BOOKS RECOMMENDED: As before, Fergusson, Müntz, Palustre. Also Berty, _La Renaissance monumentale en France_. Château, _Histoire et caractères de l’architecture en France_. Daly, _Motifs historiques d’architecture et de sculpture_. De Laborde, _La Renaissance des arts à la cour de France_. Du Cerceau, _Les plus excellents bastiments de France_. Lübke, _Geschichte der Renaissance in Frankreich_. Mathews, _The Renaissance under the Valois Kings_. Palustre, _La Renaissance en France_. Pattison, _The Renaissance of the Fine Arts in France_. Rouyer et Darcel, _L’Art architectural en France_. Sauvageot, _Choix de palais, châteaux, hôtels, et maisons de France_. +ORIGIN AND CHARACTER.+ The vitality and richness of the Gothic style in France, even in its decline in the fifteenth century, long stood in the way of any general introduction of classic forms. When the Renaissance appeared, it came as a foreign importation, introduced from Italy by the king and the nobility. It underwent a protracted transitional phase, during which the national Gothic forms and traditions were picturesquely mingled with those of the Renaissance. The campaigns of Charles VIII. (1489), Louis XII. (1499), and Francis I. (1515), in vindication of their claims to the thrones of Naples and Milan, brought these monarchs and their nobles into contact with the splendid material and artistic civilization of Italy, then in the full tide of the maturing Renaissance. They returned to France, filled with the ambition to rival the splendid palaces and gardens of Italy, taking with them Italian artists to teach their arts to the French. But while these Italians successfully introduced many classic elements and details into French architecture, they wholly failed to dominate the French master-masons and _tailleurs de pierre_ in matters of planning and general composition. The early Renaissance architecture of France is consequently wholly unlike the Italian, from which it derived only minor details and a certain largeness and breadth of spirit. +PERIODS.+ The French Renaissance and its sequent developments may be broadly divided into three periods, with subdivisions coinciding more or less closely with various reigns, as follows: I. THE VALOIS PERIOD, or Renaissance proper, 1483-1589, subdivided into: _a._ THE TRANSITION, comprising the reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. (1483-1515), and the early years of that of Francis I.; characterized by a picturesque mixture of classic details with Gothic conceptions. _b._ THE STYLE OF FRANCIS I., or Early Renaissance, from about 1520 to that king’s death in 1547; distinguished by a remarkable variety and grace of composition and beauty of detail. _c._ THE ADVANCED RENAISSANCE, comprising the reigns of Henry II. (1547), Francis II. (1559), Charles IX. (1560), and Henry III. (1574-89); marked by the gradual adoption of the classic orders and a decline in the delicacy and richness of the ornament.