis 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 and 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, on doing so, she entered the greatest Renaissance court in northern Europe. King Francis set his daughter-in-law an example of kingship and artistic patronage that she never forgot and she witnessed his huge architectural schemes at Chambord and Fontainebleau. She saw Italian and French craftsmen at work together, forging the style became known as the first School of Fontainebleau. Francis died in 1547, and Catherine became queen consort of France, but it wasnt until her husband King Henrys 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 building projects aimed at enhancing the grandeur of the monarchy. During the same period, however, religious civil war gripped the country, Catherine loved to supervise each project personally. The architects of the day dedicated books to her, knowing that she would read them, the sculptures she commissioned for the Valois chapel are lost, or scattered, often damaged or incomplete, in museums and churches. Catherine de Medicis reputation as a sponsor of buildings rests instead on the designs and these testify to the vitality of French architecture under her patronage. Historians often assume that Catherines 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 the Medici palace, after moving to Rome in 1530, she lived, surrounded by classical and Renaissance treasures, at another Medici palace. 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 the Tuileries on the Pitti palace in Florence, 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 and her father-in-law impressed Catherine deeply as an example of what a monarch should be. She later copied Francis policy of setting the grandeur of the dynasty in stone and his lavish building projects inspired her own. He began extension works at the Louvre, added a wing to the old castle at Blois, and built the vast château of Chambord and 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 and this meeting of Italian Mannerism and French patronage bred an original style, later known as the first School of Fontainebleau
10.
Basilica of St Denis
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The Basilica of Saint Denis is a large medieval abbey church in the city of Saint-Denis, now a northern suburb of Paris. The building is of unique importance historically and architecturally as its choir, completed in 1144, the site originated as a Gallo-Roman cemetery in late Roman times. The archeological remains still lie beneath the cathedral, the people buried there seem to have had a faith that was a mix of Christian and pre-Christian beliefs, around 475 St. Genevieve purchased some land and built Saint-Denys de la Chapelle. In 636 on the orders of Dagobert I the relics of Saint Denis, the relics of St-Denis, which had been transferred to the parish church of the town in 1795, were brought back again to the abbey in 1819. Saint-Denis soon became the church of a growing monastic complex. In the 12th century the Abbot Suger rebuilt portions of the church using innovative structural. In doing so, he is said to have created the first truly Gothic building, the abbey church became a cathedral in 1966 and is the seat of the Bishop of Saint-Denis, Pascal Michel Ghislain Delannoy. Although known as the Basilica of St Denis, the cathedral has not been granted the title of Minor Basilica by the Vatican, Saint Denis, a patron saint of France, became the first bishop of Paris. A martyrium was erected on the site of his grave, which became a place of pilgrimage during the fifth and sixth centuries. Dagobert, the king of the Franks, refounded the church as the Abbey of Saint Denis, Dagobert also commissioned a new shrine to house the saints remains, which was created by his chief councillor, Eligius, a goldsmith by training. He composed a crest and a magnificent frontal and surrounded the throne of the altar with golden axes in a circle and he placed golden apples there, round and jeweled. He made a pulpit and a gate of silver and a roof for the throne of the altar on silver axes and he made a covering in the place before the tomb and fabricated an outside altar at the feet of the holy martyr. So much industry did he lavish there, at the kings request, the Basilica of St Denis ranks as an architectural landmark—as the first major structure of which a substantial part was designed and built in the Gothic style. Both stylistically and structurally, it heralded the change from Romanesque architecture to Gothic architecture, before the term Gothic came into common use, it was known as the French Style. As it now stands, the church is a cruciform building of basilica form. It has an aisle on the northern side formed of a row of chapels. The west front has three portals, a window and one tower, on the southern side. The eastern end, which is built over a crypt, is apsidal, surrounded by an ambulatory, the basilica retains stained glass of many periods, including exceptional modern glass, and a set of twelve misericords
11.
