French Renaissance

French Renaissance buildings combine Italian classical ornament with French medieval forms. Châteaux keep steep slate roofs, round corner towers and tall chimneys, but their walls are divided by pilasters (flat columns attached to the wall) and horizontal moldings at each floor, with carved medallions and friezes. Dormer windows set into the roof, called lucarnes, have elaborate carved frames, and some buildings have large open spiral staircases. After about 1540, facades use the classical column types more strictly, stacked one above another.

The Château de Chambord (1519-1547), built for Francis I, has 282 fireplaces, 84 staircases and a central double-spiral staircase whose two flights never meet, possibly designed by Leonardo da Vinci. The Château d'Azay-le-Rideau (1518-1527) stands on an island in the Indre River. In Paris, Pierre Lescot's wing of the Louvre (1546-1553), with sculpture by Jean Goujon, is the main example of the later, more classical phase.

French kings brought the style back from their wars in Italy. After Charles VIII's campaign of 1494-1495, he brought 22 Italian craftsmen to work on the Château d'Amboise. Under Francis I (reigned 1515-1547), Italian designers and French masons built the great Loire Valley châteaux, including the Francis I wing at Blois, Chambord and Azay-le-Rideau, and rebuilt Fontainebleau. Leonardo da Vinci spent his last years near Amboise as Francis I's guest and died there in 1519.

From about 1540, French architects including Philibert de l'Orme, Pierre Lescot and Jean Bullant took over from the Italian craftsmen and designed more original work using the classical orders. Lescot's Louvre wing was begun in 1546. Churches mostly kept the Flamboyant Gothic style, with classical details only on some doorways. Under Henri IV (reigned 1589-1610), builders in Paris used brick with stone trim, as in the Place des Vosges, begun in 1605, a step toward the French Baroque of the 17th century.