By Augustus J. C. Hare


[Footnote: From "Days Near Paris."]



The golden age of Fontainebleau came with the Renaissance and Francis I.,
who wished to make Fontainebleau the most glorious palace in the world.
"The Escurial!" says Brantome, "what of that? See how long it was of
building? Good workmen like to be quick finished. With our king it was
otherwise. Take Fontainebleau and Chambord. When they were projected, when
once the plumb-line, and the compass, and the square, and the hammer were
on the spot, then in a few years we saw the Court in residence there."

Il Rosso was first (1531) employed to carry out the ideas of Francois I.
as to painting, and then Sebastian Serlio was summoned from Bologna in
1541 to fill the place of "surintendant des bastiments et architecte de
Fontainebleau." Il Rosso-Giovambattista had been a Florentine pupil of
Michelangelo, but refused to follow any master, having, as Vasari says, "a
certain inkling of his own." Francois I. was delighted with him at first,
and made him head of all the Italian colony at Fontainebleau, where he was
known as "Maitre Roux." But in two years the king was longing to patronize
some other genius, and implored Giulio Romano, then engaged on the Palazzo
del Te at Mantua, to come to him. The great master refused to come
himself, but in his place sent the Bolognese Primaticcio, who became known
in France as Le Primatice.

The new-comer excited the furious jealousy of Il Rosso, whom he supplanted
in favor and popularity, and who, after growing daily more morose, took