Francesco Primaticcio
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Francesco Primaticcio was an Italian Mannerist painter, architect and sculptor who spent most of his career in France. Together with Rosso Fiorentino he was one of the artists to work at the Chateau Fontainebleau spending much of his life there. Following Rossos death in 1540, Primaticcio took control of the direction at Fontainebleau, furnishing the painters and stuccators of his team, such as Nicolò dellAbate. Francis I trusted his eye and sent him back to Italy on buying trips in 1540, in Rome, part of Primaticcios commission was to take casts of the best Roman sculptures in the papal collections, some of which were cast in bronze to decorate the parterres at Fontainebleau. Primaticcio retained his position as painter to Francis heirs, Henry II. His masterpiece, the Salle dHercule at Fontainebleau, occupied him, Primaticcios crowded Mannerist compositions and his long-legged canon of beauty influenced French art for the rest of the century
12.
Catherine de' Medici
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Catherine de Medici, daughter of Lorenzo II de Medici and of Madeleine de La Tour dAuvergne, was an Italian noblewoman who was Queen of France from 1547 until 1559, as the wife of King Henry II. As the mother of three sons who became kings of France during her lifetime, she had extensive, if at times varying, for a time, she ruled France as its regent. In 1533, at the age of fourteen, Caterina married Henry, second son of King Francis I, under the gallicised version of her name, Catherine de Médicis, she was Queen consort of France as the wife of King Henry II of France from 1547 to 1559. Throughout his reign, Henry excluded Catherine from participating in state affairs and instead showered favours on his mistress, Diane de Poitiers. Henrys death thrust Catherine into the arena as mother of the frail fifteen-year-old King Francis II. When he died in 1560, she became regent on behalf of her ten-year-old son King Charles IX and was granted sweeping powers, after Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III. He dispensed with her only in the last months of her life. Catherines three sons reigned in an age of almost constant civil and religious war in France, the problems facing the monarchy were complex and daunting but Catherine was able to keep the monarchy and the state institutions functioning even at a minimum level. At first, Catherine compromised and made concessions to the rebelling Protestants, or Huguenots and she failed, however, to grasp the theological issues that drove their movement. Later she resorted, in frustration and anger, to hard-line policies against them, some historians have excused Catherine from blame for the worst decisions of the crown, though evidence for her ruthlessness can be found in her letters. In practice, her authority was limited by the effects of the civil wars. Without Catherine, it is unlikely that her sons would have remained in power, the years in which they reigned have been called the age of Catherine de Medici. According to Mark Strage, one of her biographers, Catherine was the most powerful woman in sixteenth-century Europe. Catherine was born on 13 April 1519 in Florence, Republic of Florence, the child of Lorenzo de Medici, Duke of Urbino, and his wife, Madeleine de la Tour dAuvergne. The young couple had married the year before at Amboise as part of the alliance between King Francis I of France and Lorenzos uncle Pope Leo X against the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. According to a chronicler, when Catherine was born, her parents were as pleased as if it had been a boy. King Francis wanted Catherine to be raised at the French court, Catherine was first cared for by her paternal grandmother, Alfonsina Orsini. After Alfonsinas death in 1520, Catherine joined her cousins and was raised by her aunt, the death of Pope Leo in 1521 interrupted Medici power briefly, until Cardinal Giulio de Medici was elected Pope Clement VII in 1523
13.
Philibert de l'Orme
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Philibert de lOrme was a French architect and writer, and one of the great masters of the French Renaissance. His surname is also written De lOrme, de LOrme, or Delorme and he was born in Lyon, the son of Jean de LOrme, a master mason. At an early age Philibert was sent to Italy to study and was employed there by Pope Paul III, under Charles IX, however, he returned to favour, and was employed to construct the Tuileries, in collaboration with Jean Bullant. Much of his work has disappeared, but his fame remains, an ardent humanist and student of the antique, he yet vindicated resolutely the French tradition in opposition to Italian tendencies, he was a man of independent mind and a vigorous originality. His work is seen at Chenonceau and other famous châteaux. He wrote two books on architecture, Nouvelles inventions pour bien bastir et à petits frais and Le premier tome de lArchitecture, catherine de Medicis building projects Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, influenced by Philibert Delorme F. Lemerle & Y. Un architecte dans lhistoire, Arts - Sciences - Techniques, Turnhout, Brepols Publishers,2016, ISBN 978-2-503-56560-6 Blunt and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. De LOrme, Philibert. Catholic Encyclopedia article Philibert de lOrme Hoffmann, Volker, LOrme, Philibert de in The Dictionary of Art,34 volumes, edited by Jane Turner. Philibert De lOrme, Architecte du roi, Philibert de LOrme, Figures de la pensées constructive
14.
