While Cellini was in France, Primaticcio had been sent to Italy to collect art treasures on behalf of the king. The painter returned with the moulds of some of the most celebrated statues of antiquity. Bronze castings were made from these at the foundry at Fontainebleau and the statues were finally set up in the long gallery at Fontainebleau ready for the king’s inspection. They included the Vatican “Ariadne,” the “Apollo Belvedere,” the “Laocoon,” the “Aphrodite of Cnidus” and the “Hercules Commodus.” Cellini had certainly some ground for complaint when he found his silver statue of Jove placed in such a company, and it is not surprising that he attributed the chance to the envy of his rival, the painter. Readers of the “Autobiography” will remember the wealth of artistic detail intended to “add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative” with which Cellini narrates how the malice of Francis’ mistress, Mme. d’Estampe, was used against him. The visit of Francis to the gallery was delayed until evening in the hope that Cellini’s silver statue would appear mean among the ancient masterpieces with which it was to be shown. Of course the wayward Florentine was fully equal to the emergency. He placed a great torch in the hand of Jove and ordered his assistant to avoid lighting it until the king had passed the rest of the statues and was inspecting the silver one. The flood of light produced the effect which Cellini had anticipated. It was the modern statue, not the old-time bronzes which appeared the more effective. The experience of Cellini at the Court of Francis I. proves that sculpture in France had now a body of influential and appreciative patrons—the first essential of a strong art movement. As we have seen, these patrons had very solid reasons for the interest they extended to the artists they employed. Francis’ marked preference for painting and sculpture of the Italian manner was not, however, without drawbacks. By selecting Rosso and Primaticcio to supervise the decoration of the palace at Fontainebleau, Francis practically endowed a foreign style. No doubt his judgment was sound. The native sculptors and painters had neither the experience nor the skill to carry out a scheme so foreign to anything upon which they had worked before.