Domenico del Barbieri
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Domenico del Barbieri was a Florentine artist of the Renaissance period, also referred to as Domenico del Barbiere, Domenico Fiorentino, and, in France, Dominique Florentin. He settled and married at Troyes in France between 1530 and 1533 and he joined the studio of Italian artists who worked with Primaticcio and Rosso Fiorentino at Fontainebleau and Meudon. He worked both on the stucco-work and frescoes, in 1541, he returned to Troyes, where he enjoyed success as a sculptor for churches. His style of sculpture was influenced, particularly in the heads and the drapery, by Andrea Sansovino and his Charity, at St. Pantaléon in Troyes, suggests that del Barbieri was aware of the contrapposto style of Michelangelo. His relief work for the tomb of Claude, Duke of Guise, reveals the influence of Rosso. Vasari noted del Barbieri in his writings, under the direction of Primaticcio, del Barbieri executed the base for the monument for the heart of Henry II of France, the figures for which were sculpted by Germain Pilon. Pilon may have influenced in the flowing drapery of the figures of the Three Graces by del Barbieris work. The monument was del Barbieris last known commission, art and Architecture in France, 1500–1700. New Haven, Yale University Press,1999 edition, ralph Nicholson Wornum, ed. Biographical catalogue of the principal Italian painters. Woodfall & Kinder, Angel Court, Skinner Street, London, Digitized by Googlebooks from Oxford University copy on Jun 27,2006
15.
Charites
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In Greek mythology, a Charis or Grace is one of three or more minor goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity, and fertility, together known as the Charites /ˈkærᵻtiːz/ or Graces. The usual list, from youngest to oldest is Aglaea, Euphrosyne, in Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae, the Graces. In some variants, Charis was one of the Graces and was not the form of their name. The Charites were usually considered the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, though they were said to be daughters of Dionysus and Aphrodite or of Helios. Other possible names of their mother by Zeus are Eurydome, Eurymedousa, Homer wrote that they were part of the retinue of Aphrodite. The Charites were also associated with the Greek underworld and the Eleusinian Mysteries, the river Cephissus near Delphi was sacred to them. An ancient vase painting attests the following names as five, Antheia, Eudaimonia, Paidia, Pandaisia, Pannychis - all referring to the Charites as patronesses of amusement and festivities. Moreover, they are aware that he established three as the number of the Graces, but they have no tradition of the names he gave them. The Lacedaemonians, however, say that the Graces are two, and that they were instituted by Lacedaemon, son of Taygete, who gave them the names of Cleta and Phaenna. These are appropriate names for Graces, as are given by the Athenians. It was from Eteocles of Orchomenus that we learned the custom of praying to three Graces, and Angelion and Tectaus, sons of Dionysus, who made the image of Apollo for the Delians, set three Graces in his hand. Again, at Athens, before the entrance to the Acropolis, pamphos was the first we know of to sing about the Graces, but his poetry contains no information either as to their number or about their names. Homer makes one the wife of Hephaestus, giving her the name of Charis and he also says that Sleep was a lover of Pasithea, and in the speech of Sleep there is this verse, Verily that he would give me one of the younger Graces. Hence some have suspected that Homer knew of older Graces as well, hesiod in the Theogony says that the three Graces are daughters of Zeus and Eurynome, giving them the names of Aglaia, Euphrosyne and lovely Thalia. The poem of Onomacritus agrees with this account, antimachus, while giving neither the number of the Graces nor their names, says that they are daughters of Aegle and the Sun. The elegiac poet Hermesianax disagrees with his predecessors in that he makes Persuasion also one of the Graces, nonnus gives their three names as Pasithea, Peitho and Aglaia. Sostratus gives the names as Pasithea, Cale and Euphrosyne, Pasithea for Aglaia and Cale for Thalia, on the representation of the Graces, Pausanias wrote, Who it was who first represented the Graces naked, whether in sculpture or in painting, I could not discover. During the earlier period, certainly, sculptors and painters alike represented them draped
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French art
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French art consists of the visual and plastic arts originating from the geographical area of France. Modern France was the centre for the European art of the Upper Paleolithic, then left many megalithic monuments. With Merovingian art the story of French styles as a distinct, in France there are some 5,000 megalithics monuments, mainly in Brittany, where there is the largest concentration of these monuments. In this area there is variety of these monuments that have been well preserved, like menhirs, dolmen, cromlechs. The Cairn of Gavrinis in southern Brittany is an example of megalithic art. The great broken menhir of Er-Grah, now in four pieces was more than 20 meters high originally, France has also numerous painted stones, polished stone axes, and inscribed menhirs from this period. The Grand-Pressigny area was known for its precious silex blades and they were exported during the Neolithic. In France from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age, one finds a variety of archaeological cultures, 4500–4000 BC, Beaker culture of c. 2800–1900 BC, Tumulus culture of c, 1600–1200 BC, Urnfield culture of c. 1300–800 BC, and, in a transition to the Iron Age, for more on Prehistoric sites in Western France, see Prehistory of Brittany. This art drew on native, classical and perhaps, the Mediterranean, the Celts of Gaul are known through numerous tombs and burial mounds found throughout France. The Celtic Vix grave in present-day Burgundy revealed the largest bronze crater of the Antiquity, the region of Gaul came under the rule of the Roman Empire from the first century BC to the fifth century AD. Southern France, and especially Provence and Languedoc, is known for its many intact Gallo-Roman monuments, lugdunum, modern Lyon, was at the time of the Roman Empire the largest city outside Italy and gave birth to two Roman Emperors. The city still boasts some Roman remains including a Theater, Merovingian art is the art and architecture of the Merovingian dynasty of the Franks, which lasted from the fifth century to the eighth century in present-day France and Germany. The advent of the Merovingian dynasty in Gaul during the century led to important changes in the arts. In architecture, there was no longer the desire to build robust, sculpture regressed to being little more than a simple technique for the ornamentation of sarcophagi, altars, and ecclesiastical furniture. The unification of the Frankish kingdom under Clovis I and his successors, the plans for them probably were copied from Roman basilicas. Unfortunately, these structures have not survived because of destruction by fire
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Jean Goujon
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Jean Goujon was a French Renaissance sculptor and architect. His early life is known, he was probably born in Normandy. In 1544-1547 he was occupied with works at the Château d’Ecouen for the connétable de Montmorency. He became sculptor to the king in 1547 and in the years was occupied at the Château of Anet. He was then imprisoned at Ecouen in 1555 His most famous works are the decorations made in collaboration with Lescot for the western extension of the Louvre. A fine representative of Mannerism in France, Goujons figures are elongated, sensual and fluid, his work reveals knowledge of Greek sculpture. He is also responsible for engravings for Jean Martins 1547 translation of Vitruvius and for work on the Château of Ecouen, in 1562, Goujon left France for religious reasons. The purity and gracefulness of his style were disseminated throughout France by engravings by artists of the School of Fontainebleau and had an influence in the decorative arts and his reputation was slightly eclipsed at the end of the century by more mannered tendencies, but was appreciated by French Classicism. Goujon was a Protestant, he escaped the French Wars of Religion by exiling himself in Italy in 1562 and he probably died in Bologna, where he is last documented in 1563 as a member of a group of Huguenot refugees. His most famous include, Fountain of the Innocents - Goujon sculpted the six nymphs that decorate this public fountain designed by Pierre Lescot. To Goujon is usually attributed the engravings of the French version of Francesco Colonnas Songe de Poliphile, the famous Diana with a Stag Louvre, designed for Diane de Poitiers for the Château dAnet, was long believed to be by Goujon or his workshop. It is now more likely to have been the work of Germain Pilon
18.
OCLC
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The Online Computer Library Center is a US-based nonprofit cooperative organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the worlds information and reducing information costs. It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded mainly by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services, the group first met on July 5,1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization. The group hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The goal of network and database was to bring libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the worlds information in order to best serve researchers and scholars. The first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26,1971 and this was the first occurrence of online cataloging by any library worldwide. Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data, between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States. As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside of Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with networks, organizations that provided training, support, by 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on OCLC Members Council, in early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center. OCLC provides bibliographic, abstract and full-text information to anyone, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest online public access catalog in the world. WorldCat has holding records from public and private libraries worldwide. org, in October 2005, the OCLC technical staff began a wiki project, WikiD, allowing readers to add commentary and structured-field information associated with any WorldCat record. The Online Computer Library Center acquired the trademark and copyrights associated with the Dewey Decimal Classification System when it bought Forest Press in 1988, a browser for books with their Dewey Decimal Classifications was available until July 2013, it was replaced by the Classify Service. S. The reference management service QuestionPoint provides libraries with tools to communicate with users and this around-the-clock reference service is provided by a cooperative of participating global libraries. OCLC has produced cards for members since 1971 with its shared online catalog. OCLC commercially sells software, e. g. CONTENTdm for managing digital collections, OCLC has been conducting research for the library community for more than 30 years. In accordance with its mission, OCLC makes its research outcomes known through various publications and these publications, including journal articles, reports, newsletters, and presentations, are available through the organizations website. The most recent publications are displayed first, and all archived resources, membership Reports – A number of significant reports on topics ranging from virtual reference in libraries to perceptions about library funding
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International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
20.
JSTOR
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JSTOR is a digital library founded in 1995. Originally containing digitized back issues of journals, it now also includes books and primary sources. It provides full-text searches of almost 2,000 journals, more than 8,000 institutions in more than 160 countries have access to JSTOR, most access is by subscription, but some older public domain content is freely available to anyone. William G. Bowen, president of Princeton University from 1972 to 1988, JSTOR originally was conceived as a solution to one of the problems faced by libraries, especially research and university libraries, due to the increasing number of academic journals in existence. Most libraries found it prohibitively expensive in terms of cost and space to maintain a collection of journals. By digitizing many journal titles, JSTOR allowed libraries to outsource the storage of journals with the confidence that they would remain available long-term, online access and full-text search ability improved access dramatically. Bowen initially considered using CD-ROMs for distribution, JSTOR was initiated in 1995 at seven different library sites, and originally encompassed ten economics and history journals. JSTOR access improved based on feedback from its sites. Special software was put in place to make pictures and graphs clear, with the success of this limited project, Bowen and Kevin Guthrie, then-president of JSTOR, wanted to expand the number of participating journals. They met with representatives of the Royal Society of London and an agreement was made to digitize the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society dating from its beginning in 1665, the work of adding these volumes to JSTOR was completed by December 2000. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded JSTOR initially, until January 2009 JSTOR operated as an independent, self-sustaining nonprofit organization with offices in New York City and in Ann Arbor, Michigan. JSTOR content is provided by more than 900 publishers, the database contains more than 1,900 journal titles, in more than 50 disciplines. Each object is identified by an integer value, starting at 1. In addition to the site, the JSTOR labs group operates an open service that allows access to the contents of the archives for the purposes of corpus analysis at its Data for Research service. This site offers a facility with graphical indication of the article coverage. Users may create focused sets of articles and then request a dataset containing word and n-gram frequencies and they are notified when the dataset is ready and may download it in either XML or CSV formats. The service does not offer full-text, although academics may request that from JSTOR, JSTOR Plant Science is available in addition to the main site. The materials on JSTOR Plant Science are contributed through the Global Plants Initiative and are only to JSTOR
21.
Oxford Art Online
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A new edition was published in 2003 by Oxford University Press. Written by 6,700 experts from around the world, its 32, 600-pages cover over 45,000 topics about art, artists, art critics, art collectors, or anything else connected to the world of art. According to The New York Times Book Review it is the most ambitious art-publishing venture of the late 20th century, almost half the content covers non-Western subjects, and contributors hail from 120 countries. Topics range from Julia Margaret Cameron to Shoji Hamada, Korea to Timbuktu, the Enlightenment to Marxism, entries include bibliographies and a vast number of images. The dictionary is available in a standard hardcover edition, though the leather-bound version appears to be out of print. The Grove Dictionary of Art is published by Oxford University Press, the online version, which is updated three times a year, is available by subscription and includes some extra content. In the UK, many libraries offer it free to their online users using their library membership number. The Grove Dictionary of Art was first offered online through the Grove Art Online web site in 1998. The site was expanded and renamed as Oxford Art Online, including works, The Oxford Companion to Western Art, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. In 2011, the Benezit Dictionary of Artists was added to the database, the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians References Sources Jane Turner
22.
Integrated Authority File
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The Integrated Authority File or GND is an international authority file for the organisation of personal names, subject headings and corporate bodies from catalogues. It is used mainly for documentation in libraries and increasingly also by archives, the GND is managed by the German National Library in cooperation with various regional library networks in German-speaking Europe and other partners. The GND falls under the Creative Commons Zero license, the GND specification provides a hierarchy of high-level entities and sub-classes, useful in library classification, and an approach to unambiguous identification of single elements. It also comprises an ontology intended for knowledge representation in the semantic web, available in the RDF format
23.
Netherlands Institute for Art History
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The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in documentation, archives, and books on Western art from the late Middle Ages until modern times, all of this is open to the public, and much of it has been digitized and is available on their website. The main goal of the bureau is to collect, categorize, via the available databases, the visitor can gain insight into archival evidence on the lives of many artists of past centuries. The library owns approximately 450,000 titles, of which ca.150,000 are auction catalogs, there are ca.3,000 magazines, of which 600 are currently running subscriptions. Though most of the text is in Dutch, the record format includes a link to library entries and images of known works. The RKD also manages the Dutch version of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus, the original version is an initiative of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, California. Their bequest formed the basis for both the art collection and the library, which is now housed in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Though not all of the holdings have been digitised, much of its metadata is accessible online. The website itself is available in both a Dutch and an English user interface, in the artist database RKDartists, each artist is assigned a record number. To reference an artist page directly, use the code listed at the bottom of the record, usually of the form, https, for example, the artist record number for Salvador Dalí is 19752, so his RKD artist page can be referenced. In the images database RKDimages, each artwork is assigned a record number, to reference an artwork page directly, use the code listed at the bottom of the record, usually of the form, https, //rkd. nl/en/explore/images/ followed by the artworks record number. For example, the record number for The Night Watch is 3063. The Art and Architecture Thesaurus also assigns a record for each term, rather, they are used in the databases and the databases can be searched for terms. For example, the painting called The Night Watch is a militia painting, the thesaurus is a set of general terms, but the RKD also contains a database for an alternate form of describing artworks, that today is mostly filled with biblical references. To see all images that depict Miriams dance, the associated iconclass code 71E1232 can be used as a search term. Official website Direct link to the databases The Dutch version of the Art and Architecture Thesaurus
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Virtual International Authority File
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The Virtual International Authority File is an international authority file. It is a joint project of national libraries and operated by the Online Computer Library Center. The project was initiated by the US Library of Congress, the German National Library, the National Library of France joined the project on October 5,2007. The project transitions to a service of the OCLC on April 4,2012, the aim is to link the national authority files to a single virtual authority file. In this file, identical records from the different data sets are linked together, a VIAF record receives a standard data number, contains the primary see and see also records from the original records, and refers to the original authority records. The data are available online and are available for research and data exchange. Reciprocal updating uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting protocol, the file numbers are also being added to Wikipedia biographical articles and are incorporated into Wikidata. VIAFs clustering algorithm is run every month, as more data are added from participating libraries, clusters of authority records may coalesce or split, leading to some fluctuation in the VIAF identifier of certain authority